Companies knew the mandated return to the office would cause some attrition, however, they were not prepared for the serious problems that would present.
I can emphasize with both. As someone who manages a team my job has become more difficult. It is harder to engage with people and also to navigate corp politics, as networking became less easy. Where you just used to have a coffee with someone (to get to know them, talk in a more relaxed setting), now I’ll schedule a meeting.
And I have to schedule it, as it is really hit and miss if someone is available. A scheduled meeting is… Different. It feels official, purposeful. People avoid doing it unless absolutely necessary. The amount of times I have to remind them to talk with each other, and involve person X and Y in the discussion, is amazing. It’s like there is a huge barrier to click the call button on zoom. It’s like an intrusion to someone’s home.
Which it is. There is something less social about calling someone up and self inserting into their day in their home. When in office this doesn’t matter, we’re in a public setting. The only thing that suffers may be productivity, but what suffers now, I don’t know. Maybe the interaction they’re currently having with their kid.
Now, personally I love working from home. Just getting back the 2hrs per day of commute is awesome. I can schedule my day the way I want. So I’d agree it would be a hard sell to go back full-time, even if it would make aspects of my job easier.
So I decided on 1 office day every 2 weeks. It is workable, and I can tell may people are starved for physical interaction. Noone gets much actual work done that day, everyone just talks with each other, goes to the whiteboard to explain stuff etc. It’s like an outlet. And it gives me an argument in front of senior management why it’s a bad idea to outsource our jobs to a 3rd world country.
So yeah bottom line: you may not actually always want full remote. The next step after selling their office space, is outsourcing your job to a cheaper country. That may or may not work as they expect, but they’ll try anyway and you know it. If you’re remote, you’re not an actual person to the decision makers, just a number on a balance sheet. A number that’s too big.
I can emphasize with both. As someone who manages a team my job has become more difficult. It is harder to engage with people and also to navigate corp politics, as networking became less easy. Where you just used to have a coffee with someone (to get to know them, talk in a more relaxed setting), now I’ll schedule a meeting.
And I have to schedule it, as it is really hit and miss if someone is available. A scheduled meeting is… Different. It feels official, purposeful. People avoid doing it unless absolutely necessary. The amount of times I have to remind them to talk with each other, and involve person X and Y in the discussion, is amazing. It’s like there is a huge barrier to click the call button on zoom. It’s like an intrusion to someone’s home.
Which it is. There is something less social about calling someone up and self inserting into their day in their home. When in office this doesn’t matter, we’re in a public setting. The only thing that suffers may be productivity, but what suffers now, I don’t know. Maybe the interaction they’re currently having with their kid.
Now, personally I love working from home. Just getting back the 2hrs per day of commute is awesome. I can schedule my day the way I want. So I’d agree it would be a hard sell to go back full-time, even if it would make aspects of my job easier.
So I decided on 1 office day every 2 weeks. It is workable, and I can tell may people are starved for physical interaction. Noone gets much actual work done that day, everyone just talks with each other, goes to the whiteboard to explain stuff etc. It’s like an outlet. And it gives me an argument in front of senior management why it’s a bad idea to outsource our jobs to a 3rd world country.
So yeah bottom line: you may not actually always want full remote. The next step after selling their office space, is outsourcing your job to a cheaper country. That may or may not work as they expect, but they’ll try anyway and you know it. If you’re remote, you’re not an actual person to the decision makers, just a number on a balance sheet. A number that’s too big.