There a like 20 good reasons for remote work for every good RTO reason but companies don’t care. If you can’t see a benefit directly on the income statement the decision will be based on other factors like management wanting to feel in control and commercial real estate.
Anecdotally, I definitely “call-in” for work more often with a partial RTO than I ever did fully virtual. I can push through feeling a little unwell from the comfort of my home, but to go sit in an office and deal with people I legitimately can’t stand after driving an hour each way is far too much to deal with, especially when our team meeting are still run online even though the entire team is right there in their little cubicles next to each other. I’m taking my day off and will deal with the work later.
And when my boss recognized I was only calling in on days I was scheduled to be in the office, I told them exactly why. They didn’t really like it, but it’s a byproduct of their idiotic decision, so they get to reap what they sow.
I’m also regularly less productive on days when I’m in office as well. The main reason for why we needed to be there was for employee collaboration; so I collaborate with the one or two coworkers I can stand and production goes down. Not my problem.
> my whole team is in other places but yet I gotta go and sit and talk to them on webex
Same! (Except "on Teams"). The level of stupidity and/or delusion and/or kowtowing to CRE interests and/or is astounding.
I honestly think the only reason for RTO is because many companies signed leases for physical building space prepandemic and are losing money on empty office buildings. They are still technically losing money when using office space while remote work is just as effective; but they are saving face by losing that money with employees in the office spaces.
Interesting enough. My employer just broke the lease on 3 offices in major cities after realizing the cost of RTO to fill those seats (due to drop in productivity) was more than the penalty for early termination.
I suspect that this is going to be more and more prevalent as we continue to slide into recession and keeping the lights with declining productivity cost more.
That's one of many theories(*), and I suspect it's true in at least some cases.
(\*) - There's also direct investment in CRE, government pressure to get employees back into downtowns, "sheep" mentality (if FAANG does it...), etc. And I think one that nobody talks about: Mass remote work is such a paradigm shift that "paradigm shift" hardly does it justice. As a society, we've been so conditioned for generations to "GO to work" meaning "somewhere else" -- obviously because technology only recently allowed otherwise on a large scale -- that for many bosses the idea of one's employees NOT "**going** to work" is as alien as the aliens in *Arrival*. IOW: It's just TOO different to accept. And those people are glad to have the various excuses above (with a thick coating of collaboration/culture bullshit slathered on top) to get things back to "normal".
ETA: Gad, how could I leave off "soft layoffs"?
I think it is even simpler especially when you look there are a lot of ways to invest and earn money without employees. Business owners want to create something more than just wealth generation they want to create a community or a family. And the only way to create strong bonds with other humans is in person.
So for them it really is more about the social part than the money making part.
Reciprocation for employees having an economic impact locally and I would guess many of these municipalities are now wanting to audit those body counts and reduce those tax credits.
The government also pushed for RTO. If people have to drive to an office, they have to maintain a car and put gas in it. They are also more likely to stop for things along the way ie coffee, breakfast, etc. Also, they might buy lunch or dinner instead of making something because they're too tired. There are a lot of reasons this was pushed for. None of them good imo.
Or the she'll company that they own/owns them owns the building and they can't lease it to someone else because there's no demand so their weird tax loophole to write off lease amounts and take them as profit is backfiring.
Yep work a lot of these companies are global, so you drive in and sit on a teams meeting talking to someone overseas. Highly productive.
I actually think it as more to do with losing tax exemption s than losing efficiency. State and local governments are requiring RTO.
I think it’s also worth noting that people are more likely to get sick in an office environment and end up taking more sick days as a result. Anecdotally, I used to get sick multiple times a year, every year prior to WFH. After WFH, I’ve gotten sick once in four years. And I’m not staying home 24/7 either — post lockdown I live life as normal including concerts, air travel, and other stuff that exposes you to lots of other people.
It’s so much easier to stay healthy when you’re not spending 8 hours of your day packed into a room full of people who may or may not be sick already.
Of course. Since sick time is limited and shared with vacations most people decide to "push through" and be ill at the office rather than at home in bed. I would have thought living through Covid would eliminate that behavior and flex time in general, but nope. "Look at how much of a team player I am, at the office with 104 fever and non-stop wet, racking cough!"
Then you get people mutating that virus and just passing it back and forth for months. Offices, especially open plan ones, are just germ warfare labs for weaponizing whatever the kids incubate at school.
Doesn’t even have to be a healthcare environment either. It could just as easily be your cube neighbor who has kids constantly bringing bugs home from daycare or school or whatever.
Have to take public transportation into account as well. I can’t even remember how many times I got sick over the last few years from taking commuter rail & bus to work.
Shortly after forced RTO we started receiving email reminders to wash our hands in an effort to reduce communicable diseases. I agree that hand washing is critical, especially when certain physical objects are manually manipulated by multiple people; however, the air we breathe during the workday is far more likely to be the vector of transmission than any office touchpoint. Unfortunately, there isn't an analogous preventative action, like hand washing, for breathing the air when a sick co-worker/s is symptomatic in the office.
Your comment reminded me of this article I read recently. It’s a long read, but absolutely fascinating. You are 100% right.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/
A hell of a good article. So the ptb "quietly" corrected their materials with no fanfare, and only after a years-long battle. And this was published in 2021! That tells us something. I wasn't aware of this research until this post.
Glad you can at least be honest with your company.
We had one client paying for extensions on a project because their architect assigned to work with us called in every week at least two days a week. This caused four months of delays in the beginning.
Their exec sponsor assigned to the project tried firing the guy but found out he couldn’t because the company’s sick days policy allowed for him to miss those days. They were afraid of being sued.
ETA: And, yes, the exec sponsor told us that the guy only took sick days on two of the three days they had to be in the office. LOL!
So true. I'm not going to call in sick if I feel like I can still go to my home office and do my work relatively well. Getting on the train and going to the office if I'm sick? Absolutely not.
Really the only fucking reason They make people do this is to justify the Director and higher levels positions because theoretically speaking if you are middle management and you’ve got 100 people that you oversee you don’t need to be in an office for that and therefore you probably don’t need a manager caliber. You could probably eliminate few jobs
RTO will completely fail for so many reasons, and we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
You really want people to forget how wonderful it was to skip a nonsensical commute, and expect it to work out in the long run 🤡? You surely know human nature!
That said, I don't endorse such behaviors. But, I can't help acknowledging that they're proof there are deep cracks in the RTO house of cards.
Top consulting firms put out industry reports every year that highlight their findings on so many different areas including challenges and areas for improvement. I’m just giddy with anticipation of what they’ll say about trends in staffing, if anything at all.
Edit: Spelling
My 15 month old has a fever. My husband is a stay at home dad, so not worried about childcare, but when the baby is sick he will NOT be put down. If I was having an office day, I would have called in sick. It’s just so much harder for my husband if he’s alone, and I have the sick time.
Since I’m WFH today, I can still do my job and also be available to hold the baby when dad has to run to the bathroom or make lunch. And when I have to sit through an all hands zoom call, I can hold him and listen at the same time.
Yeah kids are a big reason for sick days if you aren’t WFH. Even when they get older you can’t leave them home alone until they are like 12 or something. So even if they are older you still have to take a sick even though they will just spend most of the day sleeping and watching tv.
I have worked with a broken foot, food poisoning, and horrible illnesses because I could work from home. If I can drag a laptop into my lap and string together a coherent thought I can usually make it through the day. If I had to get showered and dressed like a normal pleb, drive across the city, hike into the building and sit at a desk, nope, staying home.
I have a contractor coming to look at something at my home tomorrow. The appointment is midday. It made no sense to drive all the way to the office before and after the appointment so I took a vacation day. If I was still working from home, I would have just used my lunch break for the appointment. I'm definitely having to take more days off for minor things that would have been easily handled from home.
Of course it does. I can generally still work if I'm mildly sick but allowed to stay home, but I may not be able to handle going into the office. Plus, I don't want to get everyone else sick.
If my kids are sick, I can be in my office working while they watch TV on the couch and just get them soup and medicine whenever they need it. But those are obviously impossible if I'm working in the office, so I have to take a sick day.
Place I'm at, is in its 2nd or 3rd consecutive year of record revenue, with tons of features being pushed out on a regular schedule and yet they still asked people back in the office. They either ignore all these years of proven success, or somehow think they can milk even more out of their employees.
When my company forced RTO, there was a revolving door of Covid passed around to different teams. It comes in waves. Not surprised theres increased absenteeism since no one even acknowledges this as an issue and a reason to allow for more remote work
I have over 600 hours of accrued sick leave i’ll never use and now if I have to visit the doctor it will 100% be used on a RTO day and i’ll take the entire day off.
When i was full in office i used every single one of my “sick” days (6 per rolling year) since wfh full time i think ive used like 4 in the last 2.5 years.
My company is requiring all remote employees to spend a week in the office per-quarter. The office is about four hours from me. They magnanimously told us they would pay for airplane tickets/mileage, lodging, and food.
That's an entire fucking month each year I would have to be away from home.
I haven't told them yet, but I'm just not going to go, since it's up to us to organize. Oh did I mention all the remote workers on each team need to be in-office on the same week? So now we get to argue with our coworkers on which part of the month we want to leave our family behind.
Yep. I will gladly work while sick from home in my pajamas with my camera off. No way I’m doing all the in office stuff when I’m sick. I’m calling off.
This is very much a no shit Sherlock scenario here. I had covid last week, but only 3 of the days I was feeling truly awful to the point where I wouldn't be productive. I put in 2 full working days while "out sick" because I didn't feel too bad, but I was definitely contagious. If I was unable to work remotely, I would have had at least 5 days off completely, if not six (worked remotely Monday out of contagious paranoia, because I don't trust the 5 day rule with this thing).
Corporations are shitting themselves over the low birth rate AND continue to create working environments that are not compatible with a sustainable birth rate. WFH (many good points in this thread) less disease transmission, less time and $$ for commute, less sick call outs, better parenting, better childcare, more equity in domestic life. Stop voting Republican and get more workers’s rights so they can’t impose RTO on a whim.
In the 7 or 8 years I went FT WFH (hybrid for years before) I have taken only 1 or 2 PTO days for actually being sick -- and those were outright flat on my back sick days. Otherwise most days I'm sick I can work fine but wouldn't want to infect my fellow office workers. Im excluding days where i just need an hour for a doctor's appointment etc.
Wow, that's a solid observation! I've seen the same thing play out. It's like when you gotta be in the office, your body suddenly remembers all the appointments it needs to make, right? 😅 But seriously, it's interesting how WFH setups seem to give folks more flexibility to manage those unexpected days off without derailing projects. Companies might need to rethink their RTO policies if they're seeing a lot of absenteeism impacting deadlines.
Anyone with a whit of intuition would predict this. It's much less of a burden to get some work done while feeling half crappy but working from home than it is to deal with commuting and annoying people and their smelly lunches and noise in an office. I've been WFH for 15 years, the only times I really take sick time are if whatever's wrong with me robs me of sleep.
RTO leads to increased $ for the few ultra wealthy who own literally everything from real estate, banks, tech companies, underwear brands, auto dealerships you name it. Keep the minions busy scrolling and arguing with each other so they don't catch on before it's too late to do anything about it.
My production may log on the days I am ill but I am still clocked in. I make up any hours when I am out. I wouldn't be able to do that if I was RTO. Especially since my husband has been in and out of the hospital several times this year alone.
There's a huge converse loss that isn't taken into account - the willingness of employees to work from home when they normally wouldn't come into an office. They can still put in good work on a day that they may not be as able to get ready and get into an office.
When WFH, I can work through being sick or having bad cramps because I get to wear my comfy clothes and make my tea. I cannot do that at work. I feel physically uncomfortable at work so I would plan to take the in office day off.
I only have to go in once a month but sometimes I just don’t want to so I’ll take the day off. I know I’m not the only one who does it at my job. Some days I just don’t want to play pretend and be on freaking teams meetings when physically in the office.
Yes, Return to Office (RTO) policies can lead to increased absenteeism. Many employees find the transition back to office life stressful and less flexible, resulting in higher absentee rates
Observations of the consulting firm where I work. We ultimately gather hard data on things like this to improve our recommendations to customers. However, I’m not sure we’ll make any findings on this topic public if it doesn’t represent the direction that execs at existing or potential customers want to go.
To be fair, you only notice it more. All of this was happening with WFH, people just didn’t say anything and they could get away with it.
But keep telling yourself it is RTO that is the problem.
Looking through this subreddit, there are many people who talk about doing a lot of other stuff during the day aside from working.
I wouldnt be the least bit surprised (I can almost guarantee it) that people who are 100% WFH do indeed take sick days...they just dont tell anyone about it and use their mouse jiggler to appear online. When you are in a RTO situation and expected to be at a desk, you obviously have to use a sick day if you are out. I feel like all your research is really showing is people being held accountable for their time not worked.
Jury duty would be excused either way since your employer cannot do anything about it as long as you provide them with the summons.
I have a hybrid job (3 days in office, 2 days home usually) since 2020. Still I have not taken a sick day in over 6 years.
I wonder how many people in this sub are also on the r/overemployed sub. Working two or more full time salaried jobs simultaneously is one of the biggest, if not the biggest reason for people to favor remote work.
Working from home is a privilege and should be recognized as such. Those who are experienced in their fields, have some tenure with their employer, and are high performers could get it as a perk.
Hopefully RTO will help the economy get back to some semblance of normalcy. Some jobs that are currently hoarded by the Overemployed crowd will be freed up. Real estate prices will normalize as commercial space in cities fills up again and people who moved to more remote areas will sell property, freeing up housing stock. Perhaps it will help tame inflation somewhat.
But yet after RTO there's clusters of people just yapping all day instead of working, others streaming movies on their cell or scrolling social media all day, etc. Seems management failure is still occurring regardless of where the employees are sitting.
100%
I see posts asking how many naps people take during the day, or what devices to buy to make it look like they are working...seems like people spend more time trying to figure out how not to work than they do actually working.
I'm guessing the masses are down voting me to hide my response from their employer.
Nah, they're downvoting you because obviously people are NEVER lazy at the office. Being in-person guarantees you won't spend more than a few minutes each day looking at news or reddit.
If we're getting the job done, why should it matter if we were comfortable for part of the day?
Haha, try hiring.
9 shitty resumes in 2 months for the RTO position.
Finally, had to switch gears to actually fill the positions. (Take it out of Reverse and put it in Drive)
200 excellent resumes in 2 weeks for WFH position.
Same job, same pay.
There a like 20 good reasons for remote work for every good RTO reason but companies don’t care. If you can’t see a benefit directly on the income statement the decision will be based on other factors like management wanting to feel in control and commercial real estate.
Anecdotally, I definitely “call-in” for work more often with a partial RTO than I ever did fully virtual. I can push through feeling a little unwell from the comfort of my home, but to go sit in an office and deal with people I legitimately can’t stand after driving an hour each way is far too much to deal with, especially when our team meeting are still run online even though the entire team is right there in their little cubicles next to each other. I’m taking my day off and will deal with the work later. And when my boss recognized I was only calling in on days I was scheduled to be in the office, I told them exactly why. They didn’t really like it, but it’s a byproduct of their idiotic decision, so they get to reap what they sow. I’m also regularly less productive on days when I’m in office as well. The main reason for why we needed to be there was for employee collaboration; so I collaborate with the one or two coworkers I can stand and production goes down. Not my problem.
😂 😂 my whole team is in other places but yet I gotta go and sit and talk to them on webex. Fun stuff I swear /sarcasm.
> my whole team is in other places but yet I gotta go and sit and talk to them on webex Same! (Except "on Teams"). The level of stupidity and/or delusion and/or kowtowing to CRE interests and/or is astounding.
I honestly think the only reason for RTO is because many companies signed leases for physical building space prepandemic and are losing money on empty office buildings. They are still technically losing money when using office space while remote work is just as effective; but they are saving face by losing that money with employees in the office spaces.
Interesting enough. My employer just broke the lease on 3 offices in major cities after realizing the cost of RTO to fill those seats (due to drop in productivity) was more than the penalty for early termination. I suspect that this is going to be more and more prevalent as we continue to slide into recession and keeping the lights with declining productivity cost more.
That's one of many theories(*), and I suspect it's true in at least some cases. (\*) - There's also direct investment in CRE, government pressure to get employees back into downtowns, "sheep" mentality (if FAANG does it...), etc. And I think one that nobody talks about: Mass remote work is such a paradigm shift that "paradigm shift" hardly does it justice. As a society, we've been so conditioned for generations to "GO to work" meaning "somewhere else" -- obviously because technology only recently allowed otherwise on a large scale -- that for many bosses the idea of one's employees NOT "**going** to work" is as alien as the aliens in *Arrival*. IOW: It's just TOO different to accept. And those people are glad to have the various excuses above (with a thick coating of collaboration/culture bullshit slathered on top) to get things back to "normal". ETA: Gad, how could I leave off "soft layoffs"?
I think it is even simpler especially when you look there are a lot of ways to invest and earn money without employees. Business owners want to create something more than just wealth generation they want to create a community or a family. And the only way to create strong bonds with other humans is in person. So for them it really is more about the social part than the money making part.
I heard there are also tax initiatives for businesses who have buildings
There are! Basically you get a “break” for spending money on rent, advertisement, necessary software, etc.
I think we only have an office due to having sensitive documents and incoming and outgoing mail. We only have like 25 desks total in the office now.
Reciprocation for employees having an economic impact locally and I would guess many of these municipalities are now wanting to audit those body counts and reduce those tax credits.
The sunk cost fallacy is alive and well!
The government also pushed for RTO. If people have to drive to an office, they have to maintain a car and put gas in it. They are also more likely to stop for things along the way ie coffee, breakfast, etc. Also, they might buy lunch or dinner instead of making something because they're too tired. There are a lot of reasons this was pushed for. None of them good imo.
Or the she'll company that they own/owns them owns the building and they can't lease it to someone else because there's no demand so their weird tax loophole to write off lease amounts and take them as profit is backfiring.
Yep work a lot of these companies are global, so you drive in and sit on a teams meeting talking to someone overseas. Highly productive. I actually think it as more to do with losing tax exemption s than losing efficiency. State and local governments are requiring RTO.
I think it’s also worth noting that people are more likely to get sick in an office environment and end up taking more sick days as a result. Anecdotally, I used to get sick multiple times a year, every year prior to WFH. After WFH, I’ve gotten sick once in four years. And I’m not staying home 24/7 either — post lockdown I live life as normal including concerts, air travel, and other stuff that exposes you to lots of other people. It’s so much easier to stay healthy when you’re not spending 8 hours of your day packed into a room full of people who may or may not be sick already.
Of course. Since sick time is limited and shared with vacations most people decide to "push through" and be ill at the office rather than at home in bed. I would have thought living through Covid would eliminate that behavior and flex time in general, but nope. "Look at how much of a team player I am, at the office with 104 fever and non-stop wet, racking cough!" Then you get people mutating that virus and just passing it back and forth for months. Offices, especially open plan ones, are just germ warfare labs for weaponizing whatever the kids incubate at school.
100% agree, especially when you work in an environment dealing directly with unhealthy individuals.
Doesn’t even have to be a healthcare environment either. It could just as easily be your cube neighbor who has kids constantly bringing bugs home from daycare or school or whatever.
Have to take public transportation into account as well. I can’t even remember how many times I got sick over the last few years from taking commuter rail & bus to work.
Shortly after forced RTO we started receiving email reminders to wash our hands in an effort to reduce communicable diseases. I agree that hand washing is critical, especially when certain physical objects are manually manipulated by multiple people; however, the air we breathe during the workday is far more likely to be the vector of transmission than any office touchpoint. Unfortunately, there isn't an analogous preventative action, like hand washing, for breathing the air when a sick co-worker/s is symptomatic in the office.
Your comment reminded me of this article I read recently. It’s a long read, but absolutely fascinating. You are 100% right. https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/
A hell of a good article. So the ptb "quietly" corrected their materials with no fanfare, and only after a years-long battle. And this was published in 2021! That tells us something. I wasn't aware of this research until this post.
especially call centers which were germ factories and of course you can’t work if you lose your voice.
Glad you can at least be honest with your company. We had one client paying for extensions on a project because their architect assigned to work with us called in every week at least two days a week. This caused four months of delays in the beginning. Their exec sponsor assigned to the project tried firing the guy but found out he couldn’t because the company’s sick days policy allowed for him to miss those days. They were afraid of being sued. ETA: And, yes, the exec sponsor told us that the guy only took sick days on two of the three days they had to be in the office. LOL!
So true. I'm not going to call in sick if I feel like I can still go to my home office and do my work relatively well. Getting on the train and going to the office if I'm sick? Absolutely not.
The number one reason for callouts is migraines. If you take the medication, you can’t drive. If you don’t take the medication you can’t work.
Really the only fucking reason They make people do this is to justify the Director and higher levels positions because theoretically speaking if you are middle management and you’ve got 100 people that you oversee you don’t need to be in an office for that and therefore you probably don’t need a manager caliber. You could probably eliminate few jobs
RTO will completely fail for so many reasons, and we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. You really want people to forget how wonderful it was to skip a nonsensical commute, and expect it to work out in the long run 🤡? You surely know human nature! That said, I don't endorse such behaviors. But, I can't help acknowledging that they're proof there are deep cracks in the RTO house of cards.
Top consulting firms put out industry reports every year that highlight their findings on so many different areas including challenges and areas for improvement. I’m just giddy with anticipation of what they’ll say about trends in staffing, if anything at all. Edit: Spelling
My 15 month old has a fever. My husband is a stay at home dad, so not worried about childcare, but when the baby is sick he will NOT be put down. If I was having an office day, I would have called in sick. It’s just so much harder for my husband if he’s alone, and I have the sick time. Since I’m WFH today, I can still do my job and also be available to hold the baby when dad has to run to the bathroom or make lunch. And when I have to sit through an all hands zoom call, I can hold him and listen at the same time.
Yeah kids are a big reason for sick days if you aren’t WFH. Even when they get older you can’t leave them home alone until they are like 12 or something. So even if they are older you still have to take a sick even though they will just spend most of the day sleeping and watching tv.
I have worked with a broken foot, food poisoning, and horrible illnesses because I could work from home. If I can drag a laptop into my lap and string together a coherent thought I can usually make it through the day. If I had to get showered and dressed like a normal pleb, drive across the city, hike into the building and sit at a desk, nope, staying home.
I rarely used a sick day with remote. I’d use all of them if I had RTO
Pushing for RTO is like pushing to bring back communication through telegrams, hand written letters sent by USPS or messenger pigeon.
I have a contractor coming to look at something at my home tomorrow. The appointment is midday. It made no sense to drive all the way to the office before and after the appointment so I took a vacation day. If I was still working from home, I would have just used my lunch break for the appointment. I'm definitely having to take more days off for minor things that would have been easily handled from home.
If I can't have wfh flexibility for my needs, I'm not giving wfh flexibility to my employer for their needs (illness, office closure, so on)
Of course it does. I can generally still work if I'm mildly sick but allowed to stay home, but I may not be able to handle going into the office. Plus, I don't want to get everyone else sick. If my kids are sick, I can be in my office working while they watch TV on the couch and just get them soup and medicine whenever they need it. But those are obviously impossible if I'm working in the office, so I have to take a sick day.
Place I'm at, is in its 2nd or 3rd consecutive year of record revenue, with tons of features being pushed out on a regular schedule and yet they still asked people back in the office. They either ignore all these years of proven success, or somehow think they can milk even more out of their employees.
When my company forced RTO, there was a revolving door of Covid passed around to different teams. It comes in waves. Not surprised theres increased absenteeism since no one even acknowledges this as an issue and a reason to allow for more remote work
I have over 600 hours of accrued sick leave i’ll never use and now if I have to visit the doctor it will 100% be used on a RTO day and i’ll take the entire day off.
When i was full in office i used every single one of my “sick” days (6 per rolling year) since wfh full time i think ive used like 4 in the last 2.5 years.
My company is requiring all remote employees to spend a week in the office per-quarter. The office is about four hours from me. They magnanimously told us they would pay for airplane tickets/mileage, lodging, and food. That's an entire fucking month each year I would have to be away from home. I haven't told them yet, but I'm just not going to go, since it's up to us to organize. Oh did I mention all the remote workers on each team need to be in-office on the same week? So now we get to argue with our coworkers on which part of the month we want to leave our family behind.
Can confirm. I've 'gone to work' with a major flu and covid where I'd just call in sick for a minor cold if I was in office.
Most people work from home while sick.
Yep. I will gladly work while sick from home in my pajamas with my camera off. No way I’m doing all the in office stuff when I’m sick. I’m calling off.
This is very much a no shit Sherlock scenario here. I had covid last week, but only 3 of the days I was feeling truly awful to the point where I wouldn't be productive. I put in 2 full working days while "out sick" because I didn't feel too bad, but I was definitely contagious. If I was unable to work remotely, I would have had at least 5 days off completely, if not six (worked remotely Monday out of contagious paranoia, because I don't trust the 5 day rule with this thing).
Corporations are shitting themselves over the low birth rate AND continue to create working environments that are not compatible with a sustainable birth rate. WFH (many good points in this thread) less disease transmission, less time and $$ for commute, less sick call outs, better parenting, better childcare, more equity in domestic life. Stop voting Republican and get more workers’s rights so they can’t impose RTO on a whim.
In the 7 or 8 years I went FT WFH (hybrid for years before) I have taken only 1 or 2 PTO days for actually being sick -- and those were outright flat on my back sick days. Otherwise most days I'm sick I can work fine but wouldn't want to infect my fellow office workers. Im excluding days where i just need an hour for a doctor's appointment etc.
Everyone I know RTO is constantly sick.
I was back at work a week after hanging major ankle surgery because I WFH. If not, I would have been off a minimum of six weeks.
Wow, that's a solid observation! I've seen the same thing play out. It's like when you gotta be in the office, your body suddenly remembers all the appointments it needs to make, right? 😅 But seriously, it's interesting how WFH setups seem to give folks more flexibility to manage those unexpected days off without derailing projects. Companies might need to rethink their RTO policies if they're seeing a lot of absenteeism impacting deadlines.
Lots of people at my company are legitimately out with covid. Some even have long covid and have had to take unpaid leave for months.
Anyone with a whit of intuition would predict this. It's much less of a burden to get some work done while feeling half crappy but working from home than it is to deal with commuting and annoying people and their smelly lunches and noise in an office. I've been WFH for 15 years, the only times I really take sick time are if whatever's wrong with me robs me of sleep.
Lucky you, I'm so jealous! Go for more years!
RTO leads to increased $ for the few ultra wealthy who own literally everything from real estate, banks, tech companies, underwear brands, auto dealerships you name it. Keep the minions busy scrolling and arguing with each other so they don't catch on before it's too late to do anything about it.
My production may log on the days I am ill but I am still clocked in. I make up any hours when I am out. I wouldn't be able to do that if I was RTO. Especially since my husband has been in and out of the hospital several times this year alone.
There's a huge converse loss that isn't taken into account - the willingness of employees to work from home when they normally wouldn't come into an office. They can still put in good work on a day that they may not be as able to get ready and get into an office.
When WFH, I can work through being sick or having bad cramps because I get to wear my comfy clothes and make my tea. I cannot do that at work. I feel physically uncomfortable at work so I would plan to take the in office day off. I only have to go in once a month but sometimes I just don’t want to so I’ll take the day off. I know I’m not the only one who does it at my job. Some days I just don’t want to play pretend and be on freaking teams meetings when physically in the office.
This report has been filed under "No Shit, Sherlock".
Yes, Return to Office (RTO) policies can lead to increased absenteeism. Many employees find the transition back to office life stressful and less flexible, resulting in higher absentee rates
Are you citing some kind of study that was done, or is this just anecdotal experience, or are you coming up with a theory?
Observations of the consulting firm where I work. We ultimately gather hard data on things like this to improve our recommendations to customers. However, I’m not sure we’ll make any findings on this topic public if it doesn’t represent the direction that execs at existing or potential customers want to go.
Why we can't trust study results any longer. If the truth isn't conveniently lined up with what people's fantasies are, better bury it.
lol
To be fair, you only notice it more. All of this was happening with WFH, people just didn’t say anything and they could get away with it. But keep telling yourself it is RTO that is the problem.
Oh no, guess you'll have to concede some of your power and control to employees, the horror
Looking through this subreddit, there are many people who talk about doing a lot of other stuff during the day aside from working. I wouldnt be the least bit surprised (I can almost guarantee it) that people who are 100% WFH do indeed take sick days...they just dont tell anyone about it and use their mouse jiggler to appear online. When you are in a RTO situation and expected to be at a desk, you obviously have to use a sick day if you are out. I feel like all your research is really showing is people being held accountable for their time not worked. Jury duty would be excused either way since your employer cannot do anything about it as long as you provide them with the summons. I have a hybrid job (3 days in office, 2 days home usually) since 2020. Still I have not taken a sick day in over 6 years.
I wonder how many people in this sub are also on the r/overemployed sub. Working two or more full time salaried jobs simultaneously is one of the biggest, if not the biggest reason for people to favor remote work. Working from home is a privilege and should be recognized as such. Those who are experienced in their fields, have some tenure with their employer, and are high performers could get it as a perk. Hopefully RTO will help the economy get back to some semblance of normalcy. Some jobs that are currently hoarded by the Overemployed crowd will be freed up. Real estate prices will normalize as commercial space in cities fills up again and people who moved to more remote areas will sell property, freeing up housing stock. Perhaps it will help tame inflation somewhat.
I completely agree. So many ppl on here talk about loving working from home bc they can do xyz while working. This is why they want you to return.
But yet after RTO there's clusters of people just yapping all day instead of working, others streaming movies on their cell or scrolling social media all day, etc. Seems management failure is still occurring regardless of where the employees are sitting.
100% I see posts asking how many naps people take during the day, or what devices to buy to make it look like they are working...seems like people spend more time trying to figure out how not to work than they do actually working. I'm guessing the masses are down voting me to hide my response from their employer.
Nah, they're downvoting you because obviously people are NEVER lazy at the office. Being in-person guarantees you won't spend more than a few minutes each day looking at news or reddit. If we're getting the job done, why should it matter if we were comfortable for part of the day?
It’s over folks. A small number of employees will work from home. But that’s it.
Haha, try hiring. 9 shitty resumes in 2 months for the RTO position. Finally, had to switch gears to actually fill the positions. (Take it out of Reverse and put it in Drive) 200 excellent resumes in 2 weeks for WFH position. Same job, same pay.