calling this a turf war and a standoff when it's actually just "management demands physical presence in office, can provide no actual reason for requiring this, throws tantrum" in every case https://t.co/54gwpu6sbd
— cait (@punished_cait) July 5, 2022
If we can keep the destruction of ‘only time sitting in an office is *work*’ culture, it’ll be one of the few positive side effects of the pandemic:
… Local human resources directors report job candidates are abruptly ending interviews when they find out remote work isn’t an option. One said that a new biotech hire — who agreed to work three days a week in the office but was allowed to work from home for six weeks before moving to the Boston area — abruptly quit following his first 90-minute commute.
Nationwide, two-thirds of senior managers want their teams on site every work day, according to a Robert Half survey, while half of employees say they would look for a new job if forced to return full time. The return-to-office/work-from-home tug of war has even spawned an acronym war: RTO vs. WFH.
Pro-office executives cite the value of in-person collaboration and the need to maintain a vibrant company culture. Breaking with tradition is difficult, workplace analysts say, especially for bosses with an underlying belief, warranted or not, that people get more done in the office.
Ego could play a role, too. “There are people that feel a sense of importance and authority when they’ve got people working outside of their door,” said David Schonthal, a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Handing down mandates, instead of being open to experimentation, will only increase people’s natural impulse to resist change, he said. And forget about using new perks. “For people who value autonomy, giving them soft-serve in the break room is not going to help,” Schonthal said…
“We have a generation or two of CEOs and their HR advisers who have not had to deal with a restless group of employees,” said MIT management professor Thomas Kochan. Managers can’t be “held hostage to past strategies,” he said. “You can no longer do this from the top down.”
And with every pushed-back return date, workers have become less inclined to believe they’re ever going to be required to go back, said Elizabeth Mygatt, a partner in the Boston office of consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
Some long-empty offices are starting to come back to life, but the workers inside, including some managers, aren’t necessarily excited to be there. One vice president at a small Boston-area pharmaceutical company would prefer to work at home most days instead of making the hour-plus drive to the office, and is working her way up to coming in three days a week. But she’s struggling to enforce the policy on someone she supervises who’s getting his job done just fine at home. “It’s a tough thing to manage,” said the VP, who asked not to be identified so she could speak freely. “Until someone pushes me, I’m not going to push him.”…
even MY company is doing “hoteling” and WFH for certain staff except the ones like me who (understandably) HAVE to be here because that’s where the people and graves and bodies are. the real issue is people realizing their bosses are idiots
letting people flex or work remotely saves everyone time and money but all these dumbasses signed 50 year office leases and hired 30 managers that do nothing but spy on your employees and now have to justify their existence
OR gambled on people being forced to commute into the city and spend their money on food and parking and convenience and now they realized they don’t have to live like that!
But what of the poor, suffering real estate investment trusts, and the parking-lot lease operators?
Remote work makes it more possible for people with disabilities, especially immunocompromised people, chronically ill folks, and folks with mobility disabilities, to stay in the workforce. Many bosses want us out because we're expensive to insure.
— Norma Krautmeyer ️ (@blushandmumble) July 5, 2022
Employers in high-demand industries / areas, like Boston, are discovering they might be able to find employees, just not the valuable ones they actually want…
True everywhere. Offices that can’t be reached by transit? Not a great moment in time to push ppl back to two hours of driving a day.
— BBS (@therealbevin) July 5, 2022