Of course Fortune can’t close an article about how stupid RTO is without turning around and advising the (probably employee rather than employer) reader of all the good things they can do back in the office.
So what can you do if your employer mandates your return-to-office? First, focus on maximizing the benefits of this life change…
Does anyone have knowledge and or experience with forming a union in the US? After doing some mild research I failed to find a union that represents telework / work from home employees, specifically those who are facing return to office mandates from their corporate overlords
Cities are expensive if your time is free. All the bullshit really adds up.
The cost of commuting is just the tip, honestly.
The biggest expense is having to live near your employer, typically centrally-located in big cities with a high cost of living.
Also lost time commuting (especially if you can’t afford to live nearby).
And also increased emissions, not only from driving yourself but a collective increase by way of traffic congestion.
Also allowing employees to work remotely massively increases the pool of employees to pull from.
Also allowing employees to work remotely massively increases the pool of employees to pull from.
This is why it’s inevitable that remote work will win out. The companies which embrace it are going to beat their competition.
Yeah, the whole “get people back in the office to help real estate prices” isn’t going to work either because it’s false demand. A new company starting up has no reason to buy the bags the companies that decided to get into business real estate are now holding unless they actually need the office space, which isn’t the case for most office jobs.
It may not be a 1:1 but the costs (financial and time) are largely offset.
I live in a city, I don’t own a car, I walk and ride a bike, and use public transportation and ride sharing. Granted, the convenience and cost savings can greatly depend on the city, how well it values pedestrians and public transportation, and if the housing market isn’t stupid. I mean, I’m not talking about SF or NYC here.
The more people move back to cities, the more human-friendly they become. The more that people stay and spread further into the suburbs, the more they rely on private transportation and commuting for something like a quarter of their lives. Relative to a suburban life that relies on driving everywhere, my life is very low on stress and high on comfort. “Comfort”, certainly, is relative. I can walk or take public transportation no more than twenty minutes to get to work or anywhere else.
City life can take a little more effort than stepping out of your front door into your car and dealing with traffic and spending money on gas and car insurance. But, aside from a decent pair of shoes and “comfort”, it doesn’t cost me anything to walk 10 minutes to my local market to spend $80 on a week’s worth of food.
I do fully agree that remote work increases the employee pool and benefits employers. I’m just arguing on behalf of city life being more affordable and convenient than it’s given credit for.
I’d also argue that the loss of office workers is having a very real impact on small businesses. Some of my favorite and dearly beloved businesses have closed in the past couple years because of the loss of office workers.
I think remote workers should be given a bonus, either by the state or their employer, for living in the city their company is based in. Ironically and with immense frustration, here in Philadelphia, our city actually taxes us for living AND/OR working here. Still, I would never move back to frustration of suburban life.
NYC and the costs are NOWHERE NEAR offset.
Then again, that is primarily because landlords are disgustingly greedy.
Higher cost of living (COL) areas do (at least sometimes) offset their costs. I think public transit availability is a very tiny piece of the puzzle in the US because unless you’re talking a handful of cities the public transit in cities isn’t guaranteed to be good enough to go car free. Additionally, many large offices are not located in transit available, urban locations (i.e. they’re near cities, but not in cities).
However, the areas that offset their costs do so because people in low COL areas often make a pittalence in comparison to those living in high COL areas.
In a high COL area, you can forgo some of the COL by living a more meager lifestyle, but in a low COL area you cannot as easily make up the additional $20-30k a year salary difference.
If you work for a company and move, sometimes they’ll even do the adjustment as a part of your move, and if you go from higher COL to lower COL they’ll make sure your paycheck reflects that.
Seems people are angry that you like a walkable city while they prefer to live in the suburbs. Or perhaps they are bitter that you get to live there and they don’t.
I wasn’t raised in the city. I grew up in a very Normal Rockwell painting suburb. I certainly had a different impression about city life as a kid before I moved here. What’s strange is that people do seem to have this anger and bitterness. I don’t know where it comes from. Fear of the unknown? Media bias?
In part, I think a large number of Americans believe in ultimate freedom and individuality in spite of all else - the country was basically founded (in my city) on this premise. So as soon as you suggest that people consider living in closer quarters and give up a personal vehicle in favor of relying on others for transportation, you’re breaking the brainwashing they’ve gown up with. I just find it ironic because humans are a social species that benefit from communication and cooperation. For me, my brain breaks when people fight so strongly in favor of suburban and rural living. I get that technology can bridge this gap but there’s still far more benefits to city life than anything else, in my opinion. I mean, I hate people but I could never live in isolation either.
I used to live in the city and then moved out because rent is 4500 a month for a one bedroom and I don’t feel like spending around 50k a year on housing for a small little rathole, especially when my salary cannot bear that
Also, now I’m not in the city, I have parks and trails and farms all right near me and I feel way healthier
Maybe I have to accept that I’m just super lucky to live in such a walkable and affordable city surrounded by so much open space and wildlife with better public transportation that we give it credit for. I mean, I spend less than $15k a year for 800 sq ft (plus large backyard) in of one of the more vibrant neighborhoods.
You’re either rich as fuck or live in a dump you go out of every night to spend as little time there as possible and spend the rest of your money.
Fuck off, never going back to a city.
London is hell on earth. I live an hour away and rent my own 1-bed that I leave as little as possible. Life is amazing.
EDIT: pretty hotheaded comment, sorry I was insulting, but basically what it comes down to is that city housing is small and expensive in the UK, so it makes sense to leave to a suburb/town and I would never come back, maybe not so in the US.
WTF? I make an average salary and live in an average home. I do not go “out” all the time - that’s financially irresponsible and I’m a grownass adult. You’re not even making any sense. I have no way to relate to London but I have to imagine it’s stupid expensive.
Your experience is not universal.
I’m not rich as fuck nor do I live in a dump. I don’t go out every night spending my money.
I can’t speak to London since I’ve never been there, but living in Brooklyn has been better on every metric I care about than living in the suburbs. It’s walkable. There’s stuff I want to do. There’s people.
If you’re an anti social hermit who never leaves their house then sure I guess you can live wherever. But that sounds unhealthy.
I live in a city, I don’t own a car, I walk and ride a bike, and use public transportation and ride sharing.
That’s great that you have that but those options don’t exist in most of the US.
I know. Most of the US is suburban and rural areas. That’s my point - that living in a city is more convenient.
However, our research found that returning to an office often is a major disruption to one’s routine, foundational work, and overall life experience.
Damn work. Disrupting their routine and life experience.
My heartfelt condolences to all those affected. Having to drive to work is certainly very cruel and completely unexpected. Life is one of the hardest.
What? It’s a return to the office, not work. It’s not the 8 hours; it’s the additional hour (if you’re lucky) getting there and back which, for some jobs, brings no discernable benefit.
Well, the office is obviously the place where the work takes place. It was probably relatively okay for you when you started the job, then the pandemic hit and now you think it should be different. But it’s not up to you to decide whether it makes sense to go to the office, that’s for your employer to decide - you know, the guys who pay your salary.
Yep, but it’s up to me to decide to fuck those execs and leave. And guess what? Almost all of my coworkers who were the same age left too. Within 2 years, my cohort was largely gone.
I took a mild pay cut to live closer to home and work remotely in a field that I feel more passionately about. My only regret is that I miss the people I work with, but half of them are gone or reassigned anyway.
But hey, the people who paid my salary are more than welcome for investing in my early career training. All in all, they spent more money on me than I earned for them.
Joke’s on you – I started work during the pandemic. And, more to the point, my company was doing flexitime and WFH long before I joined, because their employees like it and because they’re the kind of employer that values the input of their workforce.
Also, I could flip your last argument. It’s the workers that turn up and generate value for the business. Salaries aren’t paid out of the goodness of the employer’s heart. It’s a transaction, selling labour, and as with any transaction there has to be good will on both sides for the relationship to function.
