what's the obsession with "getting back to the office!

[Bells3032]

I get some people want to return to the office and i think they should have a right to. but i don't get the obsession that we "MUST" return to the office. Honestly, my DH and I have both been working from home. I am a public sector, he's private. his office have just started return but don't seem to be enforcing it much and they've also announced their best two years of profit ever.

I get some people e.g. those doing passports or probate etc would be much easier in the office as access to paperwork but my job is 100% computer based and I am far more productive at home.

1. no long commute so less tired plus less likelihood of being late.
2. no "nattering" in the office
3. no time wondering round looking for a desk in the morning and ending up with an inappropriate desk space because we are short. I have a proper desk and chair at home so less back pain
4. no trying to find meeting rooms - just hop on zoom and there everyone is
5. no spending time queuing for the toilet etc
6. less sickness as people not picking up bugs on the trains etc
7. they can sell some real estate or not pay as much rent

What actually would be the benefit to me or my employers to me returning to office? What is with the obsession? Could someone explain to me WHY I should return to the office?

WFH is honestly one of the best things we can normalise as a society.

There are a few things that are easier with people in the office, but I found my productivity dropped about a million percent due to constant interruptions and bloody meetings for the sake of meetings to change something that was decided at the last bloody meeting. Time goes very fast, though.

We've moved to hybrid. Less sickness and we can do detailed work at home and more collaborative work in the office. I love taking calls at home when I can't be overheard.
Johnson has just got his mates in property and food chains on his back.

I don't even have an office to go back to anymore. Covid shutdown was made permanent to save money and we're all homebased now. It would be startlingly obvious, very quickly, if we were just loafing. I think some of the pressure is from the Tories' rentier donors and an attempt to bring life back to city centres. I think a hybrid model seems attractive, and it's being trialled at our main office.

Why are you asking? There has been endless threads of the pros and cons, for those that want to and don't want to.

Personally, I don't want my son later going to uni and doing on line learning from his bedroom. I don't want him working on line. I want him out, and about, having meetings, having a mentor.

Plus it's not what you want. It's not based on employee needs. It's based on business needs.

Most people favour hybrid. Many firms are complying.

Add introverted to 'self motivated middle-aged people' and you have the perfect working from home person! Our IT setup works well at home, and most of the stuff I do is done by me alone, and is much better done in peace and quiet as it's complex, so home is far less distracting than the office.

I don't really have a team in our office, so I sit with another team just because there is space there. On the days their line manager isn't in, I then find I get asked questions throughout the day by the younger people in that team about how to do things, who to contact about X, do I know how they can get hold of Y piece of equipment etc etc. I appreciate that they have to ask someone, but it interrupts me on and off all day and I'm not even in their team!

I can see that for the employer it's best to have a mix of people in the office for exactly that reason, but when it comes to me getting my actual job done, it;'s a pain in the arse when I have to spend half an hour showing young Dave from a different department how a pivot table works because no-one else is around to help him.

There is literally no benefit to me going back to the office. I sit in a room by myself without interacting with anyone, apart from spending half the time on the phone to IT because nothing works. I am way more productive at home with good phone and WiFi signals.
I go in at least once a week only because it’s mandatory.

@tiddlysquat

I have absolutely no intention of going back to the office. I work much better at home. We use internet calling so phone quality is same except that there's no one wittering on in the background. I'd have to be threatened with redundancy before I agreed to go back. And then I'd look for another job anyway that was full time wfh.

I'm more or less similar. I'm on a contract for a year which is full time WFH but I'd like to stick to that or go in 1-2 times a month if that.

My friends of a similar age (late 40s) are similar.

Also use internet calling and miss very little about commuting (trains in London ) and don't even miss my colleagues that much. I used to be very sociable and go out after work a lot etc but can do that just as well where I live, have saved an awful lot of money generally but do spend it where I live too. My productive output at home is same if not better than at work. I do miss the steps and exercise of the commute to the office/around the office but am sure I can make this up at home/parks.

@Campervan69

I think it works well for self motivated middle-aged people. However we do possibly have a responsibility to the younger generation to give them support and a learning environment which only really happens face to face in the office.

Also most of our staff are less productive at home regardless of what they claim.

I am a self-motivated middle-aged person.

I have no younger people to support.

It would be very obvious at the end of every month if my productivity had dropped (if hasn’t and can’t)

@StrychnineInTheSandwiches

A lot of people who own corporate office space will be Tory members/donors and they'll be telling the Govt that they don't want their office blocks to become redundant millstones so please chivvy the workers back to the offices pronto.

This.

Plus the government is pandering to pensioners and has a strategy of hammering working age people. Because of course those of us actually keeping this country going are the cause of all the problems .

My job is office f2f. I have no choice but to go in. My dh can mix his work up home/office/site and my db is in only two days as he’s also my dms carer.
I did work from home at some point doing admin when dds had to isolate. I found I did my work quicker, but no phone calls or people arriving disturbances.

I literally spend my 2 optional days in the office being distracted and having needless, dead end conversations. Where as I could be at home in my pyjamas and fire through my work without having to break off for shitty small talk that I couldn't care less about 😂

I'm not looking forward to it. Why would I want to add 4 hours of commuting time to my week to go in two days a week? Obviously, I don't have much choice but certainly I'm not angling for it. More stress, more hassle, more expense. Nothing in it for me at all.

Surely it's all the starbucks staff, sandwich shops, train drivers, bus staff etc etc etc, who will no longer be needed for office workers that they are worried about - jobs will be needed for them all. On top of all the airline staff etc who are unemployed

Agree. I love wfh & we’re continuing to work this way. Sick days have reduced massively & we have a happier workforce.

There would be a mass exodus at my work if we stopped wfh!

also the city centres are going to be deserted

@Frequency

Money.

People aren't handing over money to private train companies or buying lunch from Costa. Demand for rented office space has waned meaning prices need to drop.

Maybe they are losing out, but that money is now being spent elsewhere, be it supermarket as you buy more food for lunch, or people having more money from less commenting costs for work to homes, holidays, days out etc etc

So overall the economy is getting the same, just spent differently.

It's pretty sad how insular society is becoming. Won't be long until everyone just lives in little individual pods and interacts via the Internet.

I’m so glad there wasn’t wfh when I was a caseload worker in the CS. There was a great mix of people of different ages, and walks of life and education levels and that kept us grounded and real. You can become very insular at home. We worked on some emotionally sensitive and upsetting cases and it was so good to know we were all dealing with similar issues and to help each other out. We’d make time for fun and banter as a balance to what we were dealing with.

I had other jobs too and can’t imagine being chained to a computer screen at home to do it. All work and no play. We were productive but there was a balance, and we also socialised afterwards. It was a very important time in my life. These days I work with young children and I’m glad I have to leave my cosy comfortable home and get out there and work with people who aren’t like me.

as a business owner I think you are dramatically under estimating the benefits of collaboration and mentoring that have been lost due to home working. Its all well and good for experienced workers towards the end of their career but there is no substitute for the kind of experience younger employees can get by just working in an office environment observing and absorbing experience round about them. We may not see the true extent of the consequences of this loss for a good number of years yet but it should not be overlooked.

I work in a cupboard with no window or daylight the carpet and furniture hasn’t been replaced in over 15 years . I have to get two buses to get to work I don’t work in a team and work with a lot of external agencies full of sexist and misogynistic males (a story for another thread ). I don’t have cash to go out for lunch every day we don’t have cooking facilities share a toilet with service users . I genuinely can think of one thing I miss about being in an office . I don’t have customers or clients who are being neglected either .

@Upsielazy

It's pretty sad how insular society is becoming. Won't be long until everyone just lives in little individual pods and interacts via the Internet.

I wrote my post as you were posting yours. We both, independently, use the word “insular”. Absolutely

I think that a lot of bosses dont trust their staff to be working if they dont have eyes on them at all times. To be honest, I think people are more productive at home often.

Because that’s where your job is.

All WFH employees think they’re more productive. The overwhelming majority are not.