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I haven't worked in my employer's offices in 10 years even though there's one just 11 miles from me. Not sure if I could ever make the transition back.If I were forced to come back, I'd probably look for another job..... which may be part of a corporate tactic to quietly 'shed' some employees w/o calling for a layoff. ??
It seems that some companies that aren't doing so great are having their employees reeled back into the office. Bummer.
Edits: 05/19/17Follow Ups:
I worked for IBM for 35 years until retiring in 2013; I now work for them part time.
It's my opinion that the "return to the office" mandate (and it is not for all people - so far) is more about getting people to leave voluntarily than it is about enhancing collaboration.
IBM has been shedding people for years, and the severance package has kept getting smaller and smaller. They keep coming up with devious ways to pay you less to leave; e.g., late last year we had a layoff that was effective two weeks before the date on which the company would match (not 1-1) your 401k contributions for the year.
This "co-location" mandate would reduce it to zero - you left voluntarily. I suspect younger people will be more likely to accept the move (fewer roots established in current location, young/no children, aging parents not yet a concern, etc.) than older people. This fits in nicely with the goal of shedding the higher paid people and keeping the lower paid people.
rlindsa
I work from home fairly regularly these days but it definitely has a big downside. I don't learn from the people I work with nearly as much as I would if we were all in the same place. The people who love working from home are generally people who are content where they are. They don't want to climb. People who want to learn, work their way into a better position want to go in. I think a company that normalizes a lot of WFH ends up with too many people who aren't growing and that means stagnation for the company as well as the employees.
It's hard to figure out what is important and get a good big picture understanding if you don't work in the same office as your coworkers. It's harder to be engaged on a conference call than it is in a live meeting. It's harder to remember what was said. I think it's really bad for young people. It's unmotivating, stifles innovation. It's incredibly convenient though, and I think that's why so many people claim it's wonderful even though it's really only good in pretty limited situations.
I expect that companies that force people to come back to the office will end up losing a lot of selfish old-timers who aren't interested in learning from the people they work with and don't want to teach anybody anything either. I think an awful lot of companies have far too much of that element anyway and will be better off.
One never traveled, attended and participated in industry conferences and took onsite CE in their field of interest.
I get a lot more done leaving valuable free time not spent in traffic which was horrible at my last position. :)
Not to mention that when you work from home they end up getting way more hours worked out of you. Because your home is your office, there is an expectation that you are on-call 7x24. There is some truth to what ornery said, but categoricals as he stated things seldom, if ever, exist in the real world. It takes all kinds of employees.
Yeah, daily commuting 15-20 miles sucks big time. I once endured it when I got a government contract for a 3-year project. 18 miles to downtown Dallas typically 5 days a week. I don't know how people do that longterm. And think of how much gasoline is wasted just sitting in traffic - millions of cars and SUVs burning fuel not going anywhere. It doesn't make any sense. And, then you've got the moron/idiot/yahoo drivers who screw it up even worse by causing accidents every morning and afternoon. What the hell is wrong with some people?!
:)
I haven't had a job in 30 years. Self-employment is the way to go.
:)
I've been in a similar situation for nearly twenty years. :)
physically present.
Interesting ploy to trim the ranks.
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
she's now working elsewhere.
all the best,
mrh
That's exactly what it is, Abe. A ploy to get people to quit. CompuCom just did the same thing in the DFW area. Friends who work there assure me that was indeed used to force people out. They get you to quit and it costs them virtually nothing. They lay you off and it costs them plenty. Look at what HP, the services spinoff part, has done to their employees. What used to be two weeks for every year of service is now like 0.2 weeks for every year. IBMs new policy on severance is said to be even more draconian.
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