Fears and Reservations About Returning to the Office - Part 2

[#1]

If you are interested in reading part 1, be sure to check it out here.

The Announcement

Two weeks ago, it finally happened. A return to office date was announced. Officially I will be required to be in the office Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday starting January 2nd 2024. As I mentioned previously, I’m one of main concerns was being able to support my family. Since we knew this was coming, My wife and I have spent a number of evenings talking through how we can best work around this situation.

Thoughts & Details

I have had enough time to reflect on this and I have realized that there are just as many arguments for return to the office as there are against it. I have decided to embrace this decision and do my best to try and make it work. I think my company has done a good job with giving people plenty of time to make arrangements to accommodate this change. Additionally, exceptions to this policy will be reviewed on a case by case basis. Other policies that were in place before the lock downs, and will still be respected and encouraged are:

• Not coming into the office when sick

• Working from home due to poor weather

• Flexibility to work around sick children and/or appointments

What am I doing now?

I feel the best way for me to prove if going into the office will be a positive or negative experience is to actually start doing it! I'm not required to start coming in three days a week until January, but I have started coming in on Tuesdays. I’m doing this for two reasons.

1. I want to start testing out this routine ahead of it being required so that I can make any adjustments as necessary (such as when I need to leave the office in order to be able to pick up the kids).

2. I want to get used to the routine of getting my equipment and meals packed the night before (since I don’t have any time in the morning) so that it already be somewhat used to it by the time it’s required.

Were my initial fears valid?

Right now, It's a bit too early to say. Yes, my wife is stuck managing the kids in the morning by herself, and, I’m waking up at 5:45 am in order to be able to make it to the office by 7am (which I need to do to be able to leave on time). If I can get out of the office at 3pm sharp, I have enough time to make it home to pick up the kids from school/daycare. This does make for a much more chaotic day, and we’ll see if that has longer term stress impacts.

What does this mean in the long run?

It's hard to say for sure. The leadership team at my company is very good about failing fast and recognizing and adjusting things when something isn't working. I know that if we start to see that requiring people to be in the office is causing communication issues or performance problems they will make some changes to help employees. Will we go back to a state where being in the office is optional? Probably not. But, I can see the number of required days being reduced if people are struggling with three days a week (Tues, Wed, Thurs.) Additionally, I can see a number of exception requests being approved if there are challenges for specific individuals.

In Conclusion

As of right now, there are still a number of my colleagues that are choosing to continue to work from home until absolutely required to come in. I'd love to share at least one more article once we are back to “full staff” in the office which will cover the concerns about “In Office“ vs “Fully Remote” and the possible “out of sight, out of mind“ challenges this might create. Stay tuned for part 3!

Have a great rest of the week and I'll see you again next time!

[Andy Gladstone]

Wishing you the best of luck in this effort @Jimmy Seddon! I believe you are approaching it with the right attitude and looking to make things work rather than for them to fail is always at least 50% of what determines success - so you are more than halfway there. I'd love to read how the this develops further and what lifehacks or adjustments you make that you feel are worthy of sharing. 

Have a great day in the office today. 💙

[Randy O_Neal]

Our mandated return to the office began this week... with a max 1 day per week work from home without additional appeal.  Some folks have a "temporary" waiver (whatever that means) due to various personal circumstances.  We are already beginning to see the exodus of our top talent over the mandatory "butts in chairs" policy; this had been a point of contention prior to Covid, and will continue to be a sticking point for many.

Why would you bend to the C-suite folks when you can get significantly more money and a liberal remote work policy?  The creative nature of the software industry defies the typical 9-5 M-F at your desk paradigm; it always has, and given so many employers recognize this and offer creative alternatives... why would you feel compelled to remain in an environment which denies this reality?

We bled top talent for years over this; we thought the pandemic had given us a thoughtful, reasonable work from home policy... but alas, that has vanished.

It's curious that some companies are demanding a full return or resignation; famously, Elon Musk has apparently demanded this of all X employees; I'm sure other software companies will follow suit.

Given mandatory breaks in the morning and afternoon, and now faced with commuting in the morning and evening, I strongly suspect/expect a sharp decline in productivity; I know we had a sharp increase in productivity/throughput when we all first went home - around 35%.  It will be interesting to see what that decline measures, and whether companies are willing to take the productivity hit only to accommodate the mandatory "butts in chairs" demand.  I guess time will tell...

[Jimmy Seddon]

@Andy Gladstone - Thank you!  I hadn't considered including "life hacks", but now I will as a part of the third iteration.

@Randy O_Neal - I'm very sorry to hear that.  Hopefully, the results will encourage them to scale back the mandate, but a pro-active approach would have been the more desirable outcome.

[Randy O_Neal]

Good luck with your migration back to the office @Jimmy Seddon !  Hope and pray all goes well with you and your family.  Having young children at home significantly complicates things!

[Traci Wilbanks]

Good for you for embracing it and doing some early testing. Being told you must return to the office because of reasons that have nothing to do with your personal productivity or performance doesn't feel great. It could be worse, though; it could be five days a week.

Even though Atlassian is a remote-first company, I live about a 20-minute train ride to an office, so it's convenient for me to go in. My goal is once a week. I'm doing my own testing to see if there are good things about going into an office, like the set beginning and end to my day, and reminding myself what it's like to co-work with people in a way that isn't tethered to a mic or camera.

Conversely, I realized how I use my time much more efficiently at home. The bathroom is further away from my desk. It's easy to get sidetracked by hallway conversations. Conference rooms are competitive, and kicking someone out of a room is always awkward.

There are definitely differing opinions about a fully remote workforce. I just read this article yesterday https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/annie-dean-atlassian-remote-work-18494472.php that introduced the influence of real estate costs that I hadn't considered before. The exodus of workers in downtown SF has definitely affected the City in really negative ways.

I'm also curious to hear what life hacks you come up with. 

[Halina Cudakiewicz_Deviniti_]

I think it's a great idea to start going to the office earlier than mandatory and get used to things. Best of luck @Jimmy Seddon !