White-collar workers temporarily enjoyed unprecedented power during the pandemic to decide where and how they worked.
You know something that really bugs me? People who demand full remote, but absolutely suck at communicating. If you’re gonna be remote you need to go out of your way to be accessible and communicative. I have found it there is a ton of overlap between people demanding full remote and people who refuse to answer the damn phone when I call. Then they text me back two seconds later, unironically, not realizing they’re demonstrating their shit communication skills. I’ve stopped arguing with staff years ago about turning on their webcam.
It just really pisses me off and would really help the WFH argument if they improved communication skills and attitude.
This something for a manager to actually deal with, not a company-wide RTO mandate. Remediation may end up taking the form of that employee coming into the office anyways, but many people do prefer and work better WFH, and should be allowed to do so.
How do you “actually deal with” staff who are uncommunicative, terrified of phones, shamelessly avoid calls and text you back, demonstrate their inability to function full remote*, push back against RTO with the same intense vitriol you see in this thread, and oh by the way it’s like an entire generation of staff and not just a few folks here and there.
*Even if your work is super technical like mine is, half the job is making sure everyone understands what you did. You can’t just communicate in grunts and sign language then retreat to your cave.
You honestly can’t think of how an employer can actually deal with an employee who’s failing to do their job effectively?