this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
247 points (95.9% liked)

News

23387 readers
2610 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
247
The diminishing returns of in-office mandates (www.bbc.com)
submitted 5 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
31 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

In-person collaboration has been linked to high performance and job satisfaction, but these benefits don't increase with more days spent in the office.

An oft-cited reason for in-person work mandates is that they help drive connection among a team. As more employers push for four and five days in the office, rhetoric has focused on the importance of collaboration and a sense of belonging that some leaders believe can only be fostered in a shared physical environment.

Yet some data shows the number of days people attend the office doesn't directly correlate to that sense of connection. In fact, there's only a 1% difference in the number of employees who say they feel connected to their organisation working four or five days a week as compared to those working two or three days on site. That slim leading edge went to the latter group, at 60%, according to a global survey of 1,115 employees by London-based workplace insights firm Leesman, seen by the BBC.

"There just doesn't seem to be huge gains from the number of days people are in the office," says Allison English, deputy CEO of Leesman. "It's about the quality, not quantity, of time that matters. In fact, we see that the greater the number of in-person days, the less the worker is generally satisfied with work-life balance, impacting engagement and their connection to the organisation."

top 31 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 78 points 5 months ago (3 children)

My last job was a hybrid schedule- 16 hours WFH, 24 hours WFO. Not only did that not make any sense, but absolutely nothing any of us did had to be done at the office and all meetings were either done by Discord or Zoom because the hybrid schedule was flexible.

It wasn't even a 'we have to use this real estate' situation because it was the office part of a manufacturing facility and they could have put in at least two more lines if they got rid of all of our stations and just kept the executive offices. They could have made more money by not having us there.

So fucking stupid.

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 44 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Managers are willing to spend company money - and your goodwill - chasing that feeling of "being in charge", which is apparently a more pure high in-person:-P.

[–] Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 8 points 5 months ago

Yeah, don't dilute the product with this TEAMS filler, SMDH

[–] chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My manager doesn't really care about that, and hence, I'm currently only in office for our monthly company meeting, and thats mostly to help out the new CEO have a room of people instead of just a zoom call. I do enjoy when I go in, but once a month is enough for me. If I were closer, once a week would be fine too, but I really benefit in a ton of ways working from home, and in office I'm usually just helping others out and twidling my thumbs(helping people out is a major part of my job, but I can still do that remote as well).

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 2 points 5 months ago

A good manager is worth their weight in ~~gold~~ ~~diamonds~~ platinum. :-D

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 11 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The bullshit is that managers don't understand why RTO is valuable.

The best thing to do is to let the groups that need face time to choose the days they come in and focus only on facilitating that time. If the group isn't there at one time, RTO is worthless.

[–] doctordevice@lemmy.ca 8 points 5 months ago

My team has one day per week where we have our regular team meetings and the expectation is we are usually in the office on that day. Outside of that, we all set our own schedules based on our needs. Some people just like being in the office or have job duties that necessitate it. Others like me have little reason to be in the office other than specific meetings so I WFH 4 days most weeks, coming in on those if needed.

It's the best work setup I've had so far, and a lot of that is because our manager is actually great at her job.

[–] exanime 2 points 5 months ago

Exactly right. We came back to the office 1 day a week and moved every zoom/TeAmS meeting put of that day so we could focus on "in person" work...

My wife's team on the other hand, were told to come back 2 days a week, they chose whichever building from a few available and whatever day. The result is that she goes to an office to sit around strangers and do, uncomfortably, the same tasks she would do from home.

[–] IamAnonymous@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We have the same schedule. I go in 3 days to run Teams meetings as all the participants are Suppliers and some are in a different country. Sometimes I have spent an entire day in a small conference room in meetings without “collaborating” with anyone at work.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

It's so stupid, but the extra stupid in the case of that job was that not having everyone WFH was actually costing them money.

[–] Talaraine@fedia.io 54 points 5 months ago

I love how media is slowly moving away from "RTO is bullshit" to "It has some benefits but they're taking it too far". Next week it will be "What were we thinking? RTO is here to stay!"

As so many people have said, there's plenty of jobs where this isn't necessary at all. The conversation needs to stay focused on the flawed conceptions of corporate suits in an echo-chamber.

[–] crusa187@lemmy.ml 38 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Nice attempt at moving the goalposts to “debate” on 3 days vs 4 or 5.

Get out of here with your thinly veiled attempts to safeguard commercial real estate investments now that you’ve been left holding the bag, executives.

If a job can be done from home, it should be.

[–] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 13 points 5 months ago

Don't forget there was an article not too long ago where after a bunch of surveys it seems that the back the office push was to try and cut the workforce without paying unemployment.

[–] Redacted@lemmy.world 37 points 5 months ago (1 children)

So they've failed at pushing full return to office and now they're commissioning unscientific studies to try to make hybrid seem necessary?

These results really can't be applied to all jobs. Some jobs obviously require in-person but many white collar jobs can be done entirely remotely saving workers time, money and freeing up infrastructure for those that need/want to go in. Not to mention other benefits to mental health and reduction of emissions involved in commuting.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club -1 points 5 months ago

I feel like full remote only works if you don't need to train or have meaningful coordination with staff.

However, at that point, it becomes really easy to view the work as a cost center and make attempts to reduce costs.

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.world 25 points 5 months ago (1 children)

RTO or taking away any employee benefits is a great way to lose your best performing employees

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Don't care; costs are lower.

Those guys were extra expensive, too!

[–] snooggums@midwest.social -3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I work in the office 2 days each week and three at home. The two days are spent with the in person stuff and the other three is doing all the solo work based on that interaction with a sprinkling of remote communication on teams or zoom as needed and no other office distractions.

Good to see the obvious backed up by data.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 19 points 5 months ago (2 children)

That was my experience early on, but since committing to full remote first, I find even the "in person" tasks like onboarding, and brainstorming, easier to do remotely.

You just need a good remote culture of frequent and open sync/async communication, with protected do-not-disturb/focus time.

[–] scytale@lemm.ee 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

For me, the occasional office visit is basically for socialization only. Meeting up with coworkers, have lunch, hang out for a bit in the office, then back home to work.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 months ago

Yeah, that's how I treated it when I was doing hybrid instead of fully remote, but now I don't even have an office to go into even if I wanted.

I will still meet old co-workers cum friends for lunches, though. Can't do without that!

[–] snooggums@midwest.social 2 points 5 months ago

I work with some non-technical people that just need in person communication because that is how the rest of their job works. They are the knowledge experts about the things we are creating web systems to support.

If I worked only with technical people I would expect remote to work for everything.

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I could find half a dozen studies right now that contradict this one. It's only as obvious as you want it to be.

[–] herrcaptain@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 months ago (3 children)

You're getting downvoted here, but your anecdotal evidence matches my own. This is how I set my own schedule by choice. I get my "real" work done when I work from home, while the 2 in-office days are mostly spent in meetings, training other staff, and stuff that's easier to do in person (hardware troubleshooting).

I get that this isn't the case for everyone though, and many people would be more productive predominantly working from home.

[–] Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I work from home entirely.

The issue with this topic is that most people can't see past their own roles and experiences with it to see how office time can sometimes be beneficial (as you outline above) or completely pointless (my case).

It's good to have a place to meet clients, or have important meetings, so I go when only when I need to do that. For some people that's all they do. Other people can do their jobs away from the office. Neither side should be slammed for their view; the only people we should slam are our corporate overlords. Now get in the Hilux

[–] greenskye@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

Yep. My role works heavily with outside vendors and contractors in multiple states and countries. It's incredibly rare for any given meeting to consist solely of workers living within 50 miles of each other. So 'in person' typically means two guys in a shitty conference room, with shitty audio calling in to an online meeting with the other 4 people. That is not productive and has no value. Actually negative value as I've always found mixed in person and on call meetings to be less effective than if everyone just called in.

I get a lot of people can actually see their coworkers, but that's not my role and never will be. RTO is an extremely poor fit for me.

[–] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes, they're getting downvoted because of what you said in your second paragraph. It doesn't work for everyone.

The only way my current boss can contact me is by going through his secretary. I think that's dumb, mostly because the secretary is not very good, and is slow to relay information. But whatever, that's the way they want it.

Leave me alone and I am much more productive, if you watch me like a hawk you can expect quality and quantity to go down, and I'm gonna quit.

I really don't like being watched, but more than that I will focus on someone watching me rather than the work at hand.

[–] snooggums@midwest.social 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I didn't say it worked for everyone.

[–] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

I know you didn't. I didn't downvote you, the way you work is as valid as the way I do.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My last job had so much hardware troubleshooting involved that when we had that talk about RTO after COVID, I told that boss flat-out I wouldn't do hybrid. All Hybrid would mean is that I would have two labs, and inevitably whatever I needed would be in the other place. I told him to either keep me home full time, or I come into the office full time.

For unrelated reasons, I left for a full time remote role. Very little hardware troubleshooting required. I could not have done my last job like this, but for this job it's perfect.

Everyone's situation is different. Anyone who says that there's only one way to do it is ignorant.

[–] herrcaptain@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 months ago

Yeah, having to split your gear up between two workplaces gets exhausting. For a long time I was a self-employed contractor primarily working for one company and I'd never have the right tool or part where I needed it. I now work full-time for that company and most of the gear stays in one place and is a lot more manageable. Plus, I set up a co-management agreement with an IT company that is literally our upstairs neighbor so if there's a hardware problem that needs to be fixed in a hurry on a day I'm working from home I can just escalate the ticket to them instead of driving into the office.

But yeah, there's absolutely no one size fits all approach to every workplace or specific job. I've been pushing for more flexibility there at my office for other roles because of that.