RTO in many cases is the height of hubris.
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Anonymous
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I just cannot imagine another situation where I would ask people to spend 10-20h per week, and hundreds of dollars, so they can physically sit in a different location for absolutely no reason other than that I can force them to be in the same location as myself because 'they have a choice to work here or not'. I would be so embarrassed and ashamed to enact that policy if it was not 100% necessary. RTO is the Bill Lumbergh from Office Space of policies.
It would be one thing if someone is in the medical profession or needs to physically interact with someone else. But to take 10-20h away from other human beings, away from their family and their health and their rest, given we have one life to live, when we KNOW it's not necessary, is to me downright cruel and just the height of hubris and arrogance. I cannot imagine wanting my employees lives to be worse, instead of better, if better was an option. We're all going to die. Sure we have to work, but do you really need me to sit on a train for hours each week so I can do zoom calls from a specific room you designate, when we've proven that we are now a digital society and do not need to do this? It's just so amazingly tone deaf and selfish. |
Anonymous
| I know at my place a lot of the white males in management are unhappy the younger women aren't available to them with WFH and that is a major factor in the RTO decision. Obviously they are in leadership roles so there's no one to challenge their decision. |
Anonymous
| Yup. Its just harder to manage remote peoole. You have to actively set up projects and metrics and deliverables instead of assuming everyone is at the office working. I think letting everyone who can (and wants to) work remote, should. And then have in person team meets once a quarter or once a month to build team cohesion etc. |
Anonymous
| I agree with your general point that for many jobs there's no reason to go in, but 10-20 hours/week is a crazy overestimate of most people's commutes. 20 hours is 2 hours each way/5 days per week. Very few people are doing that. |
Anonymous
OP I am NYC and we for sure are. 1h commute in NYC is short. |
Anonymous
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It's because these orgs can't get out of their expensive 5-10 year leases. Often these orgs have spent a lot of $$$$ building out the physical office. Once these leases expire, there will be a big pressure to reduce office footprint and internalize the cost savings. WFH will be expected because of reduced office footprint. If a company owns its office space, then it needs to somehow justify that legacy investment to shareholders and it doesn't want to take a writedown on the value of the real estate (which will flow through to quarterly earnings).
Basically, many are expecting that orgs/companies demanding RTO right now will liberalize WFH once the current leases expire in the latter part of this decade. Really good article about this with the head of remote work at Atlassian: https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/annie-dean-atlassian-remote-work-18494472.php |
Anonymous
It’s not just the commute. It’s the additional time getting ready, packing lunches, etc. |
Anonymous
This! WFH is less expensive for companies and there’s no way the cost savings isn’t eventually pursued. |
Anonymous
| Lesson from history: the dinosaurs never evolved. |
Anonymous
| Sorry you received notice that you have to return to work. |
Anonymous
It’s not return to work. It’s a notice that instead of using your laptop and holding Teams meetings in office A, you must spend hours a week driving/taking a train so that you can use your laptop and home Teams meetings in office B. |
Anonymous
So true and that the reality for a large percentage of office workers in NYC. I did that commute from my dad’s house in the suburbs for a 6-month contract and it nearly killed me. My first week there was a bad evening rainstorm and the bus ride home was three hours instead of the usual 1 1/2 hrs. It blew my mind that people did that commute every day for decades. No wonder people want to WFH. |
Anonymous
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What I think is absolute hubris is thinking that working from home has no impact on team engagement, cohesion, creative problem solving, company culture, and general communication. I am in No Way championing RTO to prepandemic norms, but I think there is significant value for being in person once a week. With natural fluctuations for people / kids being sick, holidays, school breaks, dentist appointments, etc. I feel like this averages out to employees coming in 3 days a month. If you truly think you are an independent contributor and that you gain nothing from going to the office in person occasionally, I would argue you don’t understand your role in your organization or you are shortchanging your org in the value you could contribute and short changing yourself in terms of career development and refining your soft skills.
Two stories to make my case: I manage several teams in the procurement department of a large IT company. We worked remotely pre-pandemic, but came together once a month for required training. That day counted towards the recommended 1 day per week. As a team lead I was very lenient with that “day” and my team probably averaged 2.5 days per month with some people coming in at 10am or leaving at 3pm for traffic or kid related pick up / drop off. When the pandemic started we didn’t do any extra video calls or engagement activities. We thought “we know how to be remote!” Around 6 months I noticed we were just less connected as a team - despite taking every day. Around a year, little cracks started to show because people didn’t know about special projects or certain initiatives that they would have wanted to participate in. Even though these things are announced in meetings, I think people were missing out on the coffee maker / lunch time chats to say “let’s work on that together”. In Year 2 people started leaving. I had to start arrranging coverage when previously team members naturally stepped up to cover each other, knowing it would be reciprocated. Without a personal connection, it was just a job no different than the same function at another company. It has been a long hard fight to build a team back to a fraction of the connection and camaraderie we had pre-pandemic. Second example - I once worked in Chicago and had a client in Vancouver BC back when FaceTime/video calls didn’t exist yet. We worked on the project for months before meeting in person. We were a consulting company delivering services to an internal department and the travel expense was considered extraneous and unnecessary. At a mid-point we went out to the client for 3 days. Just 3 days over 6 months. Somehow taking in person and also sharing meals with the team and getting to know them was SO impactful. It felt like when we got back to Chicago that all of our meetings went so much more smoothly, we communicated more efficiently and solved problems more collaboratively. TL;DR - A small amount of face time is priceless. It doesn’t take much to establish and maintain that connection, but it’s short sighted to think in person time is useless. |
Anonymous
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GM CEO just told people get back to work.
Bottom line way back in 2007 my company started remote. Any employee with children was required to show proof of child care or a nanny, my facilities dept. would visit home to set up office and ensure they had an appropriate place to work at home and had to be online business hours and available. Most women were looking for free child care or run errands or go bus stop. My co worker did get approval. He had a home office identical to work, one kid in after school program and they rocked it 830 - 530 pm every day. Most washed out . |
Anonymous
| So find another job. According to DCUM there are tons of high-paying remote jobs where you can work in your pajamas and never interact with another human. So go get one. (And then complain to your therapist about how anxious and isolated you feel.) |