There’s been a great deal of speculation during the pandemic about how the work environment will change as a result of the large scale working from home that COVID-19 required. Some pundits said that work would be changed forever; others said that at the end of the day, things would go back to the way they were before the pandemic.
Irreal’s feeling has always been that it’s a lot easier to deny people things they don’t have than to take away things they do. Remote work was probably always the future for so called “knowledge workers” but the micromanagers were able prevent it from gaining traction by refusing to let it start. Now—to use a cliché—the toothpaste is out of the tube and there’s no putting it back; Companies are going to find it hard to take away the option for remote work.
Supporting evidence is starting to emerge. According to a Bloomberg article, some workers are quitting rather than go back to the office. The statistics are startling: 39% of all workers said they would quit rather than give up working from home. Among younger workers it was 49%. Think about that. Half of young employees—the future of the workforce—will refuse to work for companies that insist they work in the office.
Not everyone likes remote work and those who don’t will need to be accommodated but trying to cram workers back in the office is appearing more and more like a fool’s errand. Managers are trotting out the same tired arguments they use for open offices: company culture, collaboration, … . No sensible person believes that silliness when it’s advanced it in support of employee-hostile open offices and they’re unlikely to believe it when managers use it to try to force them back into offices.