The real reason companies do these kinds of policy changes is along the lines of the following (but not limited to):
- A legacy style executive comes in and cannot "see" people working therefore they are not working
- There is rampant abuse in the model
- Productivity is measurably down (e.g., when Best Buy removed work from home they were in talks to be taken private)
- People can't get a hold of each other when everyone works from home. Communication issues.
When I was working at Best Buy and the policy was rescinded, you had MANY people habitually abusing it. They would block off entire days of their calendar and say "I'm working from home, I don't accept meetings on X day." Usually a Friday, imagine that. It was obvious what people were doing. Some people even drove in with their boat on the trailer and said "I'm working from home after lunch".
However, as more and more companies become global, it's harder to enforce "butt in seat". For instance I get up early in the morning to talk to people in CZ, others go home and sit on calls with India teams. Then they're expected to be in the office next morning. That's not a sustainable model.
There are many pros and cons to both sides of the argument. I personally tend to find myself more productive in the office than I do at home most days, so I come in. However is it nice to have flexibility? Absolutely.
However people have to understand underneath the corporate BS and HR BS, there is likely a real perceived problem that either nobody understands how else to solve, or employees aren't being very honest with themselves that causes this kind of backlash.
The last point I'll make, is that some people that work from home all day are just downright impossible to communicate with sometimes. It's hard to have one part of the workforce that works from home, and may be gone for a period of time mix with another side of the same workforce that is at the office for a determined amount of time.
- A legacy style executive comes in and cannot "see" people working therefore they are not working
- There is rampant abuse in the model
- Productivity is measurably down (e.g., when Best Buy removed work from home they were in talks to be taken private)
- People can't get a hold of each other when everyone works from home. Communication issues.
When I was working at Best Buy and the policy was rescinded, you had MANY people habitually abusing it. They would block off entire days of their calendar and say "I'm working from home, I don't accept meetings on X day." Usually a Friday, imagine that. It was obvious what people were doing. Some people even drove in with their boat on the trailer and said "I'm working from home after lunch".
However, as more and more companies become global, it's harder to enforce "butt in seat". For instance I get up early in the morning to talk to people in CZ, others go home and sit on calls with India teams. Then they're expected to be in the office next morning. That's not a sustainable model.
There are many pros and cons to both sides of the argument. I personally tend to find myself more productive in the office than I do at home most days, so I come in. However is it nice to have flexibility? Absolutely.
However people have to understand underneath the corporate BS and HR BS, there is likely a real perceived problem that either nobody understands how else to solve, or employees aren't being very honest with themselves that causes this kind of backlash.
The last point I'll make, is that some people that work from home all day are just downright impossible to communicate with sometimes. It's hard to have one part of the workforce that works from home, and may be gone for a period of time mix with another side of the same workforce that is at the office for a determined amount of time.