Create a problem (mandated time in office), then waste inordinate amounts of time, energy, and money developing the solution.
And before anyone wants to spout off about a return to pre-pandemic conditions, I would like to say that before March 2020, I could work at home any time the need arose. My hours, my location, my badge swipes, my IP address weren’t being captured for purposes of senior leadership developing a better mousetrap.
Given the cr-ppy state of the country, why are some orgs going to 4 days?? Is our morale not low enough already? What happened to treating employees like adults?
I’ll say one thing. I’ll be ready for the Global Employee survey next year.
This assumes that you actually work in the same building as your manager or anybody else who might tell you to do something. Which a lot of us don’t.
Full time remote for three full years prior to the pandemic. And no horse sh*t with mandatory cameras-on meetings, either, everything was done over conference call.
It seems like the real motivation behind RTO is to avoid creating records of conversations that could expose the firm to liability during an investigation. When we work remotely, every interaction is documented and stored, but in the office, requests can be made off the record. There’s also a huge gap between the frank (and sometimes blunt or even rude) way things are said verbally versus the carefully polished tone of official emails. Altogether, it feels less about collaboration and more about reducing transparency and enabling questionable practices again.
I would love to go back to Pre-Covid days, where I was Full Time remote, treated like an Adult and a Professional.