Biden wants RTO
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Anonymous
Maybe in your world. My spouse checks their email when they wake up at 6, take the kids to school by 7:30 and start work and go non-stop till 4/5-8, still checking email before bed. Breaks for walking the dog and and sometimes picking up a kid from school but that's 10 minutes. Plus, work on weekends. If they go into the office, with commute, they do 8 hours, sometimes 9. Commute is 90 minutes each way. So, the lost productivity is because of the commute (though they often are on calls on the commute too). |
Anonymous
+1. There's plenty of poor managers out there, one reason why I left my last position. I was lower level with a handful of others in the same position. We had access to 6 managers. The one manager I most appreciated took the time to authentically check in every so often- just took a few seconds usually (hey, how are you doing? Is everything going ok?), was very approachable at other times. When things needed to be changed, gave us the freedom to work out a solution with the others affected. Unfortunately that one left. The worst managers (several described here, not all describe one person) acted like we were invisible, were inauthentic, talked down to us, hid in their office all day, gave preferential assignments to buddies, had poor communication- we weren't kept in the big picture loop unless it directly related to our position and even then sometimes we were still kept out of the loop!, and unilaterally made changes without asking for our input that didn't really make sense with the finite details they weren't aware of because they never checked in with us. The rest were somewhere in between. Overall, it fed a vibe of lack of respect, like we weren't valued. I'm not asking for a participation trophy, but just to be respected as a person and contributor to the team. Even though I loved the work itself, the dysfunctional management ruined it for me. https://hbr.org/2018/07/do-your-employees-feel-respected |
Anonymous
Yes. In my experience, those in government who can’t “do” - manage. And by manage, they just watch what everyone else is doing and sign time cards. Excuse me if the people doing the damn work want to participate in a discussion about how it gets done. Yes, I am screaming into the void. No, I don’t mind being in the office a couple of days a week—if you make it worth my time!!! Schedule a team meeting, add some things to the day with things you’d like to accomplish as a team, don’t just use it as an opportunity to count heads and track hours. Manager my ass. |
Anonymous
| In an ideal world, I would work in the office 2 days per week, on the same day as other team members. However, our physical space does not permit that. I don't see the point of coming in in shifts to work with others on teams. We need a new space with 8 offices (one for each team member) if we are going to RTO more often. We cannot sit in cubes or in the open due to the confidential nature of some of our work. |
Anonymous
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You all are going back and forth about RTO/TW benefits for the employee/company that don’t matter. This is why the Fed will push RTO. This is what matters. The rest is a smoke screen.
https://www.alxnow.com/2023/08/31/notes-patent-and-trademark-office-downsizing-puts-alexandrias-largest-landlord-in-hot-water/ |
Anonymous
Relatively new manager here - thank you, PP, this is really helpful (and I guess thank you on behalf of my team, too). |
Anonymous
I’m shocked that in 2023 your direct reports feel more comfortable physically going into your office/cube to ask a question versus asking you in a chat. Most younger people are very accustomed to electronic communications. What you describe is highly unusual and it’s also incredibly inefficient. |
Anonymous
Thanks for your detailed schedule, but putting your kids in before care and / or aftercare and tag teaming the drop offs and pick ups with your husband does not mean other people are raising your children. It’s what we did before COVID and we can do it again. |
Anonymous
Eh, depends on how young. Drafting emails makes my college age kids nervous. I think while they are very used to electronic communications, it’s in an informal setting. First learning to communicate in a formal setting can be daunting and writing requests is always harder. My kids vastly prefer office hours. Maybe it will be different after a few years in the office. But they also hate the idea of TW generally as a result of virtual schooling. |
Anonymous
Okay sure. But if you have a decent commute and work in an office 5x a week then you’re spending very very little time with your children. Especially if they are young. |
Anonymous
Very strange! Sounds like you’re not hiring quality people if they are nervous drafting emails. This doesn’t sound like it has much to do with WFH. |
Anonymous
This isn’t how any decent employee works. Someone like this wouldn’t last long in my department. |
Anonymous
What did you do pre-pandemic? Also how do you manage 2-3 for lunch? That’s prime meeting time in my office. It doesn’t sound like you are a fed. |
Anonymous
PP you response is indicative of why sometimes in person communications are better. Time for you to RTO. |
Anonymous
Older manager here with teenage kids. All of the above is what I see at work and at home. This whole thing about younger people liking technology and utilizing collaboration tools is not what I have experienced either. And, it is also not as if every new person we bring on, is young. I’ve hired people from their twenties through fifties. |