"Return To The Office" Policies

So, now that we are 3 years past the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a sizeable number of companies are beginning to demand people "be back in the office".  For many good reasons, workers are pushing back.  

Here's the first thing about "back to the office" policies.  The vast majority of them are little more than a return to "how do I know work is being done if I can't see a bum in a seat every day?" management.  While there are definitely business contexts where the work requires someone to be physically present (e.g. you're assembling physical parts on an assembly line, you work in retail, etc.).  

So-called "bum-in-a-chair" managers argue that people being out of the office means that problems don't get solved as quickly, there's less opportunity for "collaboration", "communication" etc.  Yet, they ignore that for 3 years, a lot of people worked remotely just fine, and online platforms that facilitate communication worked out pretty well.  

Does managing a team that works "by remote control" turn out to be different from managing a team of people in an office?  Yes, in some respects it is.  If you're a manager, at the end of the day, it's still your job to bring people together when needed, and to help your team achieve their objectives.  

What companies need to acknowledge and deal with is the fact that people are asserting their right to a degree of self-determination in their work.  Over the last few decades, workplaces have increasingly erased any sense of personal identity in workspaces.  Cubicle farms are the beginning of the fall, and so-called open plan offices with open desk arrangements, or worse yet, unassigned "hotel" desk arrangements mean that people going to the office feel absolutely no sense of ownership of their workspace. 

Would you want to go in to sit at a random desk daily where you aren't even allowed so much as a couple of ornaments to make the space feel a bit like it's your own? I wouldn't.  

Then there is the hellish environment that these spaces create.  There's constant noise and activity, and for anybody who has to concentrate to accomplish their job, it's a losing battle.  Out come the noise cancelling headphones - anything to create some kind of barrier between yourself and the chaos around you. 

I don't care what gimmicks you add to make the workplace seem "fun" - whether that's games rooms, cafes, or "privacy booths".  At best you're putting a bandage over the sucking chest wound that is your workspaces suck.

Workers are pushing back because when they work from home, they have some control over their workspace, they have a bit more privacy than sitting at seemingly endless rows of desks with no privacy, and a world of distractions.  

From a worker's perspective, they've already shown that they are perfectly capable of being productive without sitting in the office 8 hours a day - for the last 3 years no less. Workers are asserting a very simple demand for a degree of reasonable autonomy and control over when and how they do their jobs.  They have learned that not only can they do most, if not all of their jobs without "going into the office", they are realizing that their quality of life is better. 

If businesses want people "in the office" then things need to change. Workspaces need to become something people want to go to. They have to be places that people actually want to experience. 

Second, plan on compensating people for the time they spend commuting to / from your workplace.  Yes, that should be paid time - if I have to spend half an hour to an hour each way getting to and from work - especially when the alternative is a few seconds walk down the hall at home, then yes, some compensation is justified.  IMO, we should be insisting that employers pay people for commute time and costs regardless  of the work.