Bit of different type of post than what you typically see but thought maybe some people on here would appreciate it.
There are a long strong feelings around back to work edicts. A lot of them around wanting to stay at home. Also there is the justifiable outrage around companies than initially said they would be going remote, people moved/sold cards and then did a 180 and said no we need you back in office. This post isn't about that kind of BS.
My point is this. We can all have differing preferences and opinions on the necessity of back to work. But if a company handled the transition well I think most people on here would come to accept it. That is “okay this is wasn't I was hoping for but what they're asking for isn't unreasonable.”
Maybe if we're still really PO'ed about back to office it occurred maybe more of it lies in how it's been handled and communicated. That companies have done a piss poor job across the board. This seems to be in areas like the following:
– Inconsistent or vague communication in regards to when and how back to office will be rolled out. That is a lot of companies had a “let's get through this” mentality during the heart of the pandemic. But they weren't thinking ahead to post-pandemic and the importance of good communication to what the new normal would be.
-Poorly handled personnel decisions. Hiring people far from office who are now exempt from back to office, reorganizing departments without regard to location and creating a culture where many people's home office location doesn't align with the people for whom in-person interaction might be beneficial.
-HR's terrible handling of this. The new office environment is a huge change in how we work. The HR group ideally should be intimately involved in how to navigate this new landscape. Instead I get the impression very few departments are. If anything they are more inclined to try to spin things to give management the impression that back to office is working instead of addressing the concerns employees bring to them about this. HR as often happens can be a hindrance, not a help.
-Managers not supporting the BTO initiative. A lot of managers took the pandemic and the less visible nature of work to build their off little kingdoms and create a culture different from what management is preaching. It's harder to call them out on this and their success on implementing a successful BTO approach in their department isn't evaluating. No training, no discussion, no accountability for those who only know how to manage over emails and video chats.
-Last but not least the CEO out of touch perspective. I've heard various CEO's preach BTO and talk about a lot of things that begin with “C” as the reason why. Wanting to build culture, camaraderie, collaboration, community, etc. And believe it or not I agree in theory with what they're thinking. Here's the problem. Those things don't happen automatically. They take a lot of work and thought. Just because you as CEO when you're in the office are treated as royalty doesn't mean the rank and file is treating like that. A lot of employees returning to office are treated like nobodies and most people may barely notice if someone is in or not. Furthermore, we're back to an office where we don't really know a lot of the people we're now finally seeing face to face. How can you benefit from the things you want to see from back to work when you've set everyone up for failure?
I've said way too much. For those that have read this far thank you and hope you appreciate where I'm coming from. We can disagree on just how important back to office but hopefully we all agree that the majority of companies could be doing a lot better job in how they handle this. I'm not saying I have all the answers but in laying out the concerns I've picked up on I feel I've given the complexity of this issue a lot more thought than most people whose job it is to think about these things.