No guesses which angle this is coming from.
"Attendance still is 30% lower than what it was before the pandemic and only 37% of people are back at the office every day."
And yet the world has not stopped. In fact everything seems to be going faster than ever.
Indeed.
I know many people who used to religiously go to the office 5-days a week. The only time they were not in the office was when they were on holiday or they were sick. It's what they did for their entire working lives. And in some cases it's what "custom and practice" historically dictated in their industry, e.g. those working in the financial sector.
The pandemic forced their hand. And now my unscientific sample would suggest 80-90% of them now only go to the office for client meetings. Most weeks they don't go at all, or maybe they pop-in for a couple of hours on their way somewhere else. There is the occasional week where they do a full-day in the office for one or two days. But nobody I know is anywhere near the old 5-days a week regime.
Employers attempting to force (or, if we're being polite "strongly encourage") people to return 5-days a week are playing a loosing game.
The future is now and the future is hybrid or fully-remote for 99% of jobs. There are very few jobs out there that genuinely need you to be in a different building 5-days a week to do your job.
I assume you mean for 99% of office jobs.
If I say "you should really get that cut checked out, it looks infected", then I'm making a recommendation to you or giving you advice (solicited or not).
But here you seem to be giving advice to a class of jobs, which doesn't make a lot of sense. A class of jobs has no agency.
Are you advising plumbers (one example of a blue collar job) to charge more for their services? I'm sure the thought occurred to them and it doesn't work for one reason or another.
Are you advising customers of the plumber to pay more? Have you ever requested plumber services, and if so, did you pay the plumber "much more" (in other words, are you taking your own advice)?
Unless our physical presence is necessary (hairstylist, nurse, chef...), we should aggressively push back on "come to office 300 days a year" requirement. Only dumb middle managers and arrogant upper management (who probably have money invested in commercial real estate) think physical presence is required for all jobs. Either we work remote, or we improve housing and transportation. The former is easier to do while the latter is a near impossible problem to solve in the current political climate.
Those who claim they build friendships etc at work, maybe genuinely ask yourselves - how many colleagues from your previous jobs do you really keep in touch?
> Those who claim they build friendships etc at work, maybe genuinely ask yourselves - how many colleagues from your previous jobs do you really keep in touch?
I'll speak for myself and say that I am still regularly in touch with folks I worked at 4 jobs ago (12 years).. I guess it depends on why you are making those friendships, are you actually making friends or just looking to build social capital to give you advantage at work?
It can certainly be both, but if you don't keep in touch when you move on, then maybe it was only the latter.
Obviously nothing beats face-to-face interactions. But we need to consider the cost of it too. 3 hours of commute a day? Paying for gas, childcare? Polluting the environment, clogging the roads?
We can try to solve these problems with better infrastructure (like highspeed rails), banning corporations like BlackRock buying up large chunks of desirable neighborhoods/holding them hostage etc. That would require some serious effort and willpower, which seem hard to come by.
As for relationships, I too have a handful of people from years ago that I keep in touch. This can certainly be a disadvantage with remote work, but we need to compromise somewhere...
i still hang out with people i met at my previous job over 5 years ago.
Still, live goes on.
But real-estate is at the very heart of the financial system, and therefore the economy if not the government.
So this is not about individual careers or working preferences in themselves.
Technology destroys old industries and creates new ones.