{"id":33190,"date":"2025-08-30T16:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T16:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/33190\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T16:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T16:54:10","slug":"are-workers-really-enthusiastic-about-going-back-to-the-office-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/33190\/","title":{"rendered":"Are workers really enthusiastic about going back to the office? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to believe it\u2019s so long ago, but in March 2020 many of us were sent home<\/a> from our workplaces for what was expected to be a relatively short time. <\/p>\n

Half a decade later a good number of us still haven\u2019t gone back full time. Something that seemed just about impossible in February of that year \u2013 to consistently work from home rather than the odd day here and there \u2013 has become the norm for many people, even if they do have to go to the office a few days a week. <\/p>\n

That lack of interest in being in the office<\/a> has of course had a knock-on impact on numerous other businesses \u2013 whether it\u2019s the cafe that now sees little trade on Mondays and Fridays, or the clothes shop seeing less business now its customers don\u2019t need as much office wear. Another knock-on impact has been on the property business, with agents seeing a slowdown in office rents or sales, and fewer deals overall. <\/p>\n

So it\u2019s clearly in the property industry\u2019s interest to see workers back in the office. To that end, it is perhaps no surprise that we have seen agents pushing the importance of the office and, more generally, office life.<\/p>\n

The latest offering came from JLL on Friday. Its Workforce Preference Barometer 2025 survey \u201cpaints a picture of the Irish office as the centrepiece of thriving professional life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Irish workers, it says, have shown a \u201cdecisive preference for the office\u201d, with two-thirds of those surveyed having fixed office days and almost the same percentage feeling positive about return-to-office policies. <\/p>\n

There are some questions to be asked. For one thing, having fixed office days doesn\u2019t always come from an employee\u2019s own preferences. More often than not that decision comes from company management.<\/p>\n

Still, the 63 per cent of workers feeling good about return-to-office policies is notable given the brouhaha we have seen in recent weeks about AIB and Bank of Ireland\u2019s changes to its hybrid working<\/a> plans.<\/p>\n

The biggest issue with this survey, though, is the messenger. We have no doubt about the intellectual rigour of the survey. <\/p>\n

Yet is a property agent with a clear interest in people going back to the office the right firm to put out a report showing workers want to go back to the office?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to believe it\u2019s so long ago, but in March 2020 many of us were sent home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,2355,18,2357,19,17,25243,25977],"class_list":{"0":"post-33190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cantillon","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-hybrid-working","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-remote-working","15":"tag-return-to-the-office"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}