I get that there are a lot of reasons why the leadership is enforcing RTO (which I also don’t agree with) but I cannot believe that anyone with a sane mind can debate whether we’re more productive working from home or from the office.
Of course we’re more productive at home. No commute means more time to do the work, working in a more pleasant environment also helps us do the work better. It goes without saying that there are far less distractions while working from the privacy of our homes. There will always be slackers who will take advantage of the situations, but we also have slackers not do9ng anything within the office space.
I just wish the leadership could be honest for once and admit that the reason why they want us back have nothing to do with our productivity or with the quality of our work.
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Most managers didn't get promoted by sitting alone at home, so they think this is the way...
It ain't just local government. The marching orders came all the way from the top.
It’s water cooler talk!! It’s been a priority from corporate, right? Make sure you get it on your review. -_-
I barely chatted with anyone for 2 years. Focused. Then I was shoved back into the office and I end up distracted for a good third of the days I go in by people stopping by to chat about absolutely nothing to do with my work. So for the last 2 years I worked 10+ hr days easy; now it’s 8 hrs daily minus the several chitchat hours.
While we're talking about RTO - I always like when they trott out the "X number of people" never stopped working from the office. So what? Too bad for them - I hope they find jobs where they can work from home.
They are not debating whether we are more productive at home vs. office because they don’t really know how to measure productivity. And they don’t know how to measure spontaneous creativity either.
Look at the reasoning all the CEOs provide. Collaboration. If you take employees that are native to digital collaboration (growing up with it), they will typical perform better remote than those who spend years collaborating in-person. Those in-person do not have the ability to leverage digital tools nearly as well. Look at all the parodies of non-digital natives fumbling Zoom and other basic collaboration tools. They just don't get it.
Pre-COVID, I felt like I was more productive at work than at home. But at the time I was only working remotely 1 or 2 (at max) days a week. I also had an assigned cube that wasn't tiny with 1/2 walls.
With COVID, I got used to working from home. Now, when I go into the office I don't feel like I'm as productive b/c I have to setup whatever cube I land in -- they're all slightly different etc. The upside is my team shows up on the same day so we get the in-person interaction and discussion.
Reading this from in the office with one person around me.
Local governments and WF real estate pushes us to RTO. Don’t spend money where you work unless you work and live in the same city/town.