Enforced return to office leads workers to seek new jobs | Working from home

35 comments

1. Yup. Last week my boss slashed £400 off my wage with a smile on his face by increasing my office days. 

   Now, he don’t owe me shit. But I’m absolutely going to go get paid the same shit wage at somewhere with one office days a month. 

2. Which is the entire point for some organisations: it avoids the complexity and costs of making people redundant.

3. Fair enough. There have been plenty of people smugly relishing other people being ordered back to in person, in office, working, even if it doesn’t affect them personally. They just don’t like anyone getting something they don’t.

   A common line from those types is basically going ‘nah nah nee nah nah, if you don’t like it, then go and find another job….’.

   Well, yeah, people are. I expect those people will be making sure it’s written in to their contracts now as well.

4. This seems like a great way to lose members of staff you have who are good enough to get jobs elsewhere and be left with the ones who can’t.

5. My place keeps poaching good staff from our competitors with highly flexible working. It’s a nice quality of life benefit.

6. Good. This job market has had no attrition for months now. I’ll happily take someone’s job if they don’t want to go in 5 days a week. No judgement on them, but I have no problem with doing so and them wanting to do something else does me a favour in the near term.

7. It’s the intention. It’s a sneaky way to do redundancies

8. The company I work for made 1/3 of their UK staff redundant this year, and moved the jobs to India.

   We work with people in offices around the World in different timezones, so it’s not unusual to have a meeting at 7am to meet Asian time, and a meeting at 7pm to meet US time.

   Previously they gave us the flexibility to work from home which is fine for meetings at odd hours. But now they are also saying that we need to be in the office 4 days a week because “company culture”. If we don’t comply then it’s “bye! bye!” as the CEO said in the recent all-hands presentation and Q&A session.

   This is the same company “culture” that sacked people, broke up teams, shipped the work to another country, and then expected people to do more work with fewer people and insane hours.

9. This was me. I WfH happily for 2 years (I joined after Covid). It was basically agreed I’d go in every now and then, which I did. After 2 years they decided to start enforcing a long unenforced 2-Day-A-Week rule.

   So I started looking, it’s taken me 7 months but I start a new job next week.

   I don’t even mind going into the office. I will be at my new job. But if one of the few things in the roles favour is WfH, don’t take it away and then be micro-managing dicks about it. I’ll either look for another remote job or a more fulfilling one that’s also hybrid.

10. This is just constructive dismissal with extra steps.

11. I work in a team with people around Europe. The offices in a few countries tried to enforce this last year, with a 3 day in the office minimum, and my boss had to beg the local managers to make an exception for his team members, because we were going to lose quite a few people who were suddenly going to have to do long commutes a few times a week, and many of whom had joined since 2020 and had been almost totally remote with no issues.

    It is counter productive.

12. Return to office doesn’t even make sense as a business decision. Since going fully remote, my (previously) London-based employer hasn’t hired a single person who is based within the M25. Instead they are able to hire the best people from across the entire country.

13. I cannot be the only one who actively asks if staff are required to come in; it’s such a red flag for me if everyone works from home.

14. Really, how difficult is this to understand. Talent will gravitate towards the organisations which offer the most flexibly to their workforce. You can “force” people back to the office but in the long run it will be detrimental to you and your competitors will be in the lead (if they are more flexible than you).

15. Working fully remote, I see the benefits of being in the office. But also the flexibility of an understanding employer to deal with family emergencies, doctors appointments or even moving your hours where acceptable is worth a major salary increase by itself.

    The worst of all worlds is a hybrid policy where everyone comes in on separate days and you sit on Teams calls in the office

16. They’re essentially admitting that the way they’ve worked for the last four years was never fit for purpose.

    Not a good look.

17. what couldn’t be attractive about

    extra 2+ hours unpaid hours commuting

    Extra Petrol/public transport costs

    enforced extra childcare provision

    Subsided parking if you’re lucky

    noise and distraction of open plan office

    forced to bring packed lunch or costly pret garbage

18. These concerns are so weird. My whole company has been remote since covid. My boss lives in Kentucky, she couldn’t care less if I was in an office or not.

19. Damn think I’m the only person in the UK who doesn’t mind working from an office

20. Many people I know who work from home become quite defensive at the idea of returning to the office. While I understand the desire for job flexibility and see its appeal, I firmly believe that remote work can foster complacency and laziness. Additionally, it can isolate employees and hinder their future career development.

21. Good. Fuck office life. I ain’t going back to that shit. I’d rather deliver pizzas on my bike then go back to full time office drone.

22. If companies care about retention, they should be more focused on what makes employees happy, like flexible work options

23. My employer spent an insane amount of money on new offices….in 2019.

    Now they’re foaming at the mouth to get people back, instead of working from home and no one is giving in to them

24. I’ve got asthma that is severely reactive to viruses and have been forced back into the office 5 days a week. For a job that can be done very easily remotely.. since I do remote IT support.. Not cool.

25. managers gotta manage. doesn’t matter if your best staff leave they’re still going to get paid a lot to manage the shit left until of course it gets too much for them and they go on long term sick.

26. In my field the wfh has dried up completely. My company is a 100% in the office.
    Businesses is becoming tough, the business I’m in have not recovered to pre COVID profits. They trying to sell business but there are no buyers.
    There are maybe 2% of people in my field now that wfh.

27. My employer started a phased return to work 2 years ago which I didn’t mind at first as for full time staff it worked out about 5 days a month and for part time 2-3 days.

    But this year they changed it so its like 12 days a month for full time and 6 of course for part time and also moved our office which isn’t much further away but in the part of town with no parking, heavy rush hour traffic, far less public transport so means to get here for 8.30am for start of shift I have to be awake around 7am at latest and its only 2 and a half miles from where I live then get on a bus with kids that shout, play loud music kick chairs etc to get to office and then spend all day on phone getting abuse from customers.

    It’s good pay just it’s hard enough doing the job when working from home but now I am not home till at least 6pm and if I have the office the next day have to go to bed around 9pm to get a good nights sleep.

    I also broke my leg badly this year and find myself extra exhausted due to the early mornings and my weight has gone up 2 stone within 3 months of the changes of days in the office.

28. I mean, why is this a shock? More expense, more of your day spent on work, etc… for no extra pay

    If they want people back in office, they should offer some tradeoff

29. Don’t they realise that every company went bust pre-Covid because everyone worked in an office?

    At least that’s what you’d assume based on Reddit’s opinion on the matter…..

30. There’s a reason there’s been an increase in people wanting jobs in local government. Hybrid working guaranteed and flexible hours.

31. If, as we are told,we are in a ‘Climate Emergency’, it should be compulsory for employers to have WFH as an option for all workers whose jobs can be done at home. Just imagine the reduction in emissions from hundreds of thousands of daily commutes to work ending overnight

32. It’s not being in the office that’s the problem. It’s the time and expense of the commute. If I could magically teleport there for no cost each morning it would be ok.

33. Employers should be allowed to demand all employees go into the office.
    Since Convid we’ve created a tossers charter where spoilt ungreatful little Turds demand the right to work from home. Do what those who have given you a job want or go work elsewhere

34. Yeah I wonder how many of those WFH jobs are waiting for them.

35. Good luck trying to find someone paying you to watch Netflix.

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