Guys, there’s a reason RTO is happening. You think you can treat professionals like adults but most act like toddlers at a nursery.
If we could get rid of all offices except for a couple of meeting rooms we would. It would immediately boost profits to insane levels once the leases run out.
The sad fact is people do fuck all and skive all day whilst thinking they’re amazing.
Reject modernity, return to office.
This has ultimately been why I tend to side more with at least partial RTO over full WFH.
The pro-WFH hardliner stance is overwhelmingly populated by self-assessment. "I have reviewed my work and found no meaningful differences" types of people. It is also heavily populated by those who are viciously, aggressively against both any kind of managerial oversight and against the entire current company system as is as well, even when those should theoretically result in no major differences for them personally because they're definitely doing what they're supposed to be, right? ...It tends to read as defensive and paranoid as a result.
And, y'know, a large part of any psychology-related anything is just how unreliable that self-assessment can be. There's a whole condition with multiple names of people reading up on various mental and even physical issues, and promptly declaring themselves an autistic sneezegender wxmyn with bum cancer of the mouth. And capability has no immunity to biased self-assessment, like when my cousin thought he could beat our dog (a retired, but still quite young greyhound) in a footrace. You need to have external oversight to be able to make any sort of fair calls about ability.
bonus points if they claim everything about covid was a disaster and designed to control people and confine them in their homes, and yet don't even consider the possibility that the wfh policies were also a disaster.
That's not to say there aren't people and even whole teams that thrive in WFH conditions, and managers who are aware of such groups and reward - or even change their stances on the matter - appropriately. But the large majority is people who have assessed their work ethic and decided there's absolutely no problems with it, fuck whatever anyone else says, like their manager or their company's bottom line.
Partial RTO and Full RTO tend to have more external assessment; people who've seen their own coworkers vanish to tanzania, people who have to manage and have visibly watched numbers go down and projects slow down. Those who do decide to support not-full WFH based on self-assessment also tend to come off as more grounded, if only because they're admitting that their own character faults make them not suited for full wfh.
And of course, it's the internet, so nobody's got receipts to show, only anecdotal evidence. Which makes it hard for anyone to call anyone out, in any direction - but in the case of the self-assessment specifically, doesn't help with their defensive attitude.
I'm a WFH 'centrist' - luv me high-bread pozishuns - because that tends to strike a middle ground that is still better for employees than the pre-covid system. Specifically, as long as there's at least a day you share office space with anyone relevant to your job, the rest of the week you're pretty good to go. You get your 2, hopefully 3 sleep-ins and can work from home those days just fine, and you can still get the advantages of having people together and accountable on the days that they are in. And WFH sloppiness tends to 'aggregate' over time - having a rhythm both keeps the bottom from falling out and allows people to regularly check in on you.
With that said, if you are a WFH hardliner who's losing that wfh deal I have a handy little golden rule that works arguably universally - just look for a 'better' (in this case, more WFH) job elsewhere without raising a fuss or dragging your feet at your current one. You treat your job relationships like a transactional one, not an adversarial one - no need for angry emotions, it's just good business to look for a better job if the current one doesn't suit you. If your job's conditions are about to change to suck for you or just suck already, don't go into company conspiratard mode and drag your heels on every RTO change or similar. At least try to appear agreeable, while going to look for another job (without quitting your current one until you've got your opportunity locked-in, and following all the appropriate steps for quitting as needed). You'll get one of three outcomes.
1: You'll be able to find a new job that suits your needs better. In which case, you win straight up.
2: You'll be able to find a new job that suits your needs better
and your company will panic at the thought of you leaving. Now you have bargaining power to keep the conditions that work better for you, and if you still can't come to an agreement, well, you have a new job lined up already.
3: You won't be able to find any better job for you. In which case, you're probably not gonna find something better if you
are fired, so you're just gonna have to grin and bear it, wagie... and maybe factor that into your next self-assessment.
