Property companies 'research' says everyone wants to return to office

Im completely with you on that but unfortunately the WRC wont agree with us.

Not sure about that theory... Trains are overcrowded in the mornings

These people have managers and these managers need a kick up the h*le. If an employee has a crap manager thats not the employees fault. I manage a team of 8 and its a mix of wfh, office and hybrid and they all do the same amount of work. You don't need to be able to see people in order to know if they are doing their job or not.

Some managers have jobs for life too and are totally unsackable: why should they make life difficult for themselves and become unpopular if Mary spends a few hours each working day looking after toddlers ( what choice has she, she has no family support and cannot afford childcare) or Paddy checks in on boards.ie every half an hour or Roisin is an alcoholic gambler ( well, she just likes a glass of wine and to check in on paddypower.ie now and again).? Why should the manager kill himself when he likes the odd bit of Netflix now and again either?

That's the reality sometimes, not always.

There’s peaks and troughs but it was that way pre Covid too so it’s not a WFH issue per se- that’s more an overall staffing issue and skills issue. Unless you’re in a role that measures your daily output of widgets produced, I think it’s likely you’ll have some spare time.

Which probably points towards a much more robust monitoring system of daily or at least weekly activity, is required, just to document what value you’re bringing .

And that would actually support people who want to continue WFH- and highlight the under performers more.

It goes some way to explain it- people are living further away from main cities due to house price rises- theres been massive building work in some commuter towns that I know of so certainly, demand for public transport is on the rise.
But there’s also a massive amount of traffic heading towards Dublin every day- much more than there was pre covid- I don’t work in the office Mondays and Fridays so I’m not sure what the story is on those days but certainly Tuesday-Thursday traffic has never been worse than right now

Appreciate that a lot of employers are locked into leases, but there a large cohort of companies since covid that

1. had a lease renewal or
2. were out of space for expansion

For example we only had 30 employees in 2025, and have approx 80 in Ireland now.

We've closed our small Limerick office and took Galway down to a couple rented desks.

Dublin and Cork offices are busy but between them have desk space for say 40 at full capacity.

Couple of large meeting rooms if you need to bring in a group of 25 and sit them down for updates etc.

This narrative that all employers want everyone back is going to change as more and more smaller companies use WFH and blended to cut costs.

There's a tonne of research. We've had 5 yrs of global data on it. Still getting these fake narratives being posted on it.

But that tonne of research is not producing any definitive answers about whether people are more productive remotely or in the office.

We are still having the debate right here and now on this thread.

That's because there are a million different variables to consider.

it depends on so many different things, age, stage of career, office environment, home environment etc etc.

In general I agree you can't have something working 100% 24/7 You'll burn it out.

This is why metrics are useful. Because you get one person getting a work unit done in half the time of the next person. Not everyone has the efficiency. Not all work units are the same difficulty.

But anyone saying just being in the office is more efficient. Just isn't keeping or monitoring metrics. Because location is mostly irrelevant to many jobs. Not all.

No danger of Mary, Paddy, Roisin or Tom getting sacked. They work in the public service. In case you think I am exaggerating, in Ireland it is estimated 1 in 30 people, or 130,000 people have a gambling problem. The number of people with a drink problem is much higher, I have seen a figure of 578,000 quoted. More people have to look after toddlers at home. Working from home suits any people from these groups better for obvious reasons. Not everyone working from home looks after toddlers at the same time or are hiding a problem, but we can be sure some are, and that is bound to affect productivity and be harder to detect / manage.

"Mary spends a few hours each working day looking after toddlers ( what choice has she, she has no family support and cannot afford childcare) or Paddy checks in on boards.ie every half an hour or Roisin is an alcoholic gambler ( well, she just likes a glass of wine and to check in on paddypower.ie now and again).? Why should the manager kill himself when he likes the odd bit of Netflix now and again either?"

I wouldn't do it. But I understand why people have to.

Bought in 2022, so during the pandemic.

I wasn't necessarily thinking of that, but, long story short, I got tired of renting and the lack of security involved with it. So I made it a goal to buy.

The original plan was that I'd get driving but that didn't come to pass for various reasons. I know it's not ideal, and if WFH were to be dropped, I'd probably have to either go part-time or change jobs entirely. Things just didn't go as planned really.