WFH is dead and buried. Right to WFH bill is pointless

I agree meeting people in person is more effective in building up relationships with people you work with and overall is better for people's mental health. However their is no need to be in an office 5 days a week to allow people to build up relationships with their colleagues. This can easily be achieve through a Hybrid solution e.g 3 day in office, 2 at home. This also takes pressure off people with young families and greater work life balance.

I love the argument he office is better for taking to people in person. Except they then complain about people talking to each other. Can't build a relationship without talking to each other.

Can't have it both ways.

The problem for companies is that the outliers force companies into getting everyone back into the office. You lock the lazy worker to a desk there is a better chance of them working that if they are at home where they are watching Netflixs or whatever. The companies forcing RTO really need to look at their HR departments and ask the question "How can we motivate these people to work from anywhere?" It is really a question of motivation. Companies will spin the collaboration & culture piece all they want but it won't solve the lazy worker coasting along. How can they motivate these people? Promotion opportunities probably won't work as these workers are happy to tip along on current salary but maybe fear of being cut may motivate these people allied with proper metrics to review their productivity.

You don't need to fire everyone but you do need to address the outliers and tackle the root cause. Managers may not like having the difficult conversations with the poor performers but why punish everyone for the sake of a few. It's a bit like the teacher giving out to the whole class for being bold rather that tackling the trouble maker that is causing all the trouble.

Former Former Former said

"Most people in the office don't spend 20 minutes talking about the Apprentice, just like most WFHers don't watch Netflix during the day. Trying to make coherent arguments based on outliers is pointless"

Trouble with this argument is that you don't know "most people" any more than I do. Anyone I know, myself included, pisses about when working from home. My worst sin is pottering about on boards, but others I know are doing jigsaws, grocery shopping or just watching the soaps. Yes work gets done, but not efficiently

Re: long commutes and after work childcare arrangements, not only does the RTO brigade not care about any of that but I'm convinced that that some ENJOY seeing others struggle. Plenty of sadists, psychopaths, narcissists and deeply insecure people in workplaces. Seeing other people having to do a pointless commute is lifefuel for those in power that live 5 minutes from the office.

They don't want happy employees because if an employee is happy, they must be "getting away with something". Senior people want to look out the window of their office and smugly see their BMW parked in its designated spot - while the plebs who've just driven 80 km scramble to get their Corollas and Golfs parked before the place fills up. Also, if you are in a senior role, you're likely an office politician and office politics require people in the office. No point having a brass nameplate on your office door if none of the plebs can see it.

I think companies see the coffee breaks in the office where you are chatting to colleagues i.e building up relationships, work friendships as a benefit to the company where if you are taking a break while a home doing a school run or some house tasks as no benefit to the company. Generally company morale events are outside of office hours where you are spending time building relationships, friendship etc similar to time spend on coffee breaks in the office. Of course there is no need to be doing this 5 days a week which is why Hybrid solutions work best.

From the article:

Ms Douglas had given an address in Emyvale, Co Monaghan, in her complaint form and said she had never worked for the company at its main office in Little Island, Co Cork, in the years since she joined in October 2018. She said her original job site was Dr Steevens’ Hospital in Dublin before her role was made entirely remote during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Very unfair on this employee and at a minimum she should have been offered redundancy from the outset. It says her originally place of work was in Dublin prior to Covid. It does highlight that there is no real protection for workers with regard to remote working. Jobs are being advertised as Hybrid but company policies can change with short notice and full RTO can be enforced. e.g I leave my current job to go to a company offering hybrid and they change their policy in a few months. Unless it is specially called out in a contract the worker has no protection.