re: Return to office / employees quitting

Remote work doesn't work well in some industries like Chemical Manufacturing and Refineries. Some roles can work fully remote with no issues but the majority of the roles in those places need to be on site or at least on a hybrid schedule. I worked remotely for a couple weeks and maybe a day a week for about 2 months and have been on site since. I rather be on site since I need to be in the field a good bit and often have to lead training sessions. Remote training sessions are painful to sit through much less lead.

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Not just a little bit...significantly more productive.

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Yep. When you WFH, you know that once you get your shite done (and learn how to manage your calendar), you are then free to frick off. So, they put the hammer down and get their work done and done well.

Training young employees is the big problem long-term imo. Speaking for my own company/industry, it’s not that hard to train them on role-specific tasks remotely, but the lack of learning through osmosis by listening to superiors’ conversations, calls, meetings, etc. will be hard to deal with as the younger folks move into those roles in a few years.

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We now have one week out of every month a specific set of teams travels in and either does site visits or goes to the office

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It's cheaper to effectively pay for travel and hotels and per diems for the whole company one week a month than to rent more office space?

sure. that’s a fair take.

part of me gets it, part of me doesn’t. i work less than 3 miles from my office and it’s on a beautiful state of the art campus with nice amenities. For my specific role, relationships are important, so being in person pretty often helps.

on the other side of things. right now, especially in some fields. it’s an employees market. so if they want more pay or want more wfh flexibility. chances are they can find another job willing to do give them that.

my company made the mistake of ignoring inflation for 2 years and our salary was already middle of the road or not “competitive” for most younger employees. So, they are leaving in droves. I get it. My shite is all updated on LinkedIn and if i got a home run offer I’d bounce too. Luckily, to compensate for the non competitive salaries, our company has drastically increased wfh flexibility. It was 1 maybe 2 days a week, but you generally had to have a reason. Now it’s 2-3 days a week, no questions asked.

I would caution those making wfh their priority. Just because you are working from home, doesn’t mean you can’t be micromanaged. The software and tools are there and likely in place. So, do your homework and ask other employees about before making that leap. I’ve heard horror stories from colleagues who made that mistake.

I’d quit if my company made me go to an office

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Remote work doesn't work well in some industries like Chemical Manufacturing and Refineries.

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Yeah, there's no way I could do my job remotely. I would love a couple days at home to be more productive, but our boss in this unit wouldn't tolerate it. He has to have his thumb on everybody everyday.

many in my office were at home for months for covid. the honest ones said it was great bc I could run any errands, mow grass etc...the liars said they got more work accomplished lol

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They should give people a pay cut if they work remote.

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A pay cut for costing the company less money, that makes sense

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I understand but for me it's the opposite. Worked remotely for 1 month, kind of cool in the beginning. After the 2nd week, bad habits started to pop up. TV was a distraction, music or personal possessions were a distraction. Walking the dog got extended in time. Useless time getting up looking for a snack. Also not a fan of working in boxers and t shirt. The lunch break would be 1.5-2 hours long b/c "the sofa is staring at me begging for a nap". Stuff like that. I rather drive to the office and interact with people.

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my issue was budding alcoholism

it's very easy to justify cracking your first beer at 4pm, especially if you've already got your workout in and you don't have to deal with beer shits in a shared office bathroom the next day.