Why We Should All Return to the Office
I know I am seeing a lot of back-and-forth on this topic, but I really need to push back and raise some red flags here. Having an on-site office presence foundational to our ability to drive efficiencies in a corporate landscape. It's in our DNA. Sure, there is no 'one size fits all' or silver bullet and boilerplate solutions, leveraged to the hilt really only keep us at a 30,000-foot-view of things. Being on-site, however, really allow us to get better granularity, find better directional-indicators, or loop back and dive deep into some critical issues on a go-forward basis.
By spending more time in the office again, you'll find yourself trending toward the positive, but you'll have to keep an eye on the puck. Gut through it, reduce thrash, and let's stay in lock-step on this. Yes, we will synergize! We've been remote for so long it's easy to forget the benefits of working in the office.
What's the root cause of the hatred of corporate office spaces? I'll put my layman's hat on and guess that it comes from movies such as Office Space and Dilbert cartoons. But we all know that these are fictional spaces, and real office spaces allow us to touch base in a much more efficient manner.
I have to time-box this comment, as I have a hard-stop soon when I will have to jump onto a call. So, just one more point that I want to cover-off on: let's socialize the idea of having more office presence and loop back to see whether we're being more impactful. From a management standpoint, I think that getting traction on this is achievable.
So, net/net, ignore the naysayers, sidebar the folks that are stuck in the weeds, and don't waste cycles or bandwidth on folks that don't align strongly with this mission. Try it out, and we'll have another touch point in a little while to see if we've moved the needle. Remember, our north star hasn't changed. We're still championing our core values remotely and well only do it better in person.
If you need me, I will be online again in a bit.
WFH should be the norm
Is this post satirical? You've offered zero imperial evidence as to why we should return to the office. Seriously, its more efficient? Reducing CRE spend will literally result in improved profitability/efficiency, and productivity has IMPROVED since WFH. The reality is WFH is a employee perk (reduced commuting time, more comfortable cloths etc), and if finance returns to full return to office they will see further talent drain to tech and other industries that offer more flexibility.
I get it, people hate change, its why my dad doesn't have an iPhone and my MD would rather use a fucking fax machine then learn how to type. But you can either choose to adopt or die grandpa.
Are you autistic? This is satire.
Good discussion in this thread.
If I could find a way to bet on this, I would, because I think this is what's going to happen:
Once you've had a bite of that sweet WFH apple there is no going back! There will be a massive rebound effect.
exactly this. cat's out of the bag.
I've been going back into the office since early May and am so glad I'm not fully remote. Lack of social interaction sucks and it's so much harder to collaborate and you miss out on a lot of the general pulse of things. Just lose out on so much comradery and honestly the ability to learn and absorb information is hampered significantly IMO.
That said, my firm has a very flexible hybrid model. Some weeks I won't go in at all, some weeks it's 1 day only, but I generally shoot for 3. Hands down the hybrid model is what I'd prefer as long as it's not a strictly mandated you have to come in these days of the week or a minimum # of days.
Unless there are some major meetings, basically boils down to if I feel like going in, I go in. If I have too many early morning meetings or have plans where it's beneficial for me to stay home, or am too jammed up on workstreams, I stay home. Yes, commuting is a pain in the ass sometimes but I structure that as personal downtime or catch up on slacks / emails / newsletters.
Realize this is kind of against popular opinion, but you'd actually have to pay me more if 100% remote was mandatory.
Not agreeing or disagreeing, but one of the best (or funniest perhaps) comment I've seen somewhere to date was:
"If you work in the front office, you should be in the office."
I disagree. No guarantee that juniors like myself and particularly my generation want to stay in this field much less corporate life as a whole very long. It’s a means to an end. I find the idea of a corporate “career” one of the most depressing things in existence. Particularly when you realize that pay is just abysmal outside of the high tension/performance “high finance” field. May be hard for older guys to keep up with, but there’s so many other opportunities out there now. Not going to bother to list them because things like trading crypto just get laughed at for whatever reason. It’s fine, laugh, but all that matters is that ending bank account and the free time you have on this earth.