Joe Doakes from Como park emails:
Three years ago, an employee who wanted to work remotely was routinely denied. All employees must come to the office. For the last two years, an employee who wanted to come to the office was routinely denied. All employees must work remotely. Today, the business magazines are full of articles on The Lessons of Covid. How can remote work increase employee satisfaction while trimming business cost? What has management learned?
Nothing. Management has decided all employees in our office are “hybrid” employees meaning we must come into the office AND we must work from home. Why? It’s the worst of both worlds. I waste expensive gas and contribute to global warming while commuting plus I maintain a home office at my expense to subsidize my employer’s operations. Why not one or the other?
Ahhhh, the true answer is revealed by the survey asking how many days per week I want to commute. The true answer is some people might be working remotely from Florida and allowing them to work remotely from out-of-state wouldn’t be fair. Oh? What about employees who live in Hudson? Prescott? Mason City? Where’s the cut-off line? There is no cut-off line. You just have to come in two days per week, which makes it uncomfortable enough to work from far away.
It’s not about productivity, morale, efficiency, or customer service. It’s about waaaaah, it’s not Fair, I don’t Get To, waaaaah! Lessons of Covid? We don’t need no stinking lessons, we’re management. We do what we want.
Joe Doakes
Some companies have painted themselves into corners; unable to find employees locally to replace people lost “the great resignation “, they recruited remotely, far and wide.
Hard to uncross that line.
My wife has been working remotely for over a year now. In November, limited numbers of people could go back to the office, but they had to sign in first. In December, noting that productivity had actually increased during the plandemic, a survey sent out under the CEO’s signature, asked employees to indicate their preference for working at home or remotely. Part of the interest, was tied to the fact that the building that my wife was working in, was being leased by the company and the lease was coming up for renewal. In January, they announced a hybrid model of x days in office and/or x days remotely. A follow on suggested that those who working remotely, could continue to do so, but if they came into the office for working, they would not have a dedicated desk, but would have a work space. During the past year, two of her colleagues have moved; one to Winona to take care of her ailing mother and one to California, for a similar reason. Bottom line: the company was able to move everyone into main building, with dedicated offices, but wife can work remotely until she retires in 3 years, and the company saves how ever much their lease and overhead cost them in the leased building.
There are two parts to the story here.
First is the fact that many people have relocated during Covid-19 and have discovered the benefits of it in terms of their personal well-being
The second part is that Covid-19 relocation has also opened the doors again to repopulate area’s that have seen an exodus of young adults.
The one thing not mentioned is renumeration. Companies, and I have seen quite a few, offer remote working but with a lower or reduced salary. Which is weird…. somebody working from home, means one spot in the office gone, quite the saving per employee and yet offering reduced or lower wages, while expecting the same productivity….
Anecdotally — remote working has increased the price of real estate in lake country and out-state in general.
JD, my friend always insisted that his employees be located near and present at one of his cites. Until about 3 years when he could not find qualified people willing to move where his locations are. Now, unless you have to actually perform a physical task and use company equipment (like lab for example), you can be located anywhere in the world, as long as work gets done. Big corps are different. Opening Pandora’s box on working from home, they gave kids yet another reason to hop around. Experience drain and loss of knowledge will continue ad-infinitum and I do not see how current culture can reverse the decline. We are headed for the stone age where everyone knows everything but can do nothing.
I’ve worked from home since 2015 when my company added “global” to my responsibilities, my management was switched to St. Louis, and my internal customers were spread across Europe, South Africa and the Middle East – and I only had nominal connections to the Minneapolis office. The company didn’t like the proposal at first but the EVP in Toronto talked it over with the VPs in St. Louis and Minneapolis, and it was approved. I’ve been very productive – as have all my co-workers who were 100% moved to WFH status in about 3 weeks time two years ago this month.
Now I’ve been asked to use my marketing skills to help sell “hybrid” working, even though I typically don’t do HR-type communications. Seems that more than half our existing staff don’t want to return to the office, and hardly any of the people we’re recruiting want to. There’s been no talk – at least that I’ve heard – of lower pay for working remote; I suspect that’s largely a result of the NY investment houses not wanting to pay NYC salaries to their brokers and buyers who have opted for Idaho.
That genie is going to be hard to force back into the hybrid bottle.
NW, not just hard, impossible. Not with the lack of talent out there.
Let’s be honest, there is a specific segment of the workforce that wishes to return to the office because they’ve spent a majority of their lives grinding it out in white-collar industries in the pursuit of the perks of management and upper-management.
The corner office, the primo parking spot, the ability to summon your team to your meeting room for a status update, working from home takes the air out of all of the corporate rewards so many dedicate their lives to.
I for one believe that divorcing work and the office from your identity is healthy as it causes us to look intrinsically at what gives our lives meaning.
jpa;
To your point, four years ago, my sister was offered a nice position for a Florida company, which she accepted. My brother in law, went into his boss’s office to resign his position as a Financial Analyst. His boss replied; “The hell you’re resigning. You’re going to work remotely. That way, I’m solving two problems, I retain a good employee and free up some office space that I need.” Until the plandemic, he had to come up for a couple of meetings, but otherwise, all’s well. Bonus they pay no state income taxes, the overall cost of living is less and they are living in the free state of Florida, run by a REAL Governor.
And Emery, I’m calling BS on your claim that companies are reducing the salaries of existing employees for working at home. With all of the open positions out here, I doubt that anyone would accept that and I further doubt that those companies are dumb enough to do that. But hey, if you have proof and the companies that you mention are public, please let me know who they are so I can check my investments. Stupid companies like that, don’t belong in my portfolio.