When maverick entrepreneur Elon Musk scrapped remote working for Twitter and called 40-hour work weeks ‘for the weak hearted’, he reopened the debate on whether a return-to-office push will prevail in the post-pandemic era. Companies like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley quickly jumped on this bandwagon, asking employees to return to the office full time. But not everyone is happy. Many employees and jobseekers are not a fan of this mandate.
In this article, we’ll bring some clarity on whether the return to the office is truly an emerging trend, explain why your boss wants you back in the office, and list out 5 ways you can say no to coming back to the office – without burning bridges.
Remote working still reigns
Our job market data spots that since the outbreak of the pandemic, the proportion of fully remote roles rose sharply, from 4.2% in January 2020 to a peak of 17.1% in April 2022. However, the tables may be turning on remote work. Since April, the proportion of job vacancies specifying remote working has reduced gradually to a 10-month low of 13.8% in November 2022, despite still dominating advertised vacancies chart.
Meanwhile, during this period, as more employers are urging employees to return to the office, the proportion of job vacancies specifying roles are ‘office-based’ has started creeping back up, from 3.5% in April 2022 to a 19-month high of 4.2% in November 2022. Before April, the proportion of vacancies labeled ‘office-based’ were under 4% most of the time. Now with Elon and co. adopting a hardline approach to the return to the office, the number is rising.
Hybrid advertised roles remained flat throughout the pandemic, with less than 1% of postings advertising hybrid roles between January 2020 and September 2021. Since October 2021, with the rapid rise of the Delta variant, we’ve recorded a shift, with advertised roles climbing from 1.2% to 3.7% in November 2022.
For jobseekers, this shift signifies that you might be seeing more office-based job ads than before. For workers who don’t have any plans to find a new job, this can also affect you. More employers want employees back in the office. Whether it’s one day or five days at the office, they want you to show up in the office way more often than during the pandemic times. This could be the beginning of a transition to returning to the office 5 days per week, or simply the executive’s attempt to build a closer team. For those who moved further away from the office, this could be a nightmare as they could now face longer commutes.
What your boss is thinking
The most common reasons why your boss is so eager to have you back in the office are improving collaboration, strengthening company culture and reinforcing control.
Alphabet’s Google and Starbucks are two of the big employers calling for a return to the office in order to aid collaboration. You might wonder, I’ve been attending team lunches, weekly catch up and after-work team events virtually in the past years and I know my colleagues pretty well, why do we need to move back to the office just to do the same things?
The thing is effective collaboration can surely happen through those virtual meetings, but it’s not happening organically. Employees usually need to block a timeslot in colleagues’ calendars and attend the meeting when it’s time. Even for informal virtual catch-up or team lunches, they need to select their invitees and schedule a time in advance. Quick questions are generally done over messaging tools, but with our Skype and Slack messages buzzing all day and everyday, this can feel invasive and it can be slower to get an answer.
By comparison, a physical workplace allows conversations to happen more naturally. It encourages people to ask quick questions and share their challenges with others. Apart from that, working in an office is full of those famous ‘water-cooler moments’. You never know who you might meet over a cup of coffee or the lunch table, probably someone you may never schedule a meeting with because your job duties are very different. Very often, these conversations can bring you a new perspective – or at least a better understanding of your colleagues’ roles.
Having in-person conversations and meetings can also keep employees engaged and connected. Being physically in the same place, it can be easier to build an atmosphere of pulling together towards a common goal. It can also help new joiners settle in.
One final note, when you’re working remotely, your boss is actually giving you a lot of trust. They may gauge your performance based on your online status, response rate and meeting attendance rate. But trust is intangible and can be fragile. They might know as a leader they need to trust their employees unconditionally but it can also be challenging to trust them when they can’t see everyone and the relationship is founded on a contract. Being in a physical office can help managers and your boss have a better physical grasp and control on what you’re doing throughout the day. For companies who might be experiencing a slump in revenue or potentially going bankrupt — for example, Goldman Sachs and Twitter, it’s not difficult to understand why their owners want their employees back in the office. By boosting in-office attendance, managers can monitor how long employees work per day and track down how many hours they spend on each task.
5 tips for telling your manager you want to continue working from home
1. Ask in-person or schedule a video chat
When your managers ask you to return to the office and you want to decline it, it’s wise to talk to them in person or at least schedule a video chat. It leads to fewer misunderstandings as they can hear your tone and see your facial expressions in addition to your words. It might be more confrontational and uncomfortable but requesting it in-person is more respectful.
2. Figure out your manager’s main concern
Learn the main reason why your manager wants you to return to the office. You can start by re-reading their email or message again or reflecting on the exact words they use during their announcements. It’s important to understand your manager’s motive so you can come up with a more convincing reason why you want to work from home and how this can ease your manager’s concerns as well. Show your managers how they and the company can benefit from you working from home.
3. Provide professional reasons
Examples of professional reasons are “I spend 3+ hours every day commuting, and the long daily commute is draining my energy. I am more productive and focused if I am working from home.” and “My productivity and focus have improved significantly due to the lack of interruptions in the working environment. During the office days, my workflow is often disrupted by phone calls and other team’s meetings. As my task requires a lot of brainstorming, strategy planning and content writing, I need a quiet environment in order to perform my best. I’ve built a quiet and ergonomic home office setup which allows me to work effectively.”
4. Be prepared to compromise
Ideally, you would want to resolve the matter as fast as you can and avoid escalating it into a dispute. Therefore, recognize what can be compromised and what can’t, and be transparent with your intentions. Show them you’re willing to meet them in the middle ground and lay out several suggestions.
5. Send a formal request after your discussion
If your managers verbally accept your work from home request, send them a formal email request so they can share it with HR and management if they need to. Include your plea, how it could potentially benefit the company, your track record of working from home efficiently and don’t forget to thank your manager for approving your request.
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