I have posted this on Reddit (askeconomics) a while back but got no good replies. Copying it here because I don’t want to send traffic to Reddit.
What do you think?
I see a big push to take employees back to the office. I personally don’t mind either working remote or in the office, but I think big companies tend to think rationally in terms of cost/benefit and I haven’t seen a convincing explanation yet of why they are so keen to have everyone back.
If remote work was just as productive as in-person, a remote-only company could use it to be more efficient than their work-in-office competitors, so I assume there’s no conclusive evidence that this is the case. But I haven’t seen conclusive evidence of the contrary either, and I think employers would have good reason to trumpet any findings at least internally to their employees (“we’ve seen KPI so-and-so drop with everyone working from home” or “project X was severely delayed by lack of in-person coordination” wouldn’t make everyone happy to return in presence, but at least it would make a good argument for a manager to explain to their team)
Instead, all I keep hearing is inspirational wish-wash like “we value the power of working together”. Which is fine, but why are we valuing it more than the cost of office space?
On the side of employees, I often see arguments like “these companies made a big investment in offices and now they don’t want to look stupid by leaving them empty”. But all these large companies have spent billions to acquire smaller companies/products and dropped them without a second thought. I can’t believe the same companies would now be so sentimentally attached to office buildings if it made any economic sense to close them.
There are apparently some industries where there’s less production at home, I work in an industry where this isn’t the case though and it seems to be extrovert admin people pushing it, I think they think we’re all sad and lonely at home?
“It’s nice to come in and have people to talk to!”
Is it? Or are we all just being dragged in because you want chats?
Talking to people isn’t really boosting my productivity. I need peace and time to think. The office is the last of all places where I can find that.
Absolutely, we have whatsapp groups now so if I have a question I can fire it over to anyone or everyone if needed, it’s so much easier and I can ignore it until convenient.
Talking to others may not boost your productivity working, but it can give you a better understanding of what to do when you are productive.
Sure, clearing and refining tasks is important. But we’re talking about your colleague or boss talking for talking’s sake.
Not all talking needs to be work related only.
I’ve seen a lot better productivity between staff that will talk to each other about non-work tasks than those that don’t. People aren’t robots.
And I’m not one of them. People are different.
If you’re going in to talk to people it means you’re not working. Unless… the company pays you just to talk to people. 🤷♂️
And how does that make you feel?
On a serious note though people who I didn’t like and didn’t want to talk to would come by my desk daily and spend a minimum of 20 minutes just talking about shit I didn’t care about. How they got any work at all done is beyond me because obviously they were doing the rounds and talking to everyone else too. And how I got any work done between the million visits? I hated being in an office. I was so miserable.
Same… it’s not my current company, but the company before this one got me interested in noise cancelling headphones. People bullshitting and talking loud all day may as well have been nails on a chalkboard.
Don’t forget all the people that hate their kids (and “family”) too. That was one of the biggest driving forces at the immediate end of the pandemic lockdowns. Then they changed course and said it was about productivity because hating your kids sounds bad.
I kind of agree that remote working every single day gets very socially deprived very quickly. Although the office isn’t a place for socialising, not having anyone to talk to day in day out at work drives me a bit mad.
But I also think 90% of the time, working from home is better. Maybe a hybrid model where you only go to the office once or maximum twice a week or something could work for most people. The introverts and the extroverts reaching a compromise.
Or, just make it free choice? If you miss socialising then go in, if you don’t then stay home?
Also helps those of us unable to drive for various reasons (in my case, physical tourettes triggered by stress. Liable to start having pseudoseizures [like seizures but I’m concious during them] when driving which is… Really not good)
That doesn’t sound like a fun time