A fear of being ordered back to the office is having an impact on workers’ wellbeing, according to a poll, after a string of companies issued return-to-office mandates. More than a third (38%) of workers surveyed said recent news stories about companies hardening their stance on office attendance had negatively affected their wellbeing
Is this still an issue? Stay flexible, certainly, and make best use of technology. That said, get everyone back into the office ASAP, for the bulk of their working time. How else are the youngsters to learn, whatever is their trade? How else is proper human contact and continuous learning at all ages - the bedrock of practical human existence - to be maintained? We are social animals**, and let no one think otherwise; nor any right-thinking organisation that proposes to survive as a viable, thriving, enduring enterprise.
Anyone wedded to wholesale homeworking is begging to be AI'd out of existence, and rapidly, too. On a purely Drawinian basis, any organisation continuing to tolerate it is not destined to flourish.
Or it's a government department, of course ...
ND
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** OK, we all know exceptions ...
6 comments:
"How else are the youngsters to learn, whatever is their trade? How else is proper human contact and continuous learning at all ages - the bedrock of practical human existence - to be maintained? "
Not to mention the useful information gleaned from conversations at the coffee machine.
I'm trying to persuade my son of this atm, bad for career to only be in the office once a month for four days. His HQ is moving to an unglamorous midlands location, and he's very happy where he is in a varsity town full of young people.
HMRC is hamstrung by its legions of WFH staff. The stress excuse is deployed at the drop of a hat to avoid coming into the office.
"His HQ is moving to an unglamorous midlands location"
My father-in-law hoped to continue working to age 90 but had to jack it in a couple of years early because the company moved their offices to somewhere inaccessible to him in a reasonable time.
Some forty-somethings in my extended family are browned off at being ordered to the office full time but suspect that those who show reluctance will simply be "laid off" i.e. fired.
I spent much of my career as an academic so I spent 50, 60, 70 (occasionally even 80) hours a week in the office, but the office concerned might be a lecture theatre, an undergraduate lab, my departmental office, my lab, someone else's lab, someone else's departmental office, a workshop, this library or that library, a seminar room in a different department, or my study at home.
Trouble is, few non-academics could be trusted to put in the hours, and not all academics could be trusted either. "I'm at a conference on Crete all next week."
Oh aye.
If companies are planning to replace their WFH staff with AI, I suggest sinking cash into their competitors who aren't.
I've been using it a lot of late, and in some situations it is a time saver, but generally it is very dumb, and it's hallucinations highly problematic. Stats are starting to roll out that it's a productivity killer in general (https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/), AI agents (one of which I'm working on) generally don't work most of the time, and can only be trusted to do small chunks.
In short, the gap between what is being sold and what is being experienced is not much different from finding that the sports car you bought has a Trebant's engine inside.
dearieme - if you're in medicine the conferences do tend to be in nice locations ... not so much if it's geology.
I started work at a tender age in industry. Very much a wakeup call, rough men and rough speech and put to work as an apprentice. This was the making of me for I think most teenage boys think their father is a silly old fool. But those rough men with rough speech pointed the way forward.
A series of jobs revealed the nature of 'a company' a team of compatriots with some common aim. Mostly pretty jolly and good fun with folk mostly very good to get on with.
This weekend I visited a family one of whom is WFH. It does not look a barrel of fun, he does go into the office and works and socialises about 4 days/month. But I fear this life is not doing him any good, he can't afford to move out of home and the job market is not very encouraging. He sits in a shaded room in front of a laptop all day, last winter he developed a 'prison pallor'.
Colleagues have left and moved into banking and tell him life is worse there. So I feel a big barrel of trouble is brewing for the next decade or two. WFH is not the only cause, the housing market, social mobility and the stratification of social peer groups. All seems a long way from chasing factory girls in the 1960s.
BTW I agree with Caeser re AI but there are not many other good fads around.
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