Let’s see if you still feel that way in 5+ years.
No forced commute, no stress positions in crap office furniture and the resulting daily back pain, no forced cheap hardware, no forced interruptions and conversations I have to compensate with longer work hours, no forced socialization with people I’d never choose to socialize with, no crap $20 lunches paying for the insane rents of the food places instead for quality products.
Please, do go back to the office yourself but don’t force others.
Having 10+ hours of additional personal time per week, working on much better hardware while playing my favorite music, eating quality food I cook myself and using the extra time to socialize with people I choose is worth finding another job if needed.
We just collectively proved the hypothesis that we don’t need to be in an office in order to be productive and that remote work is 20-30% more productive measuring the output of my department.
We have known this for a long time but companies were in denial and pushing strawmen.
But now we know.
So, forcing a much more painful experience and lower quality of life despite it being less profitable is insulting and clearly not about for everyone’s well being.
Office Space couldn’t be written about remote workers. Power tripping managers have a much more difficult time asserting themselves, and might be finding out that they’re not as important as they thought.
I think the rebellion against totalitarian work life has started, and that’s apparently worrisome enough that the productivity gains from remote work aren’t worth it.
The next step is realizing that the “theory of bullshit jobs” is at least partly true, and that modernization has removed the need for as many people to be working as there are. It’s actually resource limitation that prohibits our collective wealth, and not our labor.
For example, we're already seeing spyware being a condition for some remote workers. Whether that continues I don't know, but it shows the point I think.
The problem is that this cuts both ways.
Is society ready for 15% more people being unemployable?
It's been many decades, and we never really "solved" the issues caused by the mills/mines/factories all going under. We simply ignored the people hurt.
I still see no one proposing a solution, 40 years later.
I started working mostly from home in 2015, and entirely from home starting in 2018. I was a little apprehensive, because I'd worked in an office from 2000-2015, and believed all of the "it will make collaborating harder" thinking. I've been sold on WFH ever since. I don't think there's anything wrong with choosing to work from an office if it makes someone happier, but it's not something I'm interested in doing again.
Maybe that is a signal in itself you should find a place where you do enjoy it? We spend so so so much of our time at work, we should strive to make it something we enjoy.
I do like where I work and I do like my coworkers - for remote work.
Please do not twist my words to match your narrative.
To be fair, if my office had this, I'd be a lot more inclined to go in every day.
Some people have a genuine preference for a brutalist cube farm and it's not because their aesthetics barometer is malfunctioning.
Sounds horrible (I have allergies).
Any benefit you get from the office environment you can replicate on your own. I think that what people like the most about working from home is the absolute lack of commuting. I wouldn’t mind working in an office provided that office was no more than a mile away from my home, and I could comfortably walk there. But it’s really difficult to hire all your employees such that they live close to the same office. Conversely, the wider a net you can cast the more likely you are to find the employees that you need.
I see people who like the social aspects of an office. You can get that by socializing with people in your neighborhood. Get together for lunch regularly and you’ll soon have good friends that you won’t lose as soon as you change jobs.
I see that others like to be away from their families for a time, so that they can concentrate. Feel free to have an office space that isn’t directly connected to your home; just keep it in your neighborhood. Where I live there are dozens or hundreds of small offices in the commercial center that are rented out one room at a time. Usually they’re used by local lawyers and insurance agents and such, but there’s no reason you can’t rent one instead.
Everyone should work out exactly what their commute costs them. You can save a lot of money, especially if you can get rid of a car. Are the benefits you’re getting really so unique and irreplaceable that the expense and wasted hours are worth it?
Additionaly, study after study has shown that non-verbal communication between people is an enormous part of effective communication. Argue all you want, too many studies, turn all over the weekend she the same thing. And the I've thing that video conferencing does is cripple that comm channel.
I love my partial remote work schedule, and love that it exists. But I'll never assume it's the "best" way, it that it doesn't have unforseen costs to me and my coworkers
Citations please?
Of course the study with the most impact is Mehrabian's 7-38-55 'rule' (which it isn't!). It's wildly misunderstood, but his study found in any communication scenario 7% of information received is through the words spoken, 38% is through the tone of voice, and 55% is though bodily movements. Regardless of the numbers, it just points out that just because someone 'says' something, people don't believe them unless their body language agrees. If their tone, posture, eye-contact, etc.. are saying something else, people invariably believe the non-verbal regardless of the words said. It's been a while, but IIRC, the other studies never find that low of an impact with spoken word, yet it never exceeds 50% either.
Lastly, the definition of nonverbal communications can vary widely, but I like Henley's (77) (as a starting point) which lists a few areas "... body postures and movements, facial expressions, gestures, touching, eye contact, use of space, and so on".
Hope you find some of that useful.
This is not an insurmountable challenge.
(remote ~10 years)
It's good! Not for everyone, I suppose, and you need to have dedicated space for it.