...There is something about being face-to-face with somebody, looking them in the eye,...

That can shift mere dislike to utter contempt.

OK that was a bit cynical but the workplace environment both physical and cultural has a significant bearing on whether staff want to work there or from home.

Prove to staff they are valued and the office has significant advantages over WFH then go for it - it might work.

'That can shift mere dislike to utter contempt.'

They employ cats?

I've worked in an office where the guy on the next desk seemed to think it's OK to make a snorting sound every couple of minutes. To call that distracting would be an understatement. The winter sniffles is one thing, but this was seriously horrible. Brings to mind [1]Lovely Soft Filly advert from the 90s.

Once you hear that noise, you can't stop noticing it and it's a serious drain on productivity.

This is just one example of why I've spent ZERO days in the office in the last year.

Of course we have Snort Cancelling Headphones nowadays, but if you keep them on all day what's the point on being in the office?

I do miss the banter, and I think my family would like me to take my coffee break banter back to the office, but on balance I think I strongly prefer WFH. Happy to go in once a month or maybe even once or twice a week if pushed, or longer for "project kick off" as I can see the value in that.

So, that's Amazon off my list of potential gigs in the future, which is frankly their loss.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNGgs-l8pfI

"..which is frankly their loss"

Nice ego.

Having said all that, I'm lucky in that I converted 1/2 my double garage into an office / granny annex 15 years ago, and so I've got a space which is completely separate from the house (with Ethernet) where I can get really deep focus. If you are still camped on the kitchen side or the couch after nearly three years, or you just don't have the space, then perhaps it's a different story. I was already doing 4 days WFH in 2019, and it worked well for me then. I've also got a sit/stand desk, two large screens and a decent keyboard + a Herman Miller Aeron*.

In the times that I *have* been into the office (odd days in 2020 and 2021), I have had to work with just the laptop keyboard and a low res 24" monitor + dodgy WiFi. Not ideal.

* It was £103 off eBay, as has a slight scuff and didn't go up/down until I fixed it.

All these corporations trying to push stones uphill only have themselves to blame. Maybe they shouldn't have lied about it being "impossible" to WFH before the pandemic.

It's a shame, in a way (for our US readers this is irony, it isn't what I really think) that this happened at a time when demographics and history have allowed huge chunks of ultra-experienced techs to step back from the rat race and decide what they want to do, rather than doing what MegaCorp Inc. decide they must do.

Certainly here in the UK, there is a note of hysteria about the horror dawning on the government that they have very little sway over people who aren't claiming benefits and don't need tax breaks.

Unfortunately they do have some sway, at least over any early retirees, because it is they who make the rules. So instead of requiring 35 years' NI contributions to qualify for a full state pension, they'll simply increase the number of qualifying years required. You must be fortunate enough to have youth on your side if you think that the populace ever gets on over on the government.

Back in the late '90s HMG used to let you buy additional tax years that counted toward your state pension when you hit 65 (as state retirement age was then).

This was A Good Thing for those of us who'd worked for a few years elsewhere before joining the UK workforce / done an extended degree / spent time on the Hippy Trail / had a long-term illness / etc.

Is this option still available to the UK tax payer?

Kind of, the rules seem to state that you can only go back 6 years.

https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/who-can-pay-voluntary-contributions

Kind of, the rules seem to state that you can only go back 6 years.

That depends. If your contribution period spans the changes through SERPS to SSP to workplace pensions you may be able to buy back up to 13 years. Do check, I found that HMRC department to be very helpful.

Is this option still available to the UK tax payer?

It is, and is especially worth doing if you're still living abroad and aren't likely to get the required 35 years before you retire. It costs less than £200 for each year you buy back, and you'll get almost £200 every year in additional UK pension. Those years can also count toward eligibility for pensions in other countries, for example France requires 42 years before they'll pay a pension and extra UK years will be taken into account.

The people I know in that position haven't yet started drawing their pension. They're mortgage free and really don't need masses to live on as the kids have all growed up.

Of course it would be possible to target them, but the political risk would make it a suicide mission. As the current UK government are finding out.

Remember, unlike a lot of the people who the government can shit on with impunity, every single person in such a situation votes. And will continue to do so.

Sure, but single-issue voting isn't great. This isn't a private service like Netflix where you can just cancel it if you don't like it. It's essentially a binary decision: which of two parties do you like based on their claimed stance on ten thousand issues?

While I agree, it's not how UK (or English leastways) voters vote. Brexit being a good example. In fact the 2019 election was 2 single issues that collided. "Get Brexit Done" and "Not Jeremy Corbyn".

And right now my biggest single issue is to get the Tories out by any means necessary. Even if we ended up with a hung parliament and the MRLP calling the shots.

Almost but not quite. There are more than two parties, and In a FPtP shamocracy, you can only sensibly vote against the party you don't like, not for the one that you do.

Is postal voting allowed from the Med?

35 years??? It was 44 for me. Put it back up! (am not serious)

Looking forward to opportunities at Amazon now that all the people who said 'over my dead body will I return to the office' will be tendering their resignation, or perhaps they won't? Time for all the naysayers to put their money where their mouth is....

Whenever I hear a company talking about "culture", all I hear is brainwashing. Nobody truly believes in a companies culture, they just keep their mouths shut and nod their heads in agreement while thinking, yea sure. If companies really believe their employees embrace their designated company culture they are just fooling themselves.

Also, how do they actually know its easier to get people to believe in a company culture from the office? How have they found out less people follow their culture while at home? How have they even measured how many believed in the culture while in the office?

Given the employees, collectively, have the power, they really should just not go back in.

There were, and maybe still are, exceptions: ICL (back in the '70s), the BBC and Logica (til it went titsup) all spring to mind as decent places to work and all made some effort to keep themselves that way.

"The Reg has yet to find definitive research outlining the impact of remote or hybrid working on businesses' bottom line."

Maybe not definitive, still... the past two/three years have seen a jaw dropping amount of research/propaganda emerging from nowhere and praising remote work's positive or inexistent impact on productivity, e.g.

David Powell, president of Prodoscore said their data showed that if an employee was highly productive in-office, they’ll be productive at home; if an employee slacked off at the office, they’ll do the same a home. “After evaluating over 105 million data points from 30,000 U.S.-based Prodoscore users, we discovered a five percent increase in productivity during the pandemic work from home period,” he said. “Although, as we know, any variant of the Covid-19 virus is unpredictable, employee productivity is not.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2022/02/04/3-new-studies-end-debate-over-effectiveness-of-hybrid-and-remote-work/

https://hbr.org/2020/08/research-knowledge-workers-are-more-productive-from-home

https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/consulting/future-work?c=acn_glb_talentandorganimediarelations_12163686&n=mrl_0521

Then again, one can argue whether it is even possible to gather "definitive" data on such a multi-faceted topic. E.g. from personal experience I can say that when the company you work for makes you use a VPN to connect to the intranet, that in turn makes you wait 5-10 seconds for any upload or download ("any" not being an hyperbole, with average download speeds around 100kBps), I can attest that productivity while working remotely can potentially suffer. Conversely, when you happen to have to work in a "modern open office environment", which suspiciously resembles a corridor, productivity can and does tank while in the office too.

It's not at all surprising how the attention seems to be concentrated solely on employee productivity, and not at all on management, organization and enablement.

It got as far as the initial discussion phase but they didn't sound right for me. The main issue was that they were delivering cloud for a third party and were expecting 90% on site.

I have zero interest in mainlining money directly into a privatised rail company to travel to an office and then remotely managing systems and staff that are not based in said office. Commuting as it was is dead and long may it remain so.

If there is no published, credible evidence to support the ‘office is better for the business’ then is this just opinion? Similarly, can the CEO express their opinions that people should only eat cucumber sandwiches for lunch? Or that they believe that wearing any colour but black affects the business? Given the record revenue that Amazon have reported (all in ways that make them non tax-liable of course) since remote working became the norm, it’s tricky to see a business rationale for enforcing an office return. Saying it’s tricky for new hires, it is more an admission of poor management, and lack of adequate governance and support, than a lack of time spent in a building. New hires are unlikely to be supported any better (probably worse) if you truely believe in learning by physical proximity as a substitute for actual peer-peer working practices, training, intentional mentoring and effective line management for new starters (I assume they mean folk new into the working world).

Actually yes. [1]Yes, they can.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/13/wework-meat-events-expense-ban

A fear of loneliness caused by long-term remote work was cited in another survey as a factor.

So your social life is work? Enjoy your retirement!

"There is something about being face-to-face with somebody, looking them in the eye, and seeing they're fully immersed in whatever you're discussing, that bonds people together. Teams tend to find ways to work through hard and complex trade-offs faster when they get together and map it out in a room."

Am I the only one who find this statement extremely creepy?

If you don't have friends outside of work and you only "bond" with people who are contractually forced to interact with you, have you not considered that you may have some sort of personality disorder?

I think it's better to seek therapy than forcing thousands of people to come to office so you can feed your "bonding" fantasy.

WOW

I don't know what I think of the quoted text, but what you're saying in no way follows from it says.

If you don't have friends outside of work and you only "bond" with people who are contractually forced to interact with you, have you not considered that you may have some sort of personality disorder?

Have you ever started work in a new place where you don't know anyone? Your colleagues are pretty much the first people you meet and many could become friends.

The other side of this is to think of "trailing spouses" in the expat communities whom often become bored and unhappy with little social contact.

Your colleagues are pretty much the first people you meet and many could become friends.

I think the correct term would be acquaintances.

You don't need to be friends with someone to do the work. Some corporations use these psychological manipulation techniques saying "we are family" etc. to make you feel personally attached to the company and hope by that they will extract more performance from you or that you will do more work than you are being paid for, because you know "for family".

They also want you to be attached to other workers so that you may be less inclined to leave if competition gives you a better offer, because you know you don't want to leave your "friends".

Making friendships at work is unhealthy and toxic. Don't do that.

Work is for work and make friends outside of workplace.

....and it would be a shame if you were all to quit and we didn't have to pay your stocks or severance.

Yeah, nice idea. Might save you quite a few bucks this quarter. But who do you think are going to quit first? The "plodders" who struggle to find anything else, or the super productive ones who'll be snapped up by another company? By mandating this policy, which is hugely unpopular, you'll just end up pushing out the higher performers. That's the start of a downward spiral for any company.

and the new inside IR35 contracts will be waiting for new hires, so that company won't ever have to worry about unions or other things coming from these pesky employment rights.

Back in the office Paddington usually gives the hard stare to those who have bad manners. It worked on both Mr Brown and Nuckles McGinty in their "office" environments. I'd love to see the next Paddington 3 movie with him just "working from home"!

> calling staff back to the office three days a week

Apparently the most popular (for whom?) option is to have staff in the office for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

And yes, the acronym is exactly what you think it is!