I think this all makes sense and agree completely that companies need to figure out what is the office for.
I feel like an oddity in this time we are in as I know many people (who have the privilege to work from home) are absolutely thriving in it, and I don’t feel like I am thriving. I miss seeing people in real life. I had a baby and moved and got a new job during the pandemic, and without going into work, I don’t know how to make new friends and connections in my new city. I feel isolated and honestly I mourn the fun and friendships I used to have in the office.
I think I am probably an anomaly because I don’t see much discussion about the isolation of WFH, and so I just wanted to put it out there in the hopes of feeling a bit less alone.
To be clear, I don’t miss commuting and I’m so grateful for the extra time with my kid. I know there are many benefits to WFH. I’m really glad it’s making life better for so many people. I also know it’s probably kind of effed up that the only way I know how to make connection and establish friendships as an adult is in the workplace.
But I’m pretty introverted and it takes me time to feel comfortable, so I need a lot of time around people to build connections. And I’m a working mom, so I don’t have much free time for time intensive activities outside of work.
Anyways, it’s a strange new world and maybe I just need more time to get used to it all. But I agree if companies could better articulate what the office is for, maybe it would help everyone, no matter where you sit on the WFH preference spectrum.
My company went remote a few years before the pandemic. We did it slowly and sort of scientifically (played with different variations of hybrid/full, held open gatherings to hear how folks were doing, and measured daily moods using an app, etc). What we found that is of about 25 of us at the time, two of us were struggling with isolation (I was one of them). It did get better with time, but also, we each had to find a way to make it work for us. I I joined an exercise studio in my neighborhood, and my colleague joined a bowling league. I understand that being a new mom adds a layer of complication/isolation from other adults, so mainly I just want to say I hear you, I’ve felt it too, and it did get better (although I would happily go back to an office for the social interaction).
I'm the same way, and it is a bit difficult or confusing seeing the majority of the discussion is people who feel differently from us. my mental and physical health went way down after I stopped having a reason to get up early and leave the house every day, and I feel disconnected from my coworkers in a way no amount of zoom calls can fix
Totally hear this — people work differently, and need other people around in different ways — and I think the problem in this particular moment is 1) people are actually getting Covid from being around other people indoors and 2) we still haven't started imagining real alternatives to going into the office that also include leaving the house.
very true! I was thinking about the longer term here when (hopefully D:) covid has become less of a concern and we can prioritize less life or death things like whether I have insomnia or feel like I'm part of a cohesive team that knows each other. as far as the alternatives to going to the office that still include leaving the house, that's intriguing to me. I had the mindset that if you're leaving the house to work you may as well go to the office because that's where everyone else will be, you can keep your stuff there, etc. what would be the benefit to working outside the home but not in the office? genuine question, I'm a young person with no kids so my life is pretty different from most office workers.
Leaving the house is a big thing. My firm (and I assume others) have a very strong policy against working on any network that's not your home or the office one. I'm sure it makes sense for data security, but it functions to keep me tied to my small apartment when I'm WFH :(
In a previous position I worked from a coworking space, or a coffee shop, or the library in addition to the office, and it was nice - I could follow whatever vibe I was feeling that day.
When I was in undergrad I found that I functioned best working in the university library at an open table on the first floor.
I thrive best in a "third space" because I'm around other people being productive but not being constantly interrupted by them, if that makes sense. No interruptions for questions or being distracted by co-workers having conversations.
A coffeeshop has the same function except that you are expected to spend at least some money at every visit, and that can get expensive over time, although this was the strategy that worked for me in grad school.
That makes 100% sense to me - it's motivating (for me) to be doing work in public - it keeps me focused, kind of in the same way that I run faster in a 5k vs. jogging on my own
I live in a small town and there are really not any good options for a third place to work. The library is tiny, and loud. There are a couple coffee shops, but also small and loud. No coworking spaces to speak of. And for the most part, if I'm going somewhere to work, I want my monitors and docking station and all that. I was pretty desperate to get out of the house before I was allowed back to the office earlier this year, but there was just no option even if Covid wasn't an issue.
I think I'm only confident about choosing the WFH option because I had almost a decade working in that same office, and so I already have those relationships. Some of them even book time on my calendar to call over for coffee (I also have a coffee machine, which may explain the allure!). But I live with two cats and no humans and it does feel lonely sometimes. I'm glad to have the option of going into the office occasionally to see people in 3D and just...catch up? I have no business reason to chat to a lot of the people I'm work-fond of, so being in-person every now and then and just seeing them will be lovely.
yeah, I think it'd be really nice to have the option to go in and chat. that's part of what I miss the most, the chats over lunch or little breaks. I'm not one for online socializing, so talking to them over slack or even texting doesn't feel the same. this also comes down to the organization of the office and whether they prioritize getting the team together - my office is a small business and a bit haphazard, so our team building events are more like when you try to make plans with an old friend and end up saying "we really should catch up sometime!!!" for years without following through
See, I love chat! It's way easier for me to be vulnerable and ask questions and assert myself. I also like the asynchronous aspect: one of my collaborators is a morning person on European time, I'm a night owl who gets her best ideas after 3PM. We can keep up an ongoing convo without having to be on at the same time. As an ADHD anxiety introvert, being able to scroll back in conversations/email, collaborate with timestamps, and see closed captions is invaluable.
Totally in the same boat as you, including becoming a parent during the pandemic and mourning the conviviality of office life. Personally, I'd like to never be *required* to come into an office again, but would like the option to come in 2-3 days a week (my current job is fully remote, but I'll be prioritizing that in future searches).
FWIW, work isn’t really the place to make great outside of work friends. I’ve worked at the same place for over 15 years and rarely spend time with coworkers outside the office. Have you tried local moms groups? They can be hard to navigate for us working moms, but it may be worth the effort. Friendship gets easier as your children get older. Hope it gets better!
I found it challenging when I wasn't allowed to go into the office (not that I wanted to when Covid was bad.) I have a pretty good setup at home, and love my cat, but sometimes you need to get out of the house. There aren't really options around here for places to work that aren't home or office. My commute is short, so that doesn't matter much. It's nice to go to the office and be there just to work, then go home again. I like the casual interactions that let you keep up with people not in immediate project teams. Some of my coworkers were back at the office long before me because they needed physical aspects of the space (laboratories, etc.) and they had a very different experience than I did.
I think there is also the matter of whether you live alone or not, and whether you have those other social connections. My pandemic bubble was basically one other person (seen maybe once a month) for the first 1.5 years, so that got tough.
I am currently hybrid, though the last couple of weeks I haven't been in because I was quarantining before and after attending a higher-risk event. We have strict rules at work--vaccination is mandatory without approved exceptions, and if community levels are high, we have to wear masks when not alone in our offices with the door shut. You have symptoms, you don't come in. While not foolproof, I think it's been pretty safe for those working at the office, though as I mentioned, if I need to ensure I'll test negative, I won't go in for a little while.
I feel like most of the excuses for staying in office really boil down to: "We are afraid of losing our work community which was not really a true community to begin with but we sure did like to delude ourselves that it was and we'd really like to continue with that delusion. Thanks!"
Yes. And, does anyone have any data on this expense? That is, how many companies own the building versus lease. A lot of companies lease office space because they do not want the asset of a building on the balance sheet. I am not familiar enough with these leases to know if companies are "stuck" in a long-term lease or if they are just clinging to Elizabeth B's excellent point.
I know the company I used to work for owns one building and leases four. They renegotiated the leases of the four buildings during the pandemic and got VERY favorable leases....as in the company is paying rock bottom rates, almost only paying utilities, just so the building wasn't empty as the leasing company was in desperate straits. So, it is not like they are paying that much money. It is just a control issue. They know people can do great work at home; management (cause it ain't leadership!) just want to make people do what they want them to do. Good people are running for the door and open jobs are not getting filled....and the C Suite is confused. So glad to be out of there.
Yep! What's hard is that some people really do find community at work with their coworkers while others don't. I think that community aspect was/is easier with jobs that turn into long careers at the same workplace. My mom worked at the same place for 26 years before retiring and most of her close friendships today are with her former coworkers - particularly other moms close to her in age with kids close-ish in age to me and my brother. They went through all of the stages of working mom life together - from baby showers for their babies to baby showers for their grandkids! - and balancing everything in between!
I never really had that in any of my jobs, and currently, I'm the only one in my department who isn't a young boomer. My administrative secretary's grandson is exactly one day older than my daughter, but instead of being relational she always wants to compare the two kids against each other and brag about her grandson. (Anything my daughter can do her grandson can ALWAYS do better.) Perhaps it helped that in my mom's case all of the co-worker kids were spaced out over a decade, so it was less about rivalry and more about "I remember when Johnny went through that phase...this too will pass...Mama, you aren't doing anything wrong!"
My workplace does have a strong community, partly because most of us are there for years, and partly because it's a small town without a lot of social options if you are under 70.
When Covid hit, my company said "hey you can work from anywhere!" and then come to find out the CEO hadn't actually signed off on that (but in the meantime I'd sold my house in NC and moved home to Maine) and they backtracked it. (None of us that moved during that window were expected to come back though, thankfully.) And now they seem to have the mentality that our HQ is where everyone works (they call our 6 other locations around the country "remote locations" [! like they aren't real offices because they aren't at HQ?]) - but because we have so many folks who are truly remote *and* have so many teammates in our non-HQ offices, even if you are in the HQ building, you're just sitting at your desk on a Teams meeting because everyone you're meeting with is somewhere else.
Some teams are required to be in office 3 days a week, some teams are 1 day a week, and some teams aren't ever in office because their manager doesn't care. But every time this discussion comes back up, about having all teammates near an office required to come back in, nobody can articulate the WHY - except that our CEO wants it that way. They were bribing people with free lunch for a while but that stopped, so now there's even less of a reason for people to want to be there.
I moved from Charlotte NC to a very rural town in Maine, an hour from where I grew up, so I definitely understand the isolation feeling mentioned in another comment. If I'm not trekking the 20 mins to the grocery store once a week, I don't really have anywhere to go. I recently joined a yoga studio and attend a class once a week after work, and joined a gym two weeks ago just to have *somewhere* to go / get out of my house. I've gotten involved in our town's solar power ordinance committee and stopped by the farmer's market and have struck up a friendship with one of our local farmers, so I'm slowly becoming ingrained in our (very small) community, but its definitely not an overnight thing. Very tough to make friends as a (single, child-free) adult - especially when you work from home. That built-in office community doesn't exist outside of your laptop.
AHP, the fact that you can analyze what I have to imagine were hundreds of IG DMs, comments in Discord, conversations, articles, etc. and distill them into these Bungle Themes that feel completely on point amazes me. Oh, and then provide thoughtful commentary on alternatives. I mean, come on. This is why we all love you.
I work at a large University (I'm staff, not faculty) and remote vs. in-office is entirely department dependent. So everyone in my unit has been full-time on campus for the past year, there are other units that are still fully remote. We are siloed enough that there isn't a feeling of inequity in our team (why does Unit X get to WFH when we have to come in?), which is nice. But the hard work of figuring out a hybrid approach for our team just hasn't been a priority, when it feels like it probably should be. Personally, while I don't like the time I lose in a day (getting ready, commuting, etc.), I do prefer working at the office for the most part. I was fully productive during the 2 years of WFH, but I don't think I'd do well with a hybrid approach...I think I would find that I'm less productive at home in that circumstance.
I recently quit my job with a publicly funded college (I was on staff, not faculty and I am working as a freelance contractor for them still) partly because they ticked off multiple bungles on this list (#1 and #2). It was endlessly frustrating, and anytime there was an internal forum or "listening session" it was obvious leaders weren't really interested in listening, so much as taking the opportunity to reiterate why everyone* needed to be in-person again (our students need us, some workers must be on campus, and it's not fair to them if other workers are permanently remote/hybrid).
*But not really everyone, of course. The lack of transparency felt so toxic to me.
Yep yep, all of this at my university as well. I find the "student's need us" excuse to be so annoying. Mostly if the students have a need, they just send an email. And if they do need to meet up with a staff member in person, they will coordinate that-via email.
All of this. My small office of 8 had to start coming back a couple of days a week in September 2020 (!) because the CEO was an extrovert who felt like we should be there, but refused to explain her reasoning or articulate what wasn't working about being home. Then we actually moved offices in Jan 2021 - going from individual offices to cubes for most of us, huge offices for 2 people and an inexplicable number of file rooms. But guess who was almost never there? That's right, the CEO. Oh and our admin coordinator found out she was supposed to be in the office everyday when it was announced during a staff meeting. She quit shortly after. By summer of 2021, I was starting to get my resume together after working there for more than a decade. Then our CEO found out she had a serious illness and didn't set foot in the office from July until she finally went out on disability in January and officially retired in March. Since then we've been working as more of collective with me nominally in charge. My theory is that there are no children working in our office and if you're getting your work done we're cool. It helps that most of the staff has worked together for many years. We've had a couple of days where I have asked everyone to come in, and people have done so willingly because those days had an explicit purpose. We're in the process of searching for a new CEO so I'm sure things will change again then, but for now this is working pretty well.
I work for a national nonprofit with multiple offices that I think has figured this out — and is letting employees slot themselves (in collaboration with their supervisors) into one of four options: fully remote, fully in-office (this allows the folks who want to marry their desks to have what they want), hybrid with a set schedule, or an ad hoc hybrid arrangement. (With the understanding that there will be some degree of hotdesking/hoteling necessary for the folks that choose one of the latter two options.)
And the follow-through is there, as is the understanding of what the physical office spaces are for: collaboration/connection. No one is being forced to do anything — the “butts in seats” mentality is nowhere to be found — and there is the flexibility to shift to a different model if circumstances/risk tolerance levels change. I’m fully remote because we don’t have a physical office in my area, but even those who do live near one of our offices still have fully remote as an option. The plan has been well-received by employees so far.
I would choose fully in-office not because I want to marry my desk, but because I appreciate having separation of my work from my home life. When my office was briefly closed at the beginning of the pandemic, I had to prop my kids’ gym mat around my desk in the living room to try to discourage their constant interruptions (two had just had their school abruptly close and the other was a toddler). I remember a mandatory online office “happy hour” where each of my three kids climbed into my lap one after the other. Juggling work and parenting and household management was a total nightmare. Sometimes I wonder if most WFH people have fairly undemanding jobs, so they really can just fit it in while doing laundry, taking the dog out, and interacting constantly with their family?
I think the main reason companies want employees back is because they don’t have good metrics for productivity and they fear (rightfully) that someone who isn’t at work isn’t putting in a full day’s work from home. Obviously people can and do waste a ton of time in an office too, but some remote employees are incredibly checked out, unresponsive, unavailable, and unproductive. Managers need new ways to measure performance in the absence of in-person interaction.
We have similar options. I work at a satellite office so the hoteling/hotdesk options aren't great yet, and we don't have coworking spaces set up. But if you are in office >50% of the time, you can have your own office; less than that you may be sharing or hoteling. Most people that aren't fully remote due to location chose hybrid >50%. Part of it is that most of us also have a ton of work-related equipment, books, etc. that we don't want to store at home. And people who need to use physical aspects of the facility want a home base even they aren't at their desks all day.
A variation to #1 and 2 is this: the CEO and executives want to have some employees in the office or lab, but they themselves do not want to come into the office and rarely if ever show up. So much for leading by example!
The company I used to work for instituted a policy that anyone who works within 30 miles of the 5 offices around the USA must be in the office at least two days a week....and THEY decide the route that makes 30 miles. So, one friend lives 35 miles away on the route they have taken for 16 years. But another route, with a $15 daily round trip toll, is only 29 miles. So, the company is saying they must be in the office. My friend is looking for another job, and will find one easily. The company will lose a great employee, simply because they want butts in seats, to spend the day on Zoom calls, which they could take from home.
My company is requiring us to go into the office (return to WORK, the department head keeps saying!) three days a week, and it's turned into a mashup of Nos. 1, 2 and 4. We've become an increasingly global-oriented unit since the pandemic hit, so collaboration will always involve Zoom no matter what. The in-house gym and medical clinic are the only two things that make me want to go in.
One of the more ridiculous elements of our return to office is the persistence of the clean-desk policy. We still have assigned seating, but we're still required to clear off our desks at the end of the day so they can "clean." Except that I have *purposefully* left some Cheetos crumbs on my desk several times (yes, I know that's gross) to see how clean that clean really is. Guess what, they're always still there no matter how much time elapses between my office visits. Part of this clean desk policy includes not being allowed to have garbage cans at our desks, which means I have to get up and walk past a bunch of desks with people who don't have to be vaccinated or masked in order to throw my Cheetos bag and crumbs away. And then I have to schlep my wireless keyboard, mouse and charger (because they won't give me one for the office AND one for home) along with my computer, lunch and workout gear if I've brought that.
This is so timely because my husband told me that he's expected to start going back to the office 2 weeks from now -- mainly, he believes, because the company needs to justify paying rent on its office space. Meanwhile, during the pandemic, he got a new boss, who lives in Texas (we're in the SF Bay Area). So meetings will continue to be on Zoom basically forever even if part of the team is working in the office. Plus the building is located in a fairly remote office park, and the company has closed its cafeteria permanently, so either you have to brown bag it or drive somewhere to get lunch. I feel like his situation is ticking all 4 boxes in this article.
I work for a state agency and we've opted to allow for a lot of freedom, so most people are on hybrid schedules and a few are in the office all the time and a larger number are 100% telework. I think my frustration is that while we can do 95% of our work remotely, there are some things that we just don't do as efficiently (co-creating a letter for example took the better part of three hours working remotely when it could have taken 15 minutes in the office) and we are super limited in our ability to use the software that makes hybrid work better. We aren't allowed to have Zoom or Google docs, for example, so that makes it hard.
I worry also about the fact that we are hiring new employees into this model and it is an election year. I would be 0% surprised if our freedom to allow remote work was rescinded if we have a shift in governor or legislature next year, so I feel obligated to tell new employees "hey, this is where we are now but it could change, so don't get too attached" which feels like an unwelcoming message (but I want to be honest).
The other thing that we need to change (and I wonder if this is true at other places as well) is that our performance evaluation sheets are not designed for evaluating remote workers. There are questions on our sheet that I feel like, as a manager, I can't answer. I don't have as strong of a sense of people's interpersonal and communication skills. I don't have as good of a sense of how collaborative people are or how they approach problem solving in the same way that I did when I worked in a 100% in-office setting. As a newer person to this agency, I just don't feel like I know my team as well as I wish I did. I know that is on me to figure out how to build those relationships but it is a lot harder in this model.
I'm a federal contractor that works with a lot of people in federal and state agencies and yes, software limitations are a pain in the you-know-what. We end up with an effective collaboration system only accessible to the contractors, and then having to be old-school with the clients.
I feel like my company was very, very slow to announce the return to office plans, which was frustrating in the moment but actually ended up being a good thing because they were extremely deliberate and thoughtful about it. The end result is that now that our offices have officially reopened, all employees can choose to be 100% in-office, 100% remote, or hybrid. Of course the remote option isn't viable for employees who HAVE to be onsite sometimes (for example, we have large manufacturing testing labs that obviously can't be replicated from home). All employees receive a cell phone stipend, which has since been increased for remote employees to help offset some of our internet cost as well. We also received a one-time stipend when offices were still closed to help us equip our home offices.
I was technically hired for a "remote" role in late 2018, but by happenstance there is a sizeable office where I live, so they gave me an office that I worked from about four days a week. None of my team were situated in that office, but it was good to have a place to go and interact with others from my company, being new and all.
During pandemic, we were one of the very first companies to shut down and go 100% remote (we are Seattle-based), and I haven't gone back since. I built out a gorgeous home office and love the additional flexibility and free time (and let's be real, work time) in my day, and don't plan to go back into an office. I'm grateful that I have a boss who didn't care where I was before March of 2020, and definitely doesn't care now, as long as I'm getting my job done. I can take a quick hop over to HQ as needed, which I did pre-pandemic and have since resumed doing about once a quarter, just to stay connected with my colleagues there.
The company has encouraged teams to adopt a "one Zoom, all Zoom" policy: if one participant in a meeting is present via Zoom, all participants log in individually as well. I absolutely love this, because pre-pandemic, meetings were often a conference room full of people plus me and a smattering of other remote folks as little boxes, which was a bit isolating. Now, as it was when we were all remote, everyone is a box on the screen, which makes me feel way more included, connected, and present in meetings than in the Before Times.
All in all, I have nothing but good things to say about how my company took a human-first approach during pandemic, and how it has handled the return to office (or not) now that we've reopened.
I've long had to do the remote call-in to an in-person meeting, and it is definitely much better now. My employer really emphasized how to be fair to people that are there by video, and set up the conference rooms well, and as long as people make a conscious effort, it works better than it used to. There's still the break-time conversations that get missed, but it's still easier. It was a concern for me that everyone-remote was not going to be parallel to some-remote, but it's been OK so far.
I like that "one Zoom, all Zoom" policy, as during the pandemic, team meetings were this really nice, democratic thing where it was everyone's face on the screen equally, and every team member getting their turn to update everyone, and I have to say that it really created a lovely team dynamic. It felt like the whole things about there being no culture when we're not all together was just a myth, because we were making an effort and it was really nice.
Ours has bungled it every step of the way. Astronomical turnover didn’t change their mind. Everyone getting Covid ( now for the second and third time) made them double down on “we just have to learn to live with it”. Even though productivity was higher when people worked from home, they forced everyone back to the office at the earliest legal moment and took away flexibility people had pre pandemic. I only still work from home because I actually quit and the negotiated to keep me. We have one HR person for a company of 500 people which I kind of think says it all.
The thought I keep coming back to is, are we about to have another wave of the big quit (I want that) or are we going to just further break down our last remaining boundaries with our jobs 🫠 also the infinite loop of limited sick time / getting sick at the office 🤡
Agree with all of this, but I will add that a benefit of an office is the compartmentalization of work and home. I have ADHD, and the physical space I'm in while I'm working makes a difference in how well I'm able to focus. I was working remotely for about a year, and it was difficult for me to make my home feel like a work space. I like the separation that a commute and office desk provide. (However, I admit I have the privilege of a 10-minute walk commute and my own office with a door! There have been no reported Covid cases transmitted in my office so far *knocks on wood*)
Yes, I'm a walk commuter, too, with ADHD! Having a separate office space super close to home has been really helpful, although I do wish I could work hybrid sometimes due to my chronic health issues (it's nice to be able to lay down for 20-30 minutes until medicine kicks in without anyone knowing.)
I worked remotely or hybrid for a couple of different companies pre-pandemic, and this could not be more spot-on. #2 was especially egregious, i.e. SOME employees have the right to full flexibility but there’s not much rhyme or reason as to why others do not. It was a recipe for terrible passive-aggressive hostility between some co-workers. All of these points resonate though; there are a lot of people in management who need to see this post. I’m happily fully remote now, and have no plans to return to any other arrangement.
I think this all makes sense and agree completely that companies need to figure out what is the office for.
I feel like an oddity in this time we are in as I know many people (who have the privilege to work from home) are absolutely thriving in it, and I don’t feel like I am thriving. I miss seeing people in real life. I had a baby and moved and got a new job during the pandemic, and without going into work, I don’t know how to make new friends and connections in my new city. I feel isolated and honestly I mourn the fun and friendships I used to have in the office.
I think I am probably an anomaly because I don’t see much discussion about the isolation of WFH, and so I just wanted to put it out there in the hopes of feeling a bit less alone.
To be clear, I don’t miss commuting and I’m so grateful for the extra time with my kid. I know there are many benefits to WFH. I’m really glad it’s making life better for so many people. I also know it’s probably kind of effed up that the only way I know how to make connection and establish friendships as an adult is in the workplace.
But I’m pretty introverted and it takes me time to feel comfortable, so I need a lot of time around people to build connections. And I’m a working mom, so I don’t have much free time for time intensive activities outside of work.
Anyways, it’s a strange new world and maybe I just need more time to get used to it all. But I agree if companies could better articulate what the office is for, maybe it would help everyone, no matter where you sit on the WFH preference spectrum.
My company went remote a few years before the pandemic. We did it slowly and sort of scientifically (played with different variations of hybrid/full, held open gatherings to hear how folks were doing, and measured daily moods using an app, etc). What we found that is of about 25 of us at the time, two of us were struggling with isolation (I was one of them). It did get better with time, but also, we each had to find a way to make it work for us. I I joined an exercise studio in my neighborhood, and my colleague joined a bowling league. I understand that being a new mom adds a layer of complication/isolation from other adults, so mainly I just want to say I hear you, I’ve felt it too, and it did get better (although I would happily go back to an office for the social interaction).
I'm the same way, and it is a bit difficult or confusing seeing the majority of the discussion is people who feel differently from us. my mental and physical health went way down after I stopped having a reason to get up early and leave the house every day, and I feel disconnected from my coworkers in a way no amount of zoom calls can fix
Totally hear this — people work differently, and need other people around in different ways — and I think the problem in this particular moment is 1) people are actually getting Covid from being around other people indoors and 2) we still haven't started imagining real alternatives to going into the office that also include leaving the house.
very true! I was thinking about the longer term here when (hopefully D:) covid has become less of a concern and we can prioritize less life or death things like whether I have insomnia or feel like I'm part of a cohesive team that knows each other. as far as the alternatives to going to the office that still include leaving the house, that's intriguing to me. I had the mindset that if you're leaving the house to work you may as well go to the office because that's where everyone else will be, you can keep your stuff there, etc. what would be the benefit to working outside the home but not in the office? genuine question, I'm a young person with no kids so my life is pretty different from most office workers.
Leaving the house is a big thing. My firm (and I assume others) have a very strong policy against working on any network that's not your home or the office one. I'm sure it makes sense for data security, but it functions to keep me tied to my small apartment when I'm WFH :(
In a previous position I worked from a coworking space, or a coffee shop, or the library in addition to the office, and it was nice - I could follow whatever vibe I was feeling that day.
When I was in undergrad I found that I functioned best working in the university library at an open table on the first floor.
I thrive best in a "third space" because I'm around other people being productive but not being constantly interrupted by them, if that makes sense. No interruptions for questions or being distracted by co-workers having conversations.
A coffeeshop has the same function except that you are expected to spend at least some money at every visit, and that can get expensive over time, although this was the strategy that worked for me in grad school.
That makes 100% sense to me - it's motivating (for me) to be doing work in public - it keeps me focused, kind of in the same way that I run faster in a 5k vs. jogging on my own
Doesn't your firm have a VPN? That would remove the problem of any data security.
I live in a small town and there are really not any good options for a third place to work. The library is tiny, and loud. There are a couple coffee shops, but also small and loud. No coworking spaces to speak of. And for the most part, if I'm going somewhere to work, I want my monitors and docking station and all that. I was pretty desperate to get out of the house before I was allowed back to the office earlier this year, but there was just no option even if Covid wasn't an issue.
I think I'm only confident about choosing the WFH option because I had almost a decade working in that same office, and so I already have those relationships. Some of them even book time on my calendar to call over for coffee (I also have a coffee machine, which may explain the allure!). But I live with two cats and no humans and it does feel lonely sometimes. I'm glad to have the option of going into the office occasionally to see people in 3D and just...catch up? I have no business reason to chat to a lot of the people I'm work-fond of, so being in-person every now and then and just seeing them will be lovely.
yeah, I think it'd be really nice to have the option to go in and chat. that's part of what I miss the most, the chats over lunch or little breaks. I'm not one for online socializing, so talking to them over slack or even texting doesn't feel the same. this also comes down to the organization of the office and whether they prioritize getting the team together - my office is a small business and a bit haphazard, so our team building events are more like when you try to make plans with an old friend and end up saying "we really should catch up sometime!!!" for years without following through
See, I love chat! It's way easier for me to be vulnerable and ask questions and assert myself. I also like the asynchronous aspect: one of my collaborators is a morning person on European time, I'm a night owl who gets her best ideas after 3PM. We can keep up an ongoing convo without having to be on at the same time. As an ADHD anxiety introvert, being able to scroll back in conversations/email, collaborate with timestamps, and see closed captions is invaluable.
Solidarity! I was Very Fine working from home but do prefer coming to the office as well.
Totally in the same boat as you, including becoming a parent during the pandemic and mourning the conviviality of office life. Personally, I'd like to never be *required* to come into an office again, but would like the option to come in 2-3 days a week (my current job is fully remote, but I'll be prioritizing that in future searches).
FWIW, work isn’t really the place to make great outside of work friends. I’ve worked at the same place for over 15 years and rarely spend time with coworkers outside the office. Have you tried local moms groups? They can be hard to navigate for us working moms, but it may be worth the effort. Friendship gets easier as your children get older. Hope it gets better!
I found it challenging when I wasn't allowed to go into the office (not that I wanted to when Covid was bad.) I have a pretty good setup at home, and love my cat, but sometimes you need to get out of the house. There aren't really options around here for places to work that aren't home or office. My commute is short, so that doesn't matter much. It's nice to go to the office and be there just to work, then go home again. I like the casual interactions that let you keep up with people not in immediate project teams. Some of my coworkers were back at the office long before me because they needed physical aspects of the space (laboratories, etc.) and they had a very different experience than I did.
I think there is also the matter of whether you live alone or not, and whether you have those other social connections. My pandemic bubble was basically one other person (seen maybe once a month) for the first 1.5 years, so that got tough.
I am currently hybrid, though the last couple of weeks I haven't been in because I was quarantining before and after attending a higher-risk event. We have strict rules at work--vaccination is mandatory without approved exceptions, and if community levels are high, we have to wear masks when not alone in our offices with the door shut. You have symptoms, you don't come in. While not foolproof, I think it's been pretty safe for those working at the office, though as I mentioned, if I need to ensure I'll test negative, I won't go in for a little while.
I feel like most of the excuses for staying in office really boil down to: "We are afraid of losing our work community which was not really a true community to begin with but we sure did like to delude ourselves that it was and we'd really like to continue with that delusion. Thanks!"
"and we have these expensive buildings that are sitting mostly empty, we have to do SOMETHING with them!"
Yes. And, does anyone have any data on this expense? That is, how many companies own the building versus lease. A lot of companies lease office space because they do not want the asset of a building on the balance sheet. I am not familiar enough with these leases to know if companies are "stuck" in a long-term lease or if they are just clinging to Elizabeth B's excellent point.
I know the company I used to work for owns one building and leases four. They renegotiated the leases of the four buildings during the pandemic and got VERY favorable leases....as in the company is paying rock bottom rates, almost only paying utilities, just so the building wasn't empty as the leasing company was in desperate straits. So, it is not like they are paying that much money. It is just a control issue. They know people can do great work at home; management (cause it ain't leadership!) just want to make people do what they want them to do. Good people are running for the door and open jobs are not getting filled....and the C Suite is confused. So glad to be out of there.
Yep! What's hard is that some people really do find community at work with their coworkers while others don't. I think that community aspect was/is easier with jobs that turn into long careers at the same workplace. My mom worked at the same place for 26 years before retiring and most of her close friendships today are with her former coworkers - particularly other moms close to her in age with kids close-ish in age to me and my brother. They went through all of the stages of working mom life together - from baby showers for their babies to baby showers for their grandkids! - and balancing everything in between!
I never really had that in any of my jobs, and currently, I'm the only one in my department who isn't a young boomer. My administrative secretary's grandson is exactly one day older than my daughter, but instead of being relational she always wants to compare the two kids against each other and brag about her grandson. (Anything my daughter can do her grandson can ALWAYS do better.) Perhaps it helped that in my mom's case all of the co-worker kids were spaced out over a decade, so it was less about rivalry and more about "I remember when Johnny went through that phase...this too will pass...Mama, you aren't doing anything wrong!"
My workplace does have a strong community, partly because most of us are there for years, and partly because it's a small town without a lot of social options if you are under 70.
When Covid hit, my company said "hey you can work from anywhere!" and then come to find out the CEO hadn't actually signed off on that (but in the meantime I'd sold my house in NC and moved home to Maine) and they backtracked it. (None of us that moved during that window were expected to come back though, thankfully.) And now they seem to have the mentality that our HQ is where everyone works (they call our 6 other locations around the country "remote locations" [! like they aren't real offices because they aren't at HQ?]) - but because we have so many folks who are truly remote *and* have so many teammates in our non-HQ offices, even if you are in the HQ building, you're just sitting at your desk on a Teams meeting because everyone you're meeting with is somewhere else.
Some teams are required to be in office 3 days a week, some teams are 1 day a week, and some teams aren't ever in office because their manager doesn't care. But every time this discussion comes back up, about having all teammates near an office required to come back in, nobody can articulate the WHY - except that our CEO wants it that way. They were bribing people with free lunch for a while but that stopped, so now there's even less of a reason for people to want to be there.
I moved from Charlotte NC to a very rural town in Maine, an hour from where I grew up, so I definitely understand the isolation feeling mentioned in another comment. If I'm not trekking the 20 mins to the grocery store once a week, I don't really have anywhere to go. I recently joined a yoga studio and attend a class once a week after work, and joined a gym two weeks ago just to have *somewhere* to go / get out of my house. I've gotten involved in our town's solar power ordinance committee and stopped by the farmer's market and have struck up a friendship with one of our local farmers, so I'm slowly becoming ingrained in our (very small) community, but its definitely not an overnight thing. Very tough to make friends as a (single, child-free) adult - especially when you work from home. That built-in office community doesn't exist outside of your laptop.
AHP, the fact that you can analyze what I have to imagine were hundreds of IG DMs, comments in Discord, conversations, articles, etc. and distill them into these Bungle Themes that feel completely on point amazes me. Oh, and then provide thoughtful commentary on alternatives. I mean, come on. This is why we all love you.
I work at a large University (I'm staff, not faculty) and remote vs. in-office is entirely department dependent. So everyone in my unit has been full-time on campus for the past year, there are other units that are still fully remote. We are siloed enough that there isn't a feeling of inequity in our team (why does Unit X get to WFH when we have to come in?), which is nice. But the hard work of figuring out a hybrid approach for our team just hasn't been a priority, when it feels like it probably should be. Personally, while I don't like the time I lose in a day (getting ready, commuting, etc.), I do prefer working at the office for the most part. I was fully productive during the 2 years of WFH, but I don't think I'd do well with a hybrid approach...I think I would find that I'm less productive at home in that circumstance.
I recently quit my job with a publicly funded college (I was on staff, not faculty and I am working as a freelance contractor for them still) partly because they ticked off multiple bungles on this list (#1 and #2). It was endlessly frustrating, and anytime there was an internal forum or "listening session" it was obvious leaders weren't really interested in listening, so much as taking the opportunity to reiterate why everyone* needed to be in-person again (our students need us, some workers must be on campus, and it's not fair to them if other workers are permanently remote/hybrid).
*But not really everyone, of course. The lack of transparency felt so toxic to me.
Yep yep, all of this at my university as well. I find the "student's need us" excuse to be so annoying. Mostly if the students have a need, they just send an email. And if they do need to meet up with a staff member in person, they will coordinate that-via email.
All of this. My small office of 8 had to start coming back a couple of days a week in September 2020 (!) because the CEO was an extrovert who felt like we should be there, but refused to explain her reasoning or articulate what wasn't working about being home. Then we actually moved offices in Jan 2021 - going from individual offices to cubes for most of us, huge offices for 2 people and an inexplicable number of file rooms. But guess who was almost never there? That's right, the CEO. Oh and our admin coordinator found out she was supposed to be in the office everyday when it was announced during a staff meeting. She quit shortly after. By summer of 2021, I was starting to get my resume together after working there for more than a decade. Then our CEO found out she had a serious illness and didn't set foot in the office from July until she finally went out on disability in January and officially retired in March. Since then we've been working as more of collective with me nominally in charge. My theory is that there are no children working in our office and if you're getting your work done we're cool. It helps that most of the staff has worked together for many years. We've had a couple of days where I have asked everyone to come in, and people have done so willingly because those days had an explicit purpose. We're in the process of searching for a new CEO so I'm sure things will change again then, but for now this is working pretty well.
I work for a national nonprofit with multiple offices that I think has figured this out — and is letting employees slot themselves (in collaboration with their supervisors) into one of four options: fully remote, fully in-office (this allows the folks who want to marry their desks to have what they want), hybrid with a set schedule, or an ad hoc hybrid arrangement. (With the understanding that there will be some degree of hotdesking/hoteling necessary for the folks that choose one of the latter two options.)
And the follow-through is there, as is the understanding of what the physical office spaces are for: collaboration/connection. No one is being forced to do anything — the “butts in seats” mentality is nowhere to be found — and there is the flexibility to shift to a different model if circumstances/risk tolerance levels change. I’m fully remote because we don’t have a physical office in my area, but even those who do live near one of our offices still have fully remote as an option. The plan has been well-received by employees so far.
I would choose fully in-office not because I want to marry my desk, but because I appreciate having separation of my work from my home life. When my office was briefly closed at the beginning of the pandemic, I had to prop my kids’ gym mat around my desk in the living room to try to discourage their constant interruptions (two had just had their school abruptly close and the other was a toddler). I remember a mandatory online office “happy hour” where each of my three kids climbed into my lap one after the other. Juggling work and parenting and household management was a total nightmare. Sometimes I wonder if most WFH people have fairly undemanding jobs, so they really can just fit it in while doing laundry, taking the dog out, and interacting constantly with their family?
I think the main reason companies want employees back is because they don’t have good metrics for productivity and they fear (rightfully) that someone who isn’t at work isn’t putting in a full day’s work from home. Obviously people can and do waste a ton of time in an office too, but some remote employees are incredibly checked out, unresponsive, unavailable, and unproductive. Managers need new ways to measure performance in the absence of in-person interaction.
We have similar options. I work at a satellite office so the hoteling/hotdesk options aren't great yet, and we don't have coworking spaces set up. But if you are in office >50% of the time, you can have your own office; less than that you may be sharing or hoteling. Most people that aren't fully remote due to location chose hybrid >50%. Part of it is that most of us also have a ton of work-related equipment, books, etc. that we don't want to store at home. And people who need to use physical aspects of the facility want a home base even they aren't at their desks all day.
A variation to #1 and 2 is this: the CEO and executives want to have some employees in the office or lab, but they themselves do not want to come into the office and rarely if ever show up. So much for leading by example!
they want people there WHEN/IF they decide to come in — all about ease for them, not for, oh, everyone else!
The company I used to work for instituted a policy that anyone who works within 30 miles of the 5 offices around the USA must be in the office at least two days a week....and THEY decide the route that makes 30 miles. So, one friend lives 35 miles away on the route they have taken for 16 years. But another route, with a $15 daily round trip toll, is only 29 miles. So, the company is saying they must be in the office. My friend is looking for another job, and will find one easily. The company will lose a great employee, simply because they want butts in seats, to spend the day on Zoom calls, which they could take from home.
My company is requiring us to go into the office (return to WORK, the department head keeps saying!) three days a week, and it's turned into a mashup of Nos. 1, 2 and 4. We've become an increasingly global-oriented unit since the pandemic hit, so collaboration will always involve Zoom no matter what. The in-house gym and medical clinic are the only two things that make me want to go in.
One of the more ridiculous elements of our return to office is the persistence of the clean-desk policy. We still have assigned seating, but we're still required to clear off our desks at the end of the day so they can "clean." Except that I have *purposefully* left some Cheetos crumbs on my desk several times (yes, I know that's gross) to see how clean that clean really is. Guess what, they're always still there no matter how much time elapses between my office visits. Part of this clean desk policy includes not being allowed to have garbage cans at our desks, which means I have to get up and walk past a bunch of desks with people who don't have to be vaccinated or masked in order to throw my Cheetos bag and crumbs away. And then I have to schlep my wireless keyboard, mouse and charger (because they won't give me one for the office AND one for home) along with my computer, lunch and workout gear if I've brought that.
Somebody make it make sense.
Find a job where they value your skills and knowledge, and respect you as the valuable asset you are. That is complete and utter BS.
This is so timely because my husband told me that he's expected to start going back to the office 2 weeks from now -- mainly, he believes, because the company needs to justify paying rent on its office space. Meanwhile, during the pandemic, he got a new boss, who lives in Texas (we're in the SF Bay Area). So meetings will continue to be on Zoom basically forever even if part of the team is working in the office. Plus the building is located in a fairly remote office park, and the company has closed its cafeteria permanently, so either you have to brown bag it or drive somewhere to get lunch. I feel like his situation is ticking all 4 boxes in this article.
I work for a state agency and we've opted to allow for a lot of freedom, so most people are on hybrid schedules and a few are in the office all the time and a larger number are 100% telework. I think my frustration is that while we can do 95% of our work remotely, there are some things that we just don't do as efficiently (co-creating a letter for example took the better part of three hours working remotely when it could have taken 15 minutes in the office) and we are super limited in our ability to use the software that makes hybrid work better. We aren't allowed to have Zoom or Google docs, for example, so that makes it hard.
I worry also about the fact that we are hiring new employees into this model and it is an election year. I would be 0% surprised if our freedom to allow remote work was rescinded if we have a shift in governor or legislature next year, so I feel obligated to tell new employees "hey, this is where we are now but it could change, so don't get too attached" which feels like an unwelcoming message (but I want to be honest).
The other thing that we need to change (and I wonder if this is true at other places as well) is that our performance evaluation sheets are not designed for evaluating remote workers. There are questions on our sheet that I feel like, as a manager, I can't answer. I don't have as strong of a sense of people's interpersonal and communication skills. I don't have as good of a sense of how collaborative people are or how they approach problem solving in the same way that I did when I worked in a 100% in-office setting. As a newer person to this agency, I just don't feel like I know my team as well as I wish I did. I know that is on me to figure out how to build those relationships but it is a lot harder in this model.
I'm a federal contractor that works with a lot of people in federal and state agencies and yes, software limitations are a pain in the you-know-what. We end up with an effective collaboration system only accessible to the contractors, and then having to be old-school with the clients.
I feel like my company was very, very slow to announce the return to office plans, which was frustrating in the moment but actually ended up being a good thing because they were extremely deliberate and thoughtful about it. The end result is that now that our offices have officially reopened, all employees can choose to be 100% in-office, 100% remote, or hybrid. Of course the remote option isn't viable for employees who HAVE to be onsite sometimes (for example, we have large manufacturing testing labs that obviously can't be replicated from home). All employees receive a cell phone stipend, which has since been increased for remote employees to help offset some of our internet cost as well. We also received a one-time stipend when offices were still closed to help us equip our home offices.
I was technically hired for a "remote" role in late 2018, but by happenstance there is a sizeable office where I live, so they gave me an office that I worked from about four days a week. None of my team were situated in that office, but it was good to have a place to go and interact with others from my company, being new and all.
During pandemic, we were one of the very first companies to shut down and go 100% remote (we are Seattle-based), and I haven't gone back since. I built out a gorgeous home office and love the additional flexibility and free time (and let's be real, work time) in my day, and don't plan to go back into an office. I'm grateful that I have a boss who didn't care where I was before March of 2020, and definitely doesn't care now, as long as I'm getting my job done. I can take a quick hop over to HQ as needed, which I did pre-pandemic and have since resumed doing about once a quarter, just to stay connected with my colleagues there.
The company has encouraged teams to adopt a "one Zoom, all Zoom" policy: if one participant in a meeting is present via Zoom, all participants log in individually as well. I absolutely love this, because pre-pandemic, meetings were often a conference room full of people plus me and a smattering of other remote folks as little boxes, which was a bit isolating. Now, as it was when we were all remote, everyone is a box on the screen, which makes me feel way more included, connected, and present in meetings than in the Before Times.
All in all, I have nothing but good things to say about how my company took a human-first approach during pandemic, and how it has handled the return to office (or not) now that we've reopened.
I've long had to do the remote call-in to an in-person meeting, and it is definitely much better now. My employer really emphasized how to be fair to people that are there by video, and set up the conference rooms well, and as long as people make a conscious effort, it works better than it used to. There's still the break-time conversations that get missed, but it's still easier. It was a concern for me that everyone-remote was not going to be parallel to some-remote, but it's been OK so far.
I like that "one Zoom, all Zoom" policy, as during the pandemic, team meetings were this really nice, democratic thing where it was everyone's face on the screen equally, and every team member getting their turn to update everyone, and I have to say that it really created a lovely team dynamic. It felt like the whole things about there being no culture when we're not all together was just a myth, because we were making an effort and it was really nice.
I liked this too! Nonverbal communication became way easier for me, and not having to think of my body image issues was invaluable.
Yes, exactly this! I feel way more connected to my team now than I did before the pandemic.
Ours has bungled it every step of the way. Astronomical turnover didn’t change their mind. Everyone getting Covid ( now for the second and third time) made them double down on “we just have to learn to live with it”. Even though productivity was higher when people worked from home, they forced everyone back to the office at the earliest legal moment and took away flexibility people had pre pandemic. I only still work from home because I actually quit and the negotiated to keep me. We have one HR person for a company of 500 people which I kind of think says it all.
The thought I keep coming back to is, are we about to have another wave of the big quit (I want that) or are we going to just further break down our last remaining boundaries with our jobs 🫠 also the infinite loop of limited sick time / getting sick at the office 🤡
Agree with all of this, but I will add that a benefit of an office is the compartmentalization of work and home. I have ADHD, and the physical space I'm in while I'm working makes a difference in how well I'm able to focus. I was working remotely for about a year, and it was difficult for me to make my home feel like a work space. I like the separation that a commute and office desk provide. (However, I admit I have the privilege of a 10-minute walk commute and my own office with a door! There have been no reported Covid cases transmitted in my office so far *knocks on wood*)
Yes, I'm a walk commuter, too, with ADHD! Having a separate office space super close to home has been really helpful, although I do wish I could work hybrid sometimes due to my chronic health issues (it's nice to be able to lay down for 20-30 minutes until medicine kicks in without anyone knowing.)
I worked remotely or hybrid for a couple of different companies pre-pandemic, and this could not be more spot-on. #2 was especially egregious, i.e. SOME employees have the right to full flexibility but there’s not much rhyme or reason as to why others do not. It was a recipe for terrible passive-aggressive hostility between some co-workers. All of these points resonate though; there are a lot of people in management who need to see this post. I’m happily fully remote now, and have no plans to return to any other arrangement.