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

We have collaboration tools these days. Teams. Zoom. Webex. Slack.

I can transfer knowledge much better, or receive it so much easier, by screen sharing and watching - even recording!

That only works if the new hire is as clued into all those tools as the established guy. Also there could be a power play going on given that the new guy might be intimidated by the established guy and afraid to say he doesn't understand what is being said. No wonder all the new hires during covid picked up very little knowledge.

I don't think there is any issue with doing training over zoom or teams but the general social aspect of office is what young people miss out on if fully remote. Building connections with colleagues is important. You never really get to know people working remotely. Spending 8 hours a day in a box room is not healthy but commuting 5 days is equally not health either which is why there needs to be a balance.

surely the massive efficiency and productivity gains that people who favour fully remote working claim would more than offset the lease costs ?

It's almost as if CEOs don't know how to run their companies but boards posters have it all worked out…

You are way over estimating the knowledge transfer in previous generations.

Training was haphazard, questions were responded with “look at what was done last time\last year” and no matter how little training you received, if you did something wrong, you got a bollicking.

The older generations learn’t one valuable lesson, think on your feet.

So you are blaming the young people now for not picking up skills from the older people and that the reason older people picked up skills was because they were simply better, that's nonsense.

Older people picked up the skills easier because they were immersed in the work every day in the workplace. If the guy that was training you was useless or ignorant you could find out from someone else in the workplace that was much better. You built up informal connections that got you around problems. How do you do that with an older guy sitting at home remotely who is useless at training but he is you assigned trainer. That becomes a roadblock, you don't know anyone else in the workplace to work around it. Also that older guy has already built up all the connections in the workplace from before WFH was mandated. Therefore even if he is useless he is still in a much more powerful position than the new hire. When everyone is in the workplace the new hire will build up his own contacts and base in the workplace. That is the reality of human interactions which WFH cannot replicate

Well, either it is true, or it's true for them or its not, the real reason might not sound as reasonable and employer foucsed, blended working or complete wfh has got them out of the trap of putting a child in a creche for the 10 or 12-hour days or allowed them to buy in a cheaper area of Ireland and retain a job in Dublin or Cork or move to some remote part of Ireland for a hobby or a relatioship.

Are you trying to make a point here ? It's not clear.

And hard man routine ? Are you ok?

Money can be saved by going or offering fully remote - which is why certain companies do it. In our example we didn't see any drop in efficiency when the decreased sick days were factored in (that was across thousands in a wide range of professions, so not a small sample size). Layer a higher amount of good will on top of that (employees more likely to perform extra work and offer flexibility such as weekend work)

Any CEO is going to receive significant pressure from underlying management for office/onsite presence for a variety of reasons, not all related to business - I've directly witnessed this multiple times. Many leadership figures I know simply enjoy being in the office - which can be reason enough

Great exodus from the office when there a taxi protest or when Zelensky visit shuts down traffic.