Get back, get back, to the office where you once belonged: Corporate execs
- Reference: 1671183064
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/12/16/return_to_office/
- Source link:
Tech vendors, meanwhile, are positively salivating about their potential role irrespective of what shakes out.
This is a boardroom debate right now: how do we get people back into offices?
According to Advanced Workplace Associates, British workers are going into the office on average 1.5 days a week, according to a survey of 50,000 workers in June and July. The consultancy advises major retail bank NatWest, the Cabinet Office and Network Rail, among others.
Yet research published in September by Resume Builder [1]indicates that nine in 10 business will require their staff to return to work in-person from 2023, almost three years after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
It further claimed just 66 percent of the workforce are going into work, some 88 percent of companies are offering incentives to return, including subsidized meals, commuter benefits or higher pay, and 21 percent say they'll take a hardline approach and fire those that refuse to come back.
[2]
"This is a boardroom debate right now: how do we get people back into offices?" Andy Rhodes, HP senior veep and GM of Hybrid Work Solutions, said at the Wells Fargo TMT summit at the start of this month.
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"How do we get them working on things together? I mean, remote is great, but when you have new and difficult problems, putting people inside of rooms is absolutely critical," he added.
The solution offered by the HP salesman isn't in line with those mentioned above, it's rather more self-serving. Buy HP to make conference rooms more attractive, because nothing says "we value you" like a well stocked and modern… conference room.
[5]
Rhodes added: "Those rooms are just not built out yet in any meaningful way." He said businesses need multi-cameras so attendees aren't forced to look at the back of someone's head in virtual meetings (when in the office), and the market is "shifting to much more PC-based solutions."
"People are still trying to drive productivity of every worker that they have, and so even as companies look to cut costs, they want to drive up productivity. This is an area we're still seeing a lot of spending on.
"Customers want to change the optics of that real estate, the way it's used and the office is going to be a place that people come back to work together. And what's inhibiting that right now is the technology in those conference rooms, in those spaces."
[6]
Possibly, but it seems more likely that employees enjoy the flexibility of not going into an office evrery day, even if some managers have [7]productivity paranoia that remote staff are not working to their optimum output.
Microsoft research in September found the number of meetings on Teams had gone up 153 percent globally for the average user since the pandemic.
Dell, which said in 2020 that [8]60 percent of its own employees would never go back to the traditional office set-up to work, isn't necessarily rubbing its hands together at the prospect of filling out conference rooms but it does see opportunities ahead.
[9]Speaking at the Credit Suisse annual tech conference at the end of November, co-chief operating officer Chuck Whitten said a "profound change" in the PC industry continues to be driven by hybrid work.
"75 percent of companies are now in a hybrid model. That means more notebooks with a faster refresh cycle. It also means richer configurations, more peripherals. It is not just a productivity device. It is telephony. It is our videoconferencing equipment."
The PC market has shrunk throughout 2022 yet Whitten said he is bullish about the prospects - although he wouldn't be expected to say much else in front of financial analysts and investors. "We continue to hear it's a CIO level issue and they are going to continue to invest in the end user experience."
Cisco's senior veep of strategy and business development, Kip Compton, seems to agree the world of work will remain hybrid which plays into its sales of collaboration and networking gear.
He [10]told the Raymond James Technology Investor gathering last week that "companies are outfitting their campuses for hybrid work and realizing basically that every meeting is going to be a video meeting, and so every conference rep needs to have that equipment in it, that's an opportunity for us.
"We're seeing that whenever a meeting is a video meeting – because every meeting will have some remote participants – the load and the traffic on the campus networks is intense. And that's driven a wireless and campus upgrade cycle that we think is fairly durable. That along with the traditional generational upgrades for Wi-Fi 6 is – Wi-Fi 6 has been very good. We're seeing 6E now kicking into gear as well."
Reg readers have [11]previously told us they'd favor a hybrid working week, with two to three days spent in an office, yet that might not be an option for everyone next year. However, workers seems to have the upper hand in many instances – especially in tech – given the surfeit of open vacancies.
[12]'What's the point of me being in my office, just because they want to see me in the office?'
[13]Cloud vendors should take some responsibility for stolen compute, says Canalys CEO
[14]From the Great Resignation to demand for more overtime
[15]Microsoft highlights 'productivity paranoia' in remote work research
Nick Lovegrove, a professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Management, told [16]Fortune magazine : "Companies need to ask themselves why there's been this de facto rebellion against the office, and that's because it kind of sucked."
"Employees are pushing back and saying, 'Well, if you want us back full-time, we're out of here'," he added. "The current pattern seems to be a kind of desultory drift back to the office – but without much conviction or enthusiasm."
Perhaps staff simply want better specified conference meeting rooms? Or perhaps as likely they yearn for two hour daily commutes, the grind of forcing themselves into a sardine can packed with others.
Either way – hybrid work or a return to the office – tech firms seem to think they'll be the winners. ®
Get our [17]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.resumebuilder.com/9-in-10-companies-will-require-employees-to-work-from-office-in-2023/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y5xPzlAYnV7Ie4i7EHl9@QAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y5xPzlAYnV7Ie4i7EHl9@QAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y5xPzlAYnV7Ie4i7EHl9@QAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y5xPzlAYnV7Ie4i7EHl9@QAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y5xPzlAYnV7Ie4i7EHl9@QAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/23/microsoft_highlights_productivity_paranoia/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/28/dell_q2_2021_work_from_home/
[9] https://investors.delltechnologies.com/events/event-details/dell-technologies-credit-suisse-26th-annual-technology-conference
[10] https://investor.cisco.com/events/event-details/2022/Raymond-James-Technology-Investors-Conference/default.aspx
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/19/home_work_report/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/29/wfh_report/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/16/clouds_stolen_compute_canalys/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/24/overtime_inflation_overwork_pandemic/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/23/microsoft_highlights_productivity_paranoia/
[16] https://fortune.com/2022/12/06/return-to-office-future-2023-in-person-work-performance-metrics-hybrid/
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"Hybrid"
I started a hybrid contract in September. I have been to the office once, to collect a laptop. Wonder how much hybrid working is just a polite term for WfH?
We all traipse into the office for that critical meeting that HAS to be face-to-face..
But inevitably one person can’t make it so there is a Zoom/Teams inclusion, meaning that there was no point traipsing to the office...
Re: We all traipse into the office for that critical meeting that HAS to be face-to-face..
>But inevitably one person can’t make it so there is a Zoom/Teams inclusion
And probably 70% of the time that person is the manager/C-suit who called the "attendance in person mandatory" meeting...
Re: We all traipse into the office for that critical meeting that HAS to be face-to-face..
There was no point traipsing to the office anyway.
You could have all been on zoom
...then we could have saved £200,000,000,000 on HS2
Re: We all traipse into the office for that critical meeting that HAS to be face-to-face..
But what would the poor party donors and VIP lane loiterers do?
They need their return of investment.
Let's go over the bonus situation.
In my team there has been widespread acceptance that one day a week in the office has been of benefit for team relations, but when management try to push this up to more days in the office the whole team turns into Brett and Parker from the USCSS Nostromo.
I personally can live with a 90 mile round trip once a week, while my colleagues on the South Coast and in Chennai are unlikely to put in an appearance any time soon.
Give 'em a C-suite, and some may get back...
I have a sort of C-suite. I mean, a separate office (glass walls, better than nothing...) where I could work without being annoyed, and where I can have local or remote meetings without annoying others. With enough desk space to lay out my monitors comfortably. Of course some higher level exec wants my office now, and HR tried to send me in a basement (literally) space that was built as a meeting/teaching room and thereby very badly lit for long hours of working, plus fitted with small desks good for a call centre only. I told my upper manager I'm not going to go work there - or they give me another equivalent office or they let me work from my home studio which is better than my actual office. At least I obtained a stalemate... still in the actual office until they remodel and refurbish new spaces....
Re: Give 'em a C-suite, and some may get back...
I suspect part of the problem is that typical C-suit office - they can't replicate it at home and thus to get the full C-suit experience they have attendance their office, thus if they have to attend so does everyone else...
Furthermore, if your home office is a step up from the cubicle and probably better than the C-suit's home office, well we do need to take into consideration differentials and the need to keep underlings in their place...
"they'll take a hardline approach and fire those that refuse to come back"
And we will take a hardline approach and document the names of companies that do so.
Good luck finding tech replacements . . .
This is a 25 year old problem, covid just widened the pool for WfH providing a space for people to confirm their views on 21stC working environments.
Perhaps staff simply want:
* an end to unbelievably noisy, smelly, cold open plan offices ( warehouse style ) where no actual work gets done.
Create cheap, miserable, unproductive working spaces, designed by people who won't ever have to work there? Guess what?
There was a time when managers had offices, with teams in larger offices where people actually got along with other and could walk to another team's office to talk. Or went down the pub/cafe ( lunch or after work ).
Add to that the air con issues. So many people crammed in an open plan, you most of the time feel like you are going to suffocate and then battle headaches. Then if building manager feels generous and cranks up temps, half of the office is in a coma by lunch.
You get situation where people come to office, but they do work when they come back home. Worst of both worlds.
"when you have...problems, putting people inside of rooms is absolutely critical"
You didn't align my remuneration to caring, therefore, I don't care. My only concern is getting paid, as comfortably and conveniently as possible. Business problems are not my problem.
On the "but its your responsibility!" scale, I am at the stage marked: 'its my job to do as little as possible, and my managers job to get me to do as much as possible, hopefully there is a middle ground'
this approach tends to upset people who take their work seriously
How does UK legislation feature?
AIUI employees (after 6 months in) have the right to request a change of location (ie to home) and the employer cannot refuse without good reasons (the acceptable reasons are stipulated in the legislation); claiming to fire people who refuse to come in sounds like dodgy territory given the rights workers already have around this - is it largely bluster?
Re: How does UK legislation feature?
They can bypass employment rights by hiring you in-scope of IR35. Then they can do whatever they want.
I don't think it is uniformly true
i have a lot of product managers and engineering staff scattered all over England, Scotland, Netherlands, France, Poland, Germany, and Italy. our company did early terminations on a bunch of leases and kept a few locales where Sales folks gather. in our case, it was easier to offer our staff a small additional salary to cover more utilities at their home offices and a stipend for a home desk (etc..) than cover leases.
we do tend to try to encourage our staff to come to office once or twice a month where practical however we don't see going backwards as our flexibility makes us more attractive, and allows our staff to maintain a better work/home life balance. disrupting our staff's productivity in the name of making a real estate manager happy isn't really on.