People don’t like offices and are more productive when they’re happy. Who knew?
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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I did. I always knew.
Companies forcing people back to the office are a red flag for bad management, so I'm sure that's another reason they're seeing people leave.
My company realized that they can remove office space and use that money for more employees. What a fucking crazy concept.
Honestly. It's about more than money.
If your boss says you must return to the office, after 3 years of WFH. At best, it shows that they do not value or respect you, and are just making an arbitrary decision in a bid to sell more stocks.
At worst, there might be some insidious reason to make employees physically available. Maybe they are getting a kickback somehow, or selling data that they can only get when you are there, or maybe they are just horny and want to seduce you sexually.
A remote worker is often happier, more productive, and cost less to employ even if they are paid the same as an on-site worker. Offices do not have to provide parking, seating, HVAC, power, wifi, and will even have less physical security vectors.
If some people prefer to go into an office, then it should be optional. Not a hybrid model where they force you to come a certain number of days a week.
At the end of the day unless you are on some kind of probation or evaluation period WFH should be the default when ever possible.
I'm on my second probationary period entirely WFH, you shouldn't be required to work in the office unless the job physically requires it. Return to office is very often a big power grab by shitty management that don't know how to measure outcomes properly and instead prefer to micromanage. It is one of the biggest red flags.
I can't go back to working in an office full time anymore. It would be a really difficult adjustment especially losing the time to commuting and needing to deal with child care. Plus we found that we no longer needed a second car anymore since we were both at home so we sold one. Our life is built around not having to commute anymore.
I'm right there with you. It's just incompatible with how I want to live my life and the cost savings and time savings are unbelievable.
Commuting is also a nightmare. Thats 1-2 hours a day of slog to get to an arbitrary location to do a job that I could do at home. Combine this with school drop offs and pick ups and the ability to do life admin during the week instead of cramming it all on a Saturday with everyone else like pre COVID and WFH is a winner.
Also for people that can't WFH. I'm stuck in a traffic jam every day because of office workers that arbitrarily have to go to office.
It’s not a perk. Don’t reinforce their framing
I have not read the article yet but the headline saying “equivalent to an 8% raise” does not just have to mean some kind of soft value. I have to drive 50 km each way to my office. I am much more likely to eat out while at work ( or to hit a drive-thru on the way home ). Given the price of gas where I live, going to the office probably costs me $50 a day more than staying home. That is $50 after tax so you can simplistically double that in terms of salary that it consumes. If I have two jobs to choose from, from a purely financial stand-point, my current job and a fully remote one that pays me $100 less per day are equivalent in terms of the value they bring to my family.
Crap. I have been a “want to be in the office some of the time” guy but making me actually type this out has made me question that. I think I need to start shopping my CV.
Holy smokes, working from home is not a “raise.” You should be compensated for the value you bring, not where you’re sitting when you bring value.
I spend $400 a month on gas because of my long commute. Work from home is definitely a raise in my situation. Gas bill goes down to $100 a month. Works out directly to a 5% raise just in gas alone. Car insurance can be switched to leisure only saving money further. Gain an extra two hours a day which were unpaid before, so my workday is now only 8 hours instead of 10, that is another equivalent to 25% on an hourly rate indirectly.
Then there is all the other benefits such as just being happier and more productive.
In terms of time returned, gas, wear & tear, etc., I would consider being told to go back to the office as a pay cut.
If I'm being asked to sit somewhere else, then I would definitely want to be compensated for that.
I view it as a benefit, and I'm willing to make concessions on salary for additional or better benefits. Arguably you could have both, but I think unionization is required for that and I'm in a low unionization industry.
It is in the sense that commute time is not paid so compared to commuting jobs your effective hourly wage goes up. Also, commuting time is actually a negative wage.
Especially galling since if I were to move to a cheaper region my company would want to pay me less. It's "we only pay you for the value you bring" when cost of living goes up, but "we want some of those lifestyle savings" if I can get my costs down.
How convenient.
Many people also seem to forget that not everyone has a dedicated room or otherwise extra space to work in. Sure, if you live alone it doesn't matter but with other people living in the same apartment/house and perhaps them also working remotely, you suddenly need extra space just for good working conditions. Working space has a cost, be it in an office building or at employees' homes. Also good ergonomics means one needs a good desk and a great office chair which are not cheap to buy. Sure, I wouldn't necessarily demand more pay just for WFH, but I would never ever ever take a lower compensation in exchange either.
That said, I love working remotely from home and wouldn't go back to office. It's just that even if you save time and money in commutes, there are other costs in place that wouldn't otherwise necessarily exist.
Holy smokes, working from home is not a “raise.”
Sure it's not a raise, but that's not really the question. The question is the hidden cost that companies are imposing on themselves by demanding that employees come into an office. If employers are going to demand that out of their employees, they should do that with the expectation that employees will ask to be compensated or will leave.
Before the pandemic I was spending almost 2 hours a day on my commute to office, while being on site for 9 hours with an unpaid one hour lunch break. That’s 20% of my working hours.
I can use this time for entertainment and side projects
There’s not enough money in the world to pay for the time I save.
Besides, I save a lot on gas and food, and gain much more comfort (my house, my coffee, my chair, my screens, my toilets)
To be perfectly clear, if my company wants me back to office they will have to raise me more than 30%.
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But boomer bosses need to physically see their workers sitting in chairs, they need that feeling of power!
My boss wants me to leave him alone, lol. He trusts me to get my work done so he can focus on his own stuff.
jeez, using boomer at every sauces is so cringe. grow up, little fluid-anime keyboard warrior.
I could trade my WFH for a room with a view and a door. :) fuck openspace and flexdesks!
Honestly I wouldn't. I can't think of anything that would make me work in an office again. I can't do it.
My office had a window and a door. Wouldn't trade WFH to have them back.
From experience I have seen how employers/government were forced back to the office. My Indian colleagues had to return to their offices because the office buildings were empty and it cost money. Government officials either owned or had friends own office buildings and it made monetary sense for them to force workers back to the offices. It was a play between corrupt officials and businesses, nothing more. Well, that and a profound and deep distrust of their workforce. It was a sad sight to see that happening to them.
My guess is that this could also occur the same way in the west.
I'm not surprised; WFH is a great benefit to workers. The big thing is going to be how companies choose to balance remote and in-person work and it is going to be wildly different across different industries.
My coworkers and I figure it at about 20% raise. No need for a second vehicle for the household, less money on food and clothes, plus the extra time.
If my work tried to end WFH I'd leave instantly.
2 hours drive a day is not only a waste of my time but my money on fuel.
On the sustainability front:
WFH means people aren't commuting. This is good, as we use less energy, particularly gas in our cars. On the down side, public transit agencies may have to dramatically cut service, increasing people's reliance on cars to get around. At an extreme level, they may go bankrupt due to lack of ridership.
Energy - home energy use has increased home residential energy use by between 7% and 23%. Lower income residents who do not have air conditioning can also suffer disproportionately. Higher income workers can readily afford expensive home upgrades, like adding a home office. Since empty commercial buildings still need to be heated and cooled, the energy savings aren't as great.
Real Estate - the US will need to delete 18% of its commercial real estate. There is trillions of dollars worth of commercial real estate debt maturing in the next 3 years that will be worthless. I've actually seen vacancy rates approaching 30% in many downtown markets.
This will leave every major city with a giant hole in its central city and cause major economic disruption in both the real estate investment market, construction I distry and walkability of cities. We may be staring down the barrel of another "white flight to the suburbs" that we saw empty out cities from the 1950s through the late 1990s.
I would rather make 50k WFH than 100k in an office.
Lol, my family can't afford to live on $50k a year. So that's a hard no for me.
Hahaha, yeah definitely a no for the family man. But as a single man 50k is fine, and the flexibility is worth more than a 100% raise.
You do you, there's no way I'd take a $50k pay cut under any circumstance
Jokes are on them, I'm old but I still quit when they tried to force (illegally, we had at least 2 days@home by contract) us back 4 days/w in the noisy open space.
Got flexible home office at my new job ("must" be at the office Tuesdays, everything else is to your convenience) and cherry on the cake a 14.6% raise!
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Maybe that's the approach for hiring...remote employees are hired with the understanding that they will earn less than equivalent in-office employees. Commute time, transportation expenses, and any other incidentals make up the difference. It's all made clear and transparent upfront.
If remaining remote limits an employee's promotability for reasons of company need, this is also made clear.
Why should they earn less than somebody who is in-office? A remote employee costs less in physical resources like office space, heating and cooling, electricity and internet.
Ultimately it's the end result that matters, not where it's done.
Because remote employees don't spend their own time and money on commuting to work. Those factors, along with saving on childcare, are the main drivers for desire to work remote, yes?
A company can reduce its office footprint to account for fewer in-person employees and save money. But that alone doesn't address the factors above faced by employees who commute, so those workers should be compensated.
Funny how cost of living savings for employees become additional profit for employers. Seems a little backwards...
Somebody should write a book about that
A remote worker's worth is no less valuable than one who's onsite. If you want something like this to work then the employer should pay a differential for those who have to be onsite to compensate for the time and money spent commuting.
So pay the WFF employee more than the WFH employee?
One way is baked in, the other is a topping, still damn near identical though
Instead of the stick of paying people less from working home, they're getting a carrot for deciding to be there. That has a wildly more positive perception for workers IMO.
An 8% raise to bring people back to office sounds like a reasonable cost tbh