Reply to Fidelity Ends Hybrid Work, Requires US Staff in Office Five Days a Week

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They’ll soon realize it’s a mistake. 5 days a week isn’t sustainable for most families today, unless you’re making gobs of money and can outsource everything your family needs.  People will just call out and be less available.  I’ve seen it in real time. As a manager who is short staffed, I prefer a hybrid (3 days in office) approach.[/quote]

I agree that it's shortsighted and not the best policy.  That said, what makes full time in the office unsustainable in 2026 that wasn't a factor in 1999, or January 2020?  What changed?  [/quote]

Competition with employers that offer hybrid or total remote work options.[/quote]

Nice try, but the PP said it wasn't sustainable for *the employees/families,* not the employers.

It seems as though everyone's expectations have changed, which is understandable . . . but that doesn't make full time in the office unsustainable.  [/quote]

Let me spell it out for you.  Wages have stagnated. Costs have risen. People (mainly women) are dropping out of the workforce and seeing their quality of life, and life expectancy, decline.  Telework is just one way to recoup some time, which equals money.  10-12 hours a week of my unpaid labor goes into commuting, not my household.[/quote]

Sigh.  I don't dispute any of that.  But again, that *all* was taking place in 2019, and 2018.  Now, all of a sudden, it's "unsustainable?"

What I'm really taking issue with is the word choice.  [b]People have been going to work 5 days a week for decades, and centuries.  [/b]Now that there  is an alternative, that's becoming less desirable, and companies likely will pay a price for being rigid.  But that's not unsustainable.  [/quote]

If we're being pedantic (as you are), the bolded is egregiously untrue. The modern office workplace is a historical blip, the 5-day work week was hard-won within living memory, and expectations of work are always evolving.

But that's not relevant to people who are living [i]now[/i] and neither is your hyperfocus on what "unsustainable" means to different people. Would it make you happy if PP said "ok I could physically do it, but it would cost so much in time and money and lost happiness that I won't do it"? Unnecessary, when "unsustainable" works fine for our purposes here.[/quote]

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