Work From Home is Here to Stay
Work from home (WFH) is here to stay if you’re lucky and fight for it. I keep hearing from my customers that more and more companies are starting to reopen and call back employees to the office, except many are not coming back!
That’s music to my ears!
After dealing with the sudden pandemic shutdowns, juggling work-home duties, and dealing with the isolation, the majority of American workers powered through this hell. We did it. We kept our companies afloat and not just survived, but thrived. I don’t know about your work environment, but we accelerated our productivity over the last year.
As companies open up, they’re making demands for workers to come back to the office. They’re asking employees to prove to them why they should keep the privilege of work from home.
Say what?
We kept your asses afloat during the pandemic and you want US to prove to you that we should be able to continue WFH?
SLAM! That was the door closing on the employee exodus. Workers are not tolerating this bullshit and it’s leading to a massive talent shuffle.
Boomers Love Control
I recently shared a Bloomberg article on my LinkedIn wall and added some commentary.
I wrote:
Seven years ago I left the Civil Engineering industry where Work From Home (WFH) was frowned on. The people in charge of the companies assumed that you’d be goofing off if you did WFH. Then the Covid19 pandemic hit and those Engineering companies HAD TO ADAPT and allow WFH, after all, there was always a deadline to meet.
This Bloomberg article really nails the feeling of many professionals that are forced to come into work when a WFH scenario is in everyone’s best interest.
“…there’s also the notion that some bosses, particularly those of a generation less familiar to remote work, are eager to regain tight control of their minions.”
“They feel like we’re not working if they can’t see us,” she said. “It’s a boomer power-play.”
This article is a shot across the bow to all industries. WFH is here to stay and if you want to attract and keep key talent you’re going to have to evolve AND fast. #careers #engineering #workfromhome
Technology has allowed a massive swath of workers to WFH, except those in charge refused to let us do it. Because they were afraid we’d be sleeping on the couch.
Do you know what we did with WFH instead? We saved at least 2 hours of commuting every day. We were able to pick up our kids at school without rushing out the door of the office. We got to spend more time with our families or friends. We had a life in that fucked up work-life balance platitude we keep hearing.
And we were more productive than we ever.
Fight for Work From Home
The Boomer tyrants are going to work hard to get you to come back to the office, fight for your right to have a flexible arrangement.
I get it, some people like the office interaction and seeing their colleagues - I do too - but do you need to go to the office 5 days a week? Why not do a 2 day in the office / 3 day WFH, or so another arrangement that makes sense for you.
Whatever is the optimal arrangement is for you, the main premise is this: a flexible work schedule makes a lot of sense from cultivating happy workers AND productivity.
Hell, you might not need so much office space anymore and cut back on leasing costs. This might lead to less development of commercial real estate, which is OK in my book.