What would get you "back to the office"?
There are a lot of news articles about "back to the office", but they recirculate the same bad ideas. Let's provide some new ideas for the media to circulate. It may also have the effect of making the office less terrible.
I would like my work computer to do Windows updates lightning quick in the office. It currently takes weeks, in or out of the office. Stopping in for a day makes no difference, so there is no point. Now, if there was a point, I would go in.
What would get you in the office?
Honestly, a much much higher salary. There are lots of things I'm going to have to deal with if I were to go back to the office; namely heavy traffic, transportation expenses, added stress, clothes (I mean, I'd have to use office-appropriate clothes whereas nowadays I have to be presentable only when I have meetings), food, waking up and preparing earlier than usual (sometimes up to 3 hours earlier!) and getting home late which gives me less free time, etc.
They're going to have to offer a really lucrative salary for me to even consider returning to the office.
A higher salary would be of help to cover additional expeses related to coming to the office.
However, we also need a nice office to come to that needs to be as comfy as the one home.
You know what? I never even thought about that. I agree 100%. That's gonna be a tall order for companies, though. I mean, different people probably have different requirements to be comfortable.
That's why the whole open office and/or cubicle farm office needs to die. Yes, it will take more investment, but go back to everyone actually having their own small office that they can make their own and make comfortable. This isn't hard.
Not to disagree with your sentiment, but the economics of space and construction costs would be a hard sell here. Plus, many managers don't think employees deserve comfort and privacy thus the push to return to the office.
Oh, I agree entirely. I didn't mean to insinuate that what I was suggesting was reasonable and/or something they would choose to invest in. Just sharting out ideas over here. Cheers.
Yep. This is the answer.
And by much higher, I mean on the order of 100% raise as in double my current salary. Even then it’s be a hard decision.
I currently have a pretty nice salary as a senior engineer. I make waaaay more than the average and I work remotely. But even then... I still wonder what it'll take. Because right now, there are positions that double/triples that AND is remote.
Like a job that's 200k remote versus 250k in-office? Pretty easy to pick.
Some quick maths suggest that the average citizen in Western countries spends an hour commuting a day. Which is 260 hours a year for a 5 day a week job, or about a month's worth of 8 hour days.
So, in addition to all that other pointless crap you mentioned, add on enough salary to bring you one month closer to retirement every year.
Adding onto this, the ability to choose to not come in and/or come and go as needed. In 5 years I haven’t had my kids in day care and it’s important for me to be able to take them to school and pick them up.
Nothing. Quality of life of working from home cannot be replicated. Or the office would have to be in my street, which is pretty unrealistic
Nothing for me also.
The flexibility to do things when you have a few minutes (like breaks) is worth a lot to me, it makes me more productive and less stressed about time management.
Plus I have cats and no other humans here so it’s a quiet, comfortable, loving environment, and no job can provide that for me.
Looks like someone just needs some more team bonding activities and pizza parties with their team! Nothing builds a loving environment like a strong team!
Team? I believe you mean family
🤮
Sorry I’ve been offline for a bit and came back to this and couldn’t help myself.
Haha thanks friend have a great day!
I used to work in an office which was doen the street once. It still sucked.
It does not solve every other issue that work environment can bring, that's for sure
Could become a road sweeper?
How about a raise?
I was talking to my wife the other day, my company would have to basically double my salary to get me to go into the office. Work life balance during WFH is actually balanced, I actually like my job and the company I'm at, I like the people I work with, I'm more productive and less distracted at home, I get to spend time with my daughter and take care of her, there's really no downside to WFH for employees that want to WFH.
Working in the office? In addition to the normal costs (clothes, food, transportation, etc), losing 2-3 hours per day commuting, paying for childcare or having my wife not work, getting a second car or my wife not having a way to get to work or take our daughter to appointments, and plenty of other inconveniences and big changes.
Working in an office is an outdated concept for most office jobs now. 100% of my job can and is done remote, even if I had colleagues in my office, a quick teams call or message is just as easy as pulling them away from their work with a question in person. It would take a very very large raise to get me to go into an office, and I would likely be looking for a remote job asap using that newly inflated salary.
There ya go everyone has a price.
Oh, definitely. Pay me enough to offset the purely monetary costs, plus more for the stress of having to get business dressed every day, drive on my own time to get there and pack, time needed for additional preparations like making lunch, and the need for another car or have my wife stay at home? I would do it in that case, not having to worry about paying for things would make my wife and my lives so much easier even with me driving to the office every day.
The problem is, the amount needed to do that is too high for most employers to want to pay and want to pay the minimum needed in most cases. That worked for a long time since very few companies had full WFH jobs so people didn't really have a choice, now we do
It would have to be a massive raise. At least double my current salary. Nothing else would have me even consider it.
Agree, people here in their high horse acting like wfm is their standing ground to the company. All big companies have to do is dangle a carrot like up the compensation for the year they want everyone back and amortize the comp for the next few years and boom everyone is back.
Absolutely nothing. No amount of money or threats or “perks”. I work in software and my entire career has been built on flexible, mostly-remote work; particularly creating & leading remote, geographically distributed teams. I get the best talent no matter where they are, and use tools like Slack to work seamlessly in real-time and asynchronously across many disparate time zones. This wasn’t some new thing for me when COVID hit, this is how I’ve operated for more than 20 years.
I don’t mind going places for specific purposes: visiting clients, classified/sensitive discussions that can’t be transmitted, on-site work (like installations, research, etc), or team-building events like lunches, dinners, etc… but under no circumstances will I waste my time commuting to some specific ”office” daily just because. I am an efficiency expert and I will not tolerate having my time or my teams time wasted by incompetent, out-of-touch multi-millionaires that don’t realize the 80s ended 30 years ago.
I agree 1,000%. I have been remote for the last five-ish years; I can count the amount of times I've actually needed to go into an office on one hand. At home I have: a giant ultrawide monitor; a quiet, private, office; gigabit internet; dog. How would I be more productive commuting to an office to listen to sales people banging gongs and ringing bells all day while I work in a cubicle on a single 19" monitor? All my teammates are in other cities and states, my code is checked into GitHub and mostly deployed to IaaS - and even our "on-prem" infrastructure is in another state.
Preach it brother. I'm also in software and I started looking for a new job the minute I got the email calling us 100% back to the office. Fuck you Alan and your milion dollar office
preach!
Absolutely nothing. I don’t think even money could do it for me at this point. Aside from all the obvious reasons to hate commuting and then sitting for 8 hours doing maybe 2 hours of work, I have never been healthier.
I have chronic migraines. Well, I used to(?). I haven’t had a single bad migraine in years. Yeah, I’ve still had a couple in the last few years, but they didn’t put functioning at a complete standstill. I wasn’t stuck in bed, hoping for death. The lack of artificial light is a big deal. The not having to stress myself out by commuting, then being stuck there is also another
On top of that, I eat 1000% better, easier. I can exercise instead of commuting. There’s literally no benefit to working in an office for me, but it has a metric fuckton of drawbacks.
This is funny, and something I've thought about and talked about with coworkers a lot. When I first started permanent WFH at the beginning of COVID, I used to feel really guilty about doing random chores and stuff around the house during the workday. I felt like I always had to be "on" trying to busy myself or whatever, even if there wasn't really work to do.
Over time as we have done a partial return to office and I realized I do even less work on the days we go in, I have done a lot of reflection on the way we used to work when we were 100% in the office pre-covid. My conclusion is that on any given day most people were doing between 1-4 hours of actual work, and the rest of the time was spent wandering around, bullshitting, taking walks, browsing the Internet, etc. And everyone thought that was just fine. But a solid half of most days was literally wasted doing nothing productive at all.
So these days I have shifted my attitude to one that is focused on getting my assigned work done, and being somewhat flexible on meeting times and when I can accomplish things. In return I don't feel guilty if I need to mow the lawn or do some laundry during the day. I have a smartphone and I get notifications. If there is something urgent I'll drop what I'm doing to handle it. If it can wait, I finish up then take care of it. It's greatly helped my sanity and I think it's improved my work, too. We do go to the office once a week or so but I honestly plan to get almost nothing accomplished on those days and consider it a bonus if we do get work done.
I typed out a long reply, and idk where it went but the highlights are
I saw the bullshit of it back in the 90s when I started working. I had MANY arguments with my boomer mother about it. Of course her opinion was shut up, put my head down, and do whatever they say, to keep my job. My opinion was fuck that fire me.
I have never had a job (for someone else) where I couldn’t 100% complete it, accurately in 2 hours a day, max. Often less.
I’m self employed now, and I have never been healthier, happier, or more mentally stable. I have two chronic conditions, that can be/are debilitating, which have never been better controlled. I know I can’t be alone on that.
WFH is 100% better for everyone, and those that WANT to go back to the office, should work that out with their employer. WFH has shown to improve ever metric on the workers lives, and not to mention the reduction in pollution and road congestion.
How about a raise?
Read my second sentence. I literally couldn’t have spoon fed it to you any more.
That bunny attack though
Why do you have such a hard on for people going back to the office?
Trying to make people understand all perspective to avoid echo chambers. Reading this thread you’d think everyone will March hand in hand to wfm when reality is that everyone will cave at some point which is exactly what the post is asking( the answer is mostly for money though)
A couple of things:
My employer spent the past ~10 years de-personalising our offices, and now they wonder why people don't like to hang out in their sterile 'clean' building.
Ha the shared kitchen responsibilities is such a good call.
Damn we were putting up with so much bullshit in the office
32 hr work week, a dedicated office with a door and all my Mac peripherals, a big pay increase, and benefits to cover child care.
The office being within a 30 second walk of my home
Also no one else being there.
Also being in my home.
Also getting to work in pants.
So I guess nothing, then 👌
Free or affordable, clean, safe public transit that takes me no more than 20 minutes from the time I set foot out my front door to setting foot in the office, and a team/company that doesn't care if I decide to work the day remotely for any reason whatsoever. I also like the other guy's comment about the workplace being a nice, inviting place to be since my cube is barren and probably 20+ years old.
Also the rest of y'all need to stay home when you get sick instead of bringing that shit into the office.
Nothing pisses me off more than hearing some dude hacking up his lungs just across the hallway.
I'll call in sick a few days later just because, and say there must be something going around. At least it will get me a few days away from the Sickies so I can potentially avoid getting it.
I can't believe it's been so many years and there still aren't any laws regarding working in the office while sick. For office jobs it just makes zero sense, in this age they can all easily work from home more or less as seen during covid, isn't worth it not to have a plague of common colds every damn winter?
For real, I have not gotten sick since I started working from home. I did get COVID once going to a company sponsored event with 1000 people, but I call that "going into the office". Other than that, it's been pretty nice being healthy every day
Some cubicle farms are just sad. Coffee stains from 20 years ago, along with old fart smells.
I love staying at home when I am "too sick for the commute, but not so sick to answer a couple emails."
Careful what you wish for regarding cubicles. I would kill for a cubicle in our office. When companies implement these modern collaboration space ideas, it's all about hotel desks, movable workstations, short or no dividers and open air spaces.
Having a cubicle to myself was fucking awesome. Now there is no privacy, no space to call my own, no place to simply have a phone conversation without everyone within 50 feet of me hearing every word.
Compensation for the time and cost of commuting back and forth, paid meal, free coffee and snacks, and additional sick days from using public transport and ultimately catching more sicknesses.
And even then, it doesn't give me back the extra time I can spend with my kids.
How about 4 day work week? Would you be ok to go back to the office then?
That would help, but just that single incentive would be a no for me.
As in WFH 1 day per week, or same salary but only 4 days of working? In either case, no. The main people pushing for mandatory in-office is landlords who are freaking out because their office space is no longer in demand, and shitty managers with the mentality of "if I can't see you working, then you're not working." There are also those awful people who want to go back into the office because they miss the drama and messing with people and distracting people while they work
Work 4 days a week reduced work hours same wage. But in the office.
As a minimum? Pay me for the commute. I'm only doing it because of management so they should compensate me.
I'd settle for a 4 day week of 8 hour days
A valid reason for a start.
Paid commute (time and expenses) and free lunch.
I would go one further and say commute time paid at 1.5 rates, cause of the hours it needs to be done
And the hazard! Cars are super dangerous, and odds are good that if you're commuting, there are some nearby, even if you're doing bus, train, or bike.
Commute is part of working hours (with a reasonable limit)
If they expect you to commute to the office every day, then you clock in when you leave your house, and clock out when you get home (assuming you're not stopping between to do personal errands).
Let’s be real. This is unworkable. A fixed “commute” pay sure but
the company has no way to know how long it takes to commute each day
the company does not choose where you choose to live
your distance from office would be a hiring factor - just a mess for discrimination lawsuits.
I am for the risk of the commute not falling entirely on the employee. But “job pays for commute” always strikes as a silly proposal.
62% more pay
Oddly specific
1 million dollars every time I have to be on the highway so 2 miles per day hahaha
And if you were in one of those companies pushing hard to get people back in the office, what pay cut would you be willing to take to make your job fully remote? (I swear I'm not in HR! )
I've taken 3 pay cuts so far. Had 3 pay increases since covid forced wfh and each time it's been less than inflation. I haven't pushed for more because I've been left alone and am one of the last employees here still 100% wfh.
I'm on salary, I already had somewhat flexible hours when I was in the office, had to start at a specific time but could leave when the bulk of my work was done and then would log on from from at the end of the day and tidy up anything that came in after I left. It wasn't uncommon for me to only be in the office for 3-4 hours on a typical day and my commute was 45mins to an hour, so time wise I now I spend ~50% less time at work.
An immense raise, free mass transit to the office and a free hot lunch every day would be the beginning of negotiations
Yeah I'm not even sure that'd do it for me. Like theoretically if they paid me $1M/y I'd do it, but then only until I earned enough to work at a better job or retire and just make FOSS shit
Paid commute and a separate room.
Ah yeah, I wrote that it should be within 10 minutes of my flat + seperate room but yeah paid commute (frome my home door back to my home door within 8 hours) would also be OK. I could try to work remotelly if I'm on a train or just listen to a podcast.
Money
A hell of a lot of it.
Nice try, Susan from HR!
Given "lots more money" is prevalent in the responses, I hope Susan in HR is reading this.
Double my salary and we'll talk. Include my travel time in my working hours or I'll do it anyway.
But also I took a fully remote position to not have to deal with the return to office stuff so realistically nothing would get me back to an office.
Exactly what I came to say
They'd have to pay for quite a few things...
Why Uber rides as opposed to, say, having the office (and your home) in a good location such that you can efficiently use public transit? IMO that's the ideal. Having to use a car is wasteful.
Uber has an option for electric cars, so it could be less wasteful.
Public transit in the American region of my company's HQ is known to be horrible and borderline non functional.
No. I went remote 11 years ago. I have no intention of going back to an office ever again.
3x base salary at least. No-thought commute, so maybe provide transportation for me. I currently live what is about 1.5hrs away each way now and there isn't a public transportation option.
Commute time should count towards my "8 hour work day". No distracting desk drive bys. Provided breakfast and lunch or an optional lunch stipend or whatever to cover if I go somewhere near the office.
Not sounding great for the company? It isn't meant to. It would be nearly impossible to get me to go back to the office, as it should be.
I'm not being unreasonable. I am at least twice as productive since working from home and even simple internal reports can prove that. I'm also 2-3x happier and less stressed, nothing can really replace that.
My doc asked me to buy a thing that graphs my blood pressure. I happened to be using it before and after I quit my increasingly toxic RTO job and landed a tricky interview with a job with 'remote except where legally required' in its union contract.
The graphing is neat. It goes steadily up, up, up, up and then goes back down starting on the day I quit.
If my whole team was based out of the same office and we coordinated the days we were there to have in person meetings. I don't see any reason to be 100% in the office, though 1-2 days a week in this scenario would be nice.
My team is spread out all over the place, so it makes no sense to go to the office just to be on WebEx the whole time anyways.
I'm in this boat too. Being at the office feels so fucking pointless. One other guy on my team in my city, but I haven't seen him in months since when I'm there he's not and vice versa. It's so silly.
If the commute was considered part of working hours, and i am able to commute outside of rush hours for a clear benefit in productivity.
For example: start work at 9, commute to work at 10, be at the office for useful meetings or other collaborative work, return home at 2, and finish up work for the day.
An office in my city and within 10-15 minutes walking distance.
A shit-tonne more money. Like, more than the extra time spent travelling to and from work worth of salary.
Honestly, you are paid by the hour, so why not travel hours?
Worked for a guy back in the early 2010s that paid for travel to the work site, was pretty rad
That brings some weird factors into play. If I'm slightly more qualified to work a job than another candidate, but I live across town and the next best guy lives down the street, it'll be hard to justify choosing me over a factor unrelated to my performance.
Also, what if I move way into the country or the next major city over? (I live in Denver, and it's not uncommon for people to commute from Colorado Springs). If that adds 2+ hours of daily round trip commuting to my day over something that was 100% my choice, it's not really fair to the employer either. I'm not a "think about the businesses" type normally, but that is kinda BS for someone to make a decision that increases someone else's costs (or decreases their output) by 25%
Yeah, there of course should be a limit. But these things take your time and time is money.
Include my commute time in my 7 hours of work a day. I’m not driving out of my own love of it, I’m driving because you’re requiring me to be in the office so it should count as time on your clock, not mine.
Also pay for my parking at work, and my petrol to get there and back.
Time. Can't spend 3 hours a day commuting to work.
Nothing. I would need to be compensated for my commute and honestly I would need a driver so I could work on the commute. And the salary I would need to justify working in an office I'm just not worth.
So any company willing to meet me here clearly has bad management so I don't want to work for them anyway.
Short answer: Nothing
Long answer: Actually, nothing
Before the pandemic, I was already remote working because all I did was connect my computer to servers in a warehouse 20 kilometers away from the office I had to be at.
Now, every person in my department is literally hundreds of kilometers away from each other, and we MUST go to each office to do the same things we could do staying at home. I lose 3 hours daily (waking up early, preparing meals, going to the office, and returning...) because of this nonsense.
Also, the building I have to go to doesn't belong to my employer. The contract ends this year and, instead of sending us home again, my employer has rented another building that's FARTHER than the current one. We're pretty sure this is just money laundering or the building belongs to a friend.
People are leaving for remote jobs, and our bosses are still wondering why.
Agh, people I've talked to seem so reticent to understand that even outside the commute time I'm giving up my time to my employer. I don't want to wake up at 5 to rush out the door to sit in traffic until 7:30 and do the same on the way home then still have to spend my own "free" time meal prepping and doing house chores that I can hopefully cram in before I have to go to bed and do it all again tomorrow.
All of that is no longer "my" time because I would definitely be spending it differently if it weren't for the expectations imposed on me by my employer. Try to tell people that and they look at me like I've sprouted a third eye
A few things that would help:
A 4 day work week with both ends of the day brought in to maybe 10-4 (sorry didnt mean 10-3). Things like going to the bank require me to either run during my lunch break or do it on a day off. 4x10-4 means i have a day and edges of days to do tasks i can't do on the weekend.
Unlimited PTO. If my tasks are done and I'm paid a salary there is no reason i need to sit around doing nothing. If more work is expected then I'd expect more compensation.
And lastly mandatory cost of living connected to inflation every year. My last job started during the pandemic. In 2 years the effective inflation rate was 15% and yet i was only given 3% over that time while getting good marks on my reviews. That means in that time i was paid a crazy amount less my last day than my first. I dont care about the actual number of dollars I'm paid but I'd like to buy the same number of eggs mext year as this year if I'm expected to do the same amount of work. This shouldn't be thought of as a bonus, but rather keeping my level of compensation matched woth my level of expectations for my job.
What job do you have that 4x10-3 would be a reasonable option? Coming from someone who works 5x6a-6p (though this week it's been more like 6a-8p) those hours seem like a fairytale.
Given that they also talk about finishing their work with nothing to do, I'm guessing they work one of those jobs that doesn't actually need so many employees but has to have them or are held back by the lowest performers.
The idea of "completing all my tasks" is a silly one to me, since my product has an endless stream of work where we can't do all the things we want to do. If I managed to finish all the things I personally planned to do, that would mean nothing as that's just my personal plan and there's a virtually endless backlog. This has been the case for every job I've had as a software engineer.
Most employers I think pay for time, anyway, not tasks. Even when salaried, it's a salary intended based on time you'd generally work. And if this wasn't the case, many people (myself included) would be penalized for delays.
I'm a lead software developer. Finally working a place where we do reasonable schedules with a good amount of padding for problems popping up.
If i wasnt in pointless meetings and focused on actual productive time thats about what most of my team does and we hit all our schedules.
When i worked at Samsung they were doing 4 day weeks and no one was doing 8hr days
That's more like part-time honestly, doesn't make any sense. But your hours are intense. I did that 50/60 hours a week years ago, I'll never do that again. I'm at 35 now and considering asking for a 4 day 32 hours schedule next year. And I WFH full time. I'm done organizing my life around work.
A friend from college does software dev for a place that does 4x10-4 and he said the way the fixed issues was by asking for ROI on everything you do. Need to schedule a meeting? Is it worth the cost of people's time? If so make sure you get the right people, habe everything planned out before calling it so you get your work done promptly.
At first everyone was like fuck, more crap you have to do. But eventually they figured out that much of their time was wasted on crap no one needed to do. Some people stuck around for an hour or two after work to hang out and others took back their lives. Productivity actually increased because people were not as burned out.
That sounds very satisfying, wow! I swear to god, half the meetings I attend are just soooo unproductive. Talk about this project, where we were, where we are, where we are going. But it always ends up that I have to jog people's memory, ask why what was supposed to get done didn't and when it will be. Rinse and repeat. I love that approach, makes people accountable and saves everyone's time.
As for jogging people's memories...
So whenever i have to get approval from higher ups that i know they will forget and get annoyed about it i ask that they all stand up and state "i agree / approve to XYZ." People will laugh and say "really?!?".
At my last job one of my bosses decided on something that went against what all us in engineering said. So i told him to stand up in front of everyone and say "i acknowledge that this goes against the suggestions by engineering but I would like the team to implement.... whatever the feature was." Two months later he came to a meeting all pissed about how this feature wasn't working and when he saw me enter the meeting he said "fuck, this is my fault isn't it?"
That is fucking brilliant!
Ever have someone deny they said it?
Nope not so far. It's always in a meeting with other people, make it a little awkward and everyone remembers so no one denied it as they know others won't deny it.
Yeah, part of it is that I'm in a medical field and still in school. Unfortunately my hours are going to get worse with internship/residency before they get better. Even still, 4x10-3 would never (honestly could never) happen in my field.
Oh I see. I'm sorry, you guys in medical really have it fucking hard. Hang in there, and best of luck!
For a lot of office jobs, fewer hours in the workplace means less opportunities for useless meetings that could be emails and useless emails that could have not been sent
Teleporter. (I hate commutes.)
And one that is safe on the environment.
To bring another opinion to all the other comments, each week I'm trying to go into the office more often than I already do (2-3/5 times per week currently) which I feel is not much, but after reading some comments, you guys must think I'm a maniac already lol.
Now why would someone do that? First, I got a new job like half a year ago and I absolutely love it. First of all, my current commute time is around 25 minutes, door to door, in clean public transportation. Second, we got free water, Softdrinks, Coffee, Snacks, even fruits and cereal in the office. So no matter what I need to energize, it's there. At home, I usually don't. Or I do, but still, it's better to have 'free' you know?
Also, I love my colleagues. They're very young on average, incredibly skilled and highly intelligent. Also from many different countries. It's always fun talking to them and getting different insights on all kinds of things. We also usually take smaller breaks to play table tennis or table football.
Home office is great too, for days I really need to focus or have a lot of meetings. Or have private appointments, deliveries, or whatever. I can also take Homeoffice whenever I want and no one cares at all.
But still, it gets boring and lonely. Being in the office is great for my social factor and currently feels more like going to see friends, rather than working.
See you're very clearly a textbook introvert so on-site work around people feels rewarding to you.
I also like going to the office to socialise. But I absolutely don't plan on getting any of my actual work done on those days.
If I wanted to work, I would stay home.
Wtf how could you tell, it's 100% correct
Whoops rofl I meant the opposite of what I typed.
Lol wtf haha. I'm not really an extrovert tho, I just really enjoy being around people and having fun... even though I can never start a conversation with someone myself, if I haven't known them for years already.
I'm also awful at keeping up conversations, my smalltalk game is straight up non-existent. Maybe one leads to another or so. But when I warmed up with others I tend to love being around them. At least for a while, sometimes I need to refresh my social battery again, but I feel we're all kinda like that
Fair fair fair. I'm definitely not going to tell you what you are, but this:
Is really textbook extrovert, haha. Like I love hanging out with people too, and chatting, and grabbing pints, etc. But because I'm an introvert, it drains me. So if I go to a big event, I need a couple of weeks to myself before I feel like I have the energy to do that again.
I mean it actually is the exact to me but I realized, if I do that I just drift off into it more and more extreme. Until I feel quite lonely so now I push myself to be less like that haha
Nothing. I refuse to go back.
They are offering me a ~40% raise to be in a 50/50 system and I'm considering taking it so... Apparently, that.
I moved during the pandemic when we were all remote. But let's pretend I went back to the office near where I used to live.
I would expect it to be an inviting, colorful environment. Put effort into decorating . Give me an office with windows, and a door. Not a gray cube and off-white walls that feels like I'm going to die in it. Other incentives like a guaranteed parking spot would be fantastic. Maybe provide lunch. I think Google at least used to provide a great office environment.
I would also want more money because transportation is very expensive now. And it takes time. That's less time with my kids and to handle chores properly. Often cost saving chores.
Very true. The work office would need to at least match my home office.
Hiring help to handle the extra I have gotten used to doing would be important.
As a small business owner: nothing. My employees have been extremely productive being able to work from home. We already drive more than the average job. Driving to the office just watses time and money for everyone. We use our office now for storage more than anything else.
A gun held to my head?
Literally nothing. If my remote request is rejected, I'm quitting with nothing else lined up. If I can't find remote work, I'll retire.
My commute was, at best, 30 minutes each way driving myself. Public transportation would easily double that time and could easily be even worse.
Compensate me for that time at my full rate of pay or higher plus IRS mileage and I will START thinking about it.
My work environment also matters. Open floor plans suck ass and kill productivity. Pony up the money and give everyone offices with doors that close. My productivity at home is much higher because I am not sitting on a busy aisle across from a noisy meeting room.
I do miss being around people, I feel more isolated doing wfh. But the tradeoffs are pretty dismal against going back to the office.
Enough money that I can retire in six months. So idk, like, call it a cool $4M/yr and I'm yours in office for 6 months. Otherwise I guess MAYBE my same salary at somewhere walking distance where I only have to work 3 or 4 days a week at 8 hour days.
My mental health is just so much better working from home. The upside would have to be enough to balance that and realistically nobody is actually going to do that.
Everyday, a blowjob, a nice glass of whisky, and a good cigar. A nice desk, made with oak or something.
Also shit tons of money.
And the ability to show up at 10 and leave at 3.
Still interested?
Cocobolo desk
As everyone else is saying it'd take a significant bump in pay that not only offsets my incurred daily commute expenses but also gives me a meaningful weekly take home increase.
Plus I work better by myself at home where I can control my daily interruptions vs having to put up with annoying coworkers in-person who could just walk into my office whenever they wanted so I feel like going back to an office would impact the quality of my produced work.
This is a question about my past. What made me go back to the office was having not one but two little kids at home. The office is a much more quiet space.
The commute does not bother me much, it’s 12 minutes by bike, half the trip trough forest.
This is me except I have 15 minutes and half is through fields. Biking to and from work are often the highlights of my day.
I'm hoping to be home more often now that both the kids start preschool after the summer though.
This is really it. I've been working remote since well before 2020. If my office were 12 minutes away by bike I'd be there every day. Having an entirely separate space dedicated for work is great, actually! Especially if your team is all there too.
But when I first went remote it was 90 minutes by car, and half my team were in other countries. Going remote gave me 15 hours per week of my life back. There's nothing you can do to convince me to give that up again.
What would get me into the office? Physical force.
And this is the single most important piece
let me go home when I'm done with my work
I feel all of these are relatively realistic and achievable by my workplace except for reliable public transit which is out of their hands. Thankfully they're still remote first though there have been a few indications that this might change.
More money. I’d do anything for the right price.
What's your price? Mine is probably $750k base. I'm 100% serious.
50% base increase would pique my interest but double is more likely to get me to accept
I'll have to go with "a shitload more money." An extra 1.5 hours added to the workday in commute, less time with family, less healthy lunches, less freedom, etc. means it would take a large monetary incentive for it to even be a possibility. Twice my current salary, at least.
I don't have a car, so if I have to go 'back to the office', I will have to use the bus, wake up earlier, and commuting (even with my current employer being 15' away by bus) is still 30 minutes out of my day that I don't want to spend. When I am at home, I can just stand up, play some piano to relax, or have a short shower. Things that help me calm a little bit that I can't do at an office. I also have a better setup than the setup at the company's office, so why bother.
To be honest, as long as companies open remote positions, I don't think I want to go back to any office whatsoever.
If it was very close, like under 10min bicycling, and if I had my own office room like the director/CEO has. I hate open plan offices with a passion.
Desperation or buckets of money.
I'm employed now, and actually pretty happy with my job. It would take a lot of money to get me to work in an office again.
But realistically, a couple months of unemployment would be more than enough to make me jump at any office job that would allow me to live comfortably.
Absolutely nothing
They're going to have to buy me a car and pay for gas and parking before I'll take a job where I'm full time in the office
Seizing the means of production
Double my salary, then we'll talk.
Systems Engineer/.Net Developer here. Currently have a super flexible hybrid setup. I work from the office 2-3 days a week. My commute is about 15 minutes when I decide to go to the office.
I like seeing my coworkers, using the awesome conference rooms, free snacks and coffee. Change of scene keeps me focused and motivated.
My main motivation for working where I do is that nobody gives a shit what I'm doing or where I'm working from day to day. We're all professionals working to deliver our projects on time. How we deliver is up to us.
If my boss told me I had to start coming to the office every day at some set time, I'd immediately start searching for a new job.
Some things that would make me consider it:
If every single one of these things were implemented I would then still probably leave the place for another WFH job if we didn't use our new ownership powers to revert back to WFH immediately.
Youd give up ownership of the company and extremely employee focused culture, guaranteed favourable yearly increases, as well as the company paying for you to get personal stuff done professionally in order to stay working from home?
This sounds incredibly reactionary and illogical.
I say at the end that we'd probably immediately use those powers to revert back to better working conditions (WFH).
I can't see any scenario where this doesn't happen immediately and was mostly just riffing at the absurdity of thinking companies would implement these things (outside of maybe free lunches) in order to empower labor (to the company's shareholders' detriment) willingly.
I cherish my job a lot more (when before I was happy to switch every year). If companies want to retain good employees they’re going to have to adapt to the changes in the market.
Edit: guess I didn’t really answer, I agree with teleporter guy and private office guy. It’s ridiculous to ask people to return to a shared office.
mmmmm i think all my boss would have to do is get on their hands and knees and suck me off to completion in front of god and everyone
that'd get me back in the office for at least 20 minutes or so
I think we need to defederate from hexbear...
lmao if jokes are too much for you then yeah by all means
i def didn't ask to see your whiny puritanism
you don't need to ask for annoyed reactions after being annoying...
again, hearing a lot of whining when you could just fuck off instead and not have to see my comment anymore
I'll have to see other similar ones in the future while casually reading normal comments.... it's not about you specifically.
yes and i have to see an unending deluge of unbearable liberalism at all times.
i have to believe you'll learn to cope with the jokes. i believe in you! but if you're not capable, i'll pray for your sake that they roll out the ability to block instances
Quadruple my pay and keep everything else (responsibilities, flex hours, unlimited PTO, etc.) the same.
500k salary
Oh, I immediately went back. I don't do well at home, I need to be at the office. Otherwise I'll just nap all day. Also, I like seeing people, I need that daily socialization with co workers in person.
As long as you're not trying to force others into the office to entertain you, enjoy the other in-the-office folk :)
Your inability to focus at home and need for forced socialization should not be imposed on anyone else
? Didn't say it should be forced on anyone. Just that I went in as soon as I could.
Reads a bit like projection on the responder's part, don't worry.
Fewer total days working for the same salary.
If they said: you can work 5 days/week from home or 3 days/week from the office, I'd pick the office.
Idk, given that scenario, I’d still wfh and just not do anything those extra 2 days, since clearly the work can be done in 3. Or work really slowly, and do lots of other things instead like play games make things, or clean.
Really, the only option. Either more pay or more free time. The amount of savings in not having to commute means going back to the office is a pay cut.
Going to the office is an 8 minute bike ride, it’s not the commute for me. It’s being stuck in an office building.
With stupid, smelly, loud, obnoxious, old, young, did I mention stupid? People who need to stay far away. If I had no commute I'd need a private office with my own parking and entry. I don't want to be around these people.
A complete disregard of my health and safety
Oh wait, that already happened years ago
Honestly, I don't anything can be appealing enough. If I get desperate, then I would go back, but not really willingly.
My home office is great, I don't need to commute, i can cook and eat proper meals and generally enjoy my workday more.
Make it optional for starters, followed by compensation for gas for anyone coming in.
If I had to just bring it the one big thing it would be If my commuting time counted as work time - so I could be home the same time when I’d be normally finishing if I was working from home.
If that was the case I wouldn’t exactly like having to go back to the office, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world
It’s totally unrealistic, work doesn’t owe this to me, I moved over an hour away knowing there would be this commute…. But that was before I had a kid and covid started us working from home
Now my priorities are different - I want to be there in the morning and help them wake and get ready for the day. I want to be home when they finish nursery for our evening and bed time routine. That time is absolutely precious and I could never get it back if I missed out.
There’s a million other things that make working from home great that has absolutely nothing to do with being a parent. But for me that there is worth so much I’d find it hard to imagine a salary big enough that would convince me to give that time time up.
Double my pay and cut my hours by 50%
So quadruple your pay? Is your current pay that poor?
I never really left the office. I had a 6 week stint working from home and then we were recalled. I'm in public safety so we were directly involved in the pandemic response.
Triple my salary would be my minimum requirement to offset the additional freedom and lack of commute that I’d have to give up. I’d be spending less time with my family and I won’t give that up for anything less than triple my current pay.
I sometimes have to. Not because someone tells me to, but because my physical presence is actually needed.
Sometimes I have to fly in from my middle-of-nowhere home office because whatever system I was troubleshooting wasn't fixable via VPN. And said system can be anywhere in the world, so it doesn't really matter where I live.
So returning to an office based work location? Yeah, that ain't happening..
i would go to work if
this was the boss
this was the commute
this was the uniform
this was the work
jk i'm service industry i never got to work from home
Collusion among employers.
Actually fostering collaboration.
Walking distance from the office. And doesn't mean I'll relocate to a 1 bedroom apartment just to be next to the office.
I've been remote for over seven years now. I can't think of anything that would get me back into the office - why would I, when working remotely works so much better for me?
If I were these employers, I'd want to step back and figure out why it's so important to have people back in the office. Assuming they can find good reasons, work from those. For example, if it's about some employees actually preferring to work from the office, what kind of hybrid solution can you set up to make them more successful? How can you connect those who are remote and those who are on location? And so on.
I keep hearing "collaboration". I don't believe it as we were a worldwide company, so someone was already remote.
My only guess is that management is lonely.
5x pay.
I go in freely 3 days a week. I'm in a role that is focused on relationship building and collaboration (product management/leadership) and find I do much higher quality work when I'm in the office.
I still have enough solo work to do for the two days i am at home.
Having said that, I'm compensated quite well and enjoy the country driving to the office as it allows me to listen to audio books uninterrupted and decompress after work.
I've already voluntarily started going to the office. My company does not require it, nor does it gain me any particular favors with the company for doing so - either in-office, full remote or anything in-between is allowed.
I've decided to do so because, frankly, our office is out of the world. The amount of free shit I get there on a daily basis straight up rules. The office staff puts on frequent events which I enjoy attending, I get to meet and interact with other people in person as opposed to sitting around in my apartment all day, I'm in the city near all the good food options. There's a whole lot of perks to going in to the office for me, and not a whole lot of negatives.
Some negatives and my reasoning around them:
All in all, I'm happy with my choice. I spent a lot of time working remote during the pandemic, and weighed the upsides and downsides, and going to the office came out on top in the end. I understand that this is not for everyone, and I think everyone that wants to work remotely should get to keep doing so. Hopefully others afford me the same respect in my choice!
Sounds like you have a decent office. Mine is like a inner city elementary school level of "clean" and the break room has nothing free other than some pretty shit coffee.
In that case it would be understandable to want to ditch the office, yeah.
Communting and wearing shoes everyday sounds meh.
I want my own desk with the same hardware I have at home. Booking a flex desk in advance, bringing all my stuff except the monitor, setting it up, adjusting the chair and getting a new problem with every new desk is a bad start for the day. Also having the same people around me, helps me to feel "home". But sinc I'm nonstop in MS Team meetings, there is no way for me.to interact with anyone in the office. So maybe reduce the number of meetings, they are useless anyway.
And I hate the coffee in the office, it gives me headaches.
I went back to the office on my own. A long time ago. It should be noted that I like my bosses, peers, and my job in general (I mean it’s called work, not fun - but it isn’t miserable)
I thought I’d love remote work, but I hated it.
With regard to point 1 I've personally found that my work relationships have not been impacted by remote work. I still can have honest and hard conversations when needed but also able to just shoot the shit and connect with people all over the globe. I have friends in Spain, Brazil, Scotland and Italy now. However I think there's a real component of playing politics that's lost when there is no office to roam around in and jump people but in my eyes that's a good thing. And honestly that's what really bothers middle management. They've built up a career playing that game of in person politics but once they had to survive in a remote working world where ad-hoc discussions get thrown out of the window they find their usual toolbox is empty. And it drives them crazy.
I've been hearing number 3 for about 20 years. It never works out that way and if they could split the job between cheap overseas contractors and limited on site employees then most businesses would have already done so. International hiring is a good thing and great talent can be found but it's usually not the "savings" people expect it to be because the market will always adjust to demand.
Agree with point 2. My dad is WFH 2 days a week and my mom is WFH 4 days a week. Both regularly complain about having to convert part of the living space into the workspace, and the challenges that come with having those spaces always visible and always available.
Stepping outside my bedroom would get me back to the office, since my living room is the office
An office I can walk to. I might even prefer that to a home office, because I find it hard to get away from work when it is always looking at me at home, even in my spare time.
An office where I have a say in how it is furnished and how it looks, together with my colleagues of course. Natural light, being able to sit or stand at my desk. "Please do not disturb" signs that people respect when I want to concentrate on my work. A place that is built to reduce noise, and that allows me to have it as cold or warm, light or dark, as I need it to be that day.
A place where I can eat and drink when I need to, and a place where I can lie down for a moment when it helps me recover from a difficult task.
Basically, make my workplace a place to live, because work is life, not a separate thing, and you go home to start living.
My current position is 100% remote work-from-home and I took this job in 2018. It was impeccable timing and when the pandemic hit, my life/work routine barely changed at all.
Prior to that, I had an office job with a 1h 15m commute each way...not because I lived super far away, but because my office was in downwtown Seattle and commuting is a nightmare in this region.
Having an extra 2.5 hours of me-time each day is almost priceless. Not having to deal with the stresses of commuting and not having to deal with the daily scum of public transportation is priceless.
To get me to return to the office (that miserable routine)...it would take a 4-day work week, plus a significant pay increase, plus a monthly transportation stipend.
Higher pay and a housing market carsh
A self driving car (or a personal driver, not a bus)
I could just modify the thing to sleep in it. Sleep through the commute
The lack of real self driving cars is a shame.
Regularly? Nothing. I go there to access material most of the time.
Employers generally pay employees to do things that they can't or don't want to do. We work (doing things we don't necessarily want to do) simply because it makes us money.
So yeah, want people to return to the office? That better come with a big offer attached or no dice.
I never left the office...
Yeah, meanwhile in New Zealand lockdown was so short the best almost anyone has is mixed if not all office days lol... save me
I would literally have to be kidnapped and dragged to the office against my will.
A job. Please, lol!
I'm only required to go 4 days a month (supposedly once a week).
I go almost every day anyway. 15 minutes of subway (Buenos Aires' Subte) and the office is more confortable than my very small department anyway. Also, nice lunch room, refrigerators with fruit, nice coffee and even when it's open floor, the number of people is still reduced and not (too) distracting.
Yeah, if it only took me 15 mins and I didn't have to drive, I'd be fine with it too. Currently my drive is about 30m outside of rush hour times, longer of course during. In addition I have to move soon, so it might go up again. That's all just wasted time.
I don't envy you the drive.
I have lived in Buenos Aires or the suburban surroundings all my 53 years of life. Never owned, needed or wanted a car, which would be useless to me anyway because I don't know how to drive. Nor I ever wanted or needed to know.
TLDR: I would friggin' love to be back in the office for a couple days a week. Would probably never do onsite every day for any boss but myself again.
I've experienced both pure remote and hybrid remote, as well as existing for about 45 years in a world where remote work was a mythical thing you heard about but only saw on television. Even at the time that my office was 1.5 hours drive each way, I absolutely loved when I was a Sysadmin and spent three days a week at home and two at the office.
Covid came and I got full time remote for close to two years and I really did hate it, especially since when it started I was in the first couple months of a new role I had been promoted to with no experience - had I not built up a lot of love from my employer in the previous role (the promotion happened for reasons, basically I had scripted my job down to nothing at all so it was kind of a freebie for them) I would have busted out but they basically let me coast and learn whatever I could for the duration, before going under.
Had I been able to be in the office and work alongside my new teammates in that role, I would today be much further along in my career arc. I'm still doing okay, but it would have been so much better to have been in the same room with them. And as it happens, my current job is also fully remote and my employer is great but based in a different city, so at the moment unless I move halfway across the continent I'm stuck fully remote. And I like my employer, have no interest in leaving, and I think they like me, even in my current state, so probably I'm stuck there for good. Boohoo lol.
I do realize that my problems are non-problems, in actuality; I'm doing fine. But if I had my druthers I'd be going into an office and standing around the coffee machine for small chats and eating the free croissants they give out on Wednesdays. I'm not very social and those little interactions, from which one had a constant "gotta get to work" excuse to dip out at will, were just the perfect level of socialization for me, really. Going to the office is not remotely all bad, really.
But I also remember being power tripped on and micromanaged by various scumbags, so when I see these corporate fuckwits demanding everyone just make things like they used to be, I know what they're trying to do, so in the end I think if the job is doable remotely, it's up to the individual whether they want to go in, and in the long term employers are just gonna have to figure out how to handle that equitably. One instant thought I had was, pay a premium for onsite roles, or for hours done onsite. If it's really that crucial to operations that will be a sound strategy, just the cost of doing business.
The faster career movement thing is real and I'd a big reason I go in.
No matter how effective learning remotely is, it's much more organic in person.
Not to mention relationship building with superiors is definitely a plus for a number of reasons:
You can learn from them
When promotion time comes around they know they would be able to work with you.
When promoting someone, being able to choose someone you know wouldn't drive you crazy is a huge positive. And most would rather promote someone they work well with than someone who is anti social but is 5% more effective in their metrics.
Because I work with customers and they’re naturally spread around geographically, there’s nothing that would do it. There’s just no reason.
They would need to build an office within a ten minute walk from my home.
Double the salary, with a company car, 4-day week, and office kittens.
Honestly, I might just come in for extra cash and the kittens…
Teleportation technology
Higher salary, free lunch, commute costs covered. And should be hybrid instead of all five days in the office (Tues-Thurs).
A couple more kids. Or a smaller house. Or my mother in law coming to live with us.
I find this really interesting. I’m based in the UK and in what is classed as an essential job. So during all of the COVID isolation period I was still going to work, in the same office doing the same thing. I haven’t had a period working from home for a very long time and the idea, whilst appealing in some ways just doesn’t fit how I work today.
Desperation. I'd have to be fired from my job and begging for work.
Free food every day.
It would cost me at least 15 hours of free time a week in commute and at least $800 extra a month. Then there's the physiological strain of being trapped in a car and that's not good for my back and hips. Let's not forget "Jane," my obnoxious "I don't like Trump but" conservative coworker who has loud and vocal political opinions that I can help but overhear because she sits in the undersized fluorescent lit cubicle next to mine in my dark, dusty, windowless office. No thanks. I'm much happier at home.
Money. Lots of it. As in double.
What would bring me in? My commute counts as working hours. Fully pay commuting cost. My goals lessened to make up for the lower productivity in the office. Private office and private bathroom. Free healthy meals delivered. That might bring me back.
Preferably, they pay for my relocation to an area with reliable public transportation. But I’ll also take Company car, and company pays for gas, insurance, and maintenance. They also pay for babysitters and my commute. Also, bonuses and raises on a regular basis.
They’ve deemed that it’s important enough that I take my precious time away from family to stay with in traffic and sit in an office all day, so they should pay dearly for it.
Nevertheless, it’s completely idiotic for most jobs. The logical business owner would salivate at the idea of all their employees preferring to use their own equipment and working space. That would eliminate so much overhead costs and company rent. Not to mention it has been proven that employees were as productive or even more productive when they worked at home. But our world is full of idiots who wasted a bunch of money trying to profit off land speculation and debt, so you have businesses wasting money requiring people to go back to the office . It just doesn’t make sense
Back to the office? In my country almost nobody left the office, even when the pandemic was at its peak lol.
What country?
Mexico.
Nothing. Reduce my hours, pay me less, but for take wfh away or I'm done. Nothing can compete with wfh.
Double my salary. Even then It'd be tough. Working from home has so many benefits. Plus my entire team is in a different state, so going into the office would be pointless.
Better pay, time for travel calculated in work hours, better company food, better work desk.
A much better setup than my home one. A private office with sound dampening. Dual 4K+ monitors. A large wall mounted TV for casting training videos or collaborating. A coffee and desert cart.
A 50% salary increase. I lose hours a week commuting, thats my life being taken away.
Not to mention getting sick because co-workers come in sick, the loudness of stupid open office spaces, douchebags who wont bathe before work...
The office sucks ass and my house is a much better environment for me working.
Exceptionally flexible working hours (so I don’t have to go in or leave during rush hour) along with an exceptional increase in pay and a commitment that time in office would actually be used for productive time (any meetings can be done remotely and often are done with remote members anyway).
Actually, as I think about it, the only thing that would lure me back to the office would be an open door policy related to being there, where I’d see myself there maybe 5% of the time. shrug
I interviewed with a company with 6 hours of "core hours". Total nonstarter. Core hours, if they exist, should be as short as possible.
Why does Windows Update take weeks for you? Even on 1990’s dial-up, the typical 2-3 GB of patches would only take 5 days to download.
I have no idea. It is funneled through something the IT department setup. I think they fucked it up.
That's an understatement
Not responding to e-mail when i clock out
I've never worked in an office but it sounds like hell.
I've did a lot of blue collar work when I was younger and it's really not.
I am no expert, but a number of blue collar jobs are unnecessarily shitty. Cooling or heating break rooms, lots of chilled water, and a fan would do wonders.
Clearly, the details matter about the specific work and dangers involved.
A healthy office culture and team members to collaborate with. I go to the office because interacting with my coworkers in person is enjoyable and I learn new things faster through those interactions. It helps that we also have free coffee and snacks and the commute is less than 10 minutes but I primarily go in because of the people I work with.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I work as an IT guy for a small business (6 people total) and I honestly prefer working in the office:
Also the commute isn't bad because I live in a well-connected district in a European capital. It's a 12 minute door-to-door bus ride for me, I don't even bother driving.
Wait you guys are allowed to work remote full time?
Never left. Doing NOC, and occasionally have to kick some iron, so my team has to stay in the office.
Already am back in the office 3 days a week. One is mandatory.
Stripper pole
Nothing. Been working from home for 4 years and wouldnt go back for nothing.
Okay, maybe if we had 2 pizza fridays a week.
Here in Brisbane Australia the lazy chuts want to work from home WHOSE GOING TO PAY FOR THESE COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS IN THE CBD?
THE ROWKERS SHOULD COME BACK EVERY DAY
Yeah, it seems short sighed to put the business at risk for real estate (losing talent). Sell the buildings and move on (sunk costs and all that.)
I PAY MORTGAGE. I'D LIKE TO USE THE HOUSE I PAID FOR.