KPMG surveyed U.S. CEOs of companies turning over at least $500 million and found that just one-third expect a full return to the office in the next three years.
So it's official: Leaders who believe that office workers will be back at their desks five days a week in the near future are now in the small minority.
It's a complete 360 on their stance last year, when 62% of CEOs surveyed predicted that working from home would end by 2026.
At the time, 90% of CEOs even admitted that they were so steadfast on summoning staff back to their vertical towers that they were sweetening the pot with salary raises, promotions, and favorable assignments to those who showed face more.
But now, bosses are backtracking: Nearly half of CEOs have concluded that the future of work is hybrid—up from 34% last year.
Wow, imagine listening to your employees. I know there are people who like to work in the office, and there will always be a need for one to be there. I work better at home though. There are fewer distractions, I get my own office, and everything I need is within a short walking distance (food, water, etc). I don't need to chat with my coworkers every 5m. I don't need to see their faces to discuss system design, nor do I care much about how they're dressed or really at all what they look like. If my manager wants to see if I'm productive, he can see what tasks I've finished, which is what he should have been doing to begin with anyway (he was, at least in my case) because faking productivity is easy af.
We do meet in the office once or twice a week though to get through all our team meetings. I find that to be a good compromise, because those meetings are often better in-person since we get lunch together afterwards and such.
I don't see why team meetings need to be in person. My company is 100% remote at this point and since most teams are not completely co-located it does not make sense. one reason they are not co-located is because we don't limit the canidates to localities now.
They don't need to be in person, but there's no reason a fully-local team (like ours) couldn't have in person meetings now and then. The main appeal is lunch though (which you could do over a call as well, but if you can do it in person and everyone's fine with that, then why not I guess?).
I don't think there's anything wrong with fully remote, but I don't see any reason local teams can't have in person events if they want to either. We mostly meet in person for the meetings/events, otherwise it's "work where you want" basically.
The fact they resisted even after studies showed hybrid/WFH employees were more productive is telling.
It's about control. I believe power corrupts, and a power imbalance like the worker/boss relationship is even more fucked. Your supervisor and theirs, etc are all cool? That's great, but you can see the potential for abuse is there. You can push back, but then you're risking the entire atmosphere of your future employment, not to mention your ability to eat and have shelter...
my company's ceo went from seemingly a down to earth founder of the company who supported queer rights to an exploitatively rich board director who describes his employees as "loyal human capital"
it's about control and power and wealth and it sucks how good some of them are at seeming ok before they get it
Just goes to show that just because someone is on your side when it comes to social issues doesn't mean they're on your side when it comes to economic issues.