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Return-to-office orders look like a way for elite, work-obsessed CEOs to grab power back from employees
(www.businessinsider.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Work Reform
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The thing about hybrid is that if I'm at home while you're in the office, or vice versa, it's pointless. Anchor days are good like you said where everyone is in the office or everyone is at home. I disagree that those are good for team social activities. Personally I've never really gotten anything out of those forced fun type activities (falling exercises being the textbook cliche example). My field is super technical and complicated with a ton of back and forth. I can't just shove something in my staff's face and say here do this. The best training I've ever given and received is simply OJT working together on technical shit, sitting next to each other, looking stuff up, problem solving, making decisions, that sort of thing.
Most of my collaboration is through pair programming so I can relate to what you find valuable.
Generally our team activities are after hours or a free lunch, and while not mandatory, it does have good turnout.
I don't understand your pointlessness argument though. I hear mention of how we're in the office and in video call for meetings anyway. However I remember that being the case even before COVID. Has your experience been different than this?
Most of our meetings were in meeting rooms already equipped with video conferencing gear. We didn't always have another office on call in meetings but we often did and it didn't make a difference whether they were there or not.
Granted, I am in software, so I can't answer for other types of positions. Most of these articles seem to be about software companies (or fintech).
When we had the initial "office is optional" declaration we had a good portion of people who were still coming in so the in person collaboration aspect was still available. At this phase those more comfortable remained home and it was as if they were just another employee from a satellite office.
I meant there's no point going to an office if nobody I'm working with is going to be there. I might as well just stay home too.
Just to be clear I'm not sitting here yearning for face to face contact because my colleagues are so gorgeous or to socialize with them. These aren't "hi how are you" meetings. My field is super technical with tons of back and forth questions, problem solving, and drafts, between me, my staff, other colleagues, clients, whoever. And I'm right smack in the middle conducting the orchestra trying to keep it all together. The in-person time I'm talking about is going over minute technical details with staff/partners/colleagues/whoever to review or because they have questions, ask them 'prove this, explain that, make a note that this thing over here has been fucked for twenty years,' etc, or just general problem solving and decision making etc.
These things are infinitely easier when you're not herding cats trying to get people on a zoom call, it's fast paced and we're all juggling thirty things on fire at once, sometimes you gotta catch someone for twenty seconds while they're taking a piss, that's just how it is.
So when everyone is in different offices, different time zones, some in office, some at home, it just increases bottlenecks and decreases efficiency. That's been my experience over the last few years, YMMV