I joined Google on the first "RTO" day (April 2022) when they tried to mandate it. My team only saw like 1/3 regularly go back by the end of the month, and it's still not better. I would have preferred my teammates be there to help ease onboarding. When no one went back, it reduced the value for me to return, regardless of my preferences. I stopped going in to office to reclaim my commutes, because there was no value in the office.
For better or worse, the value of in-office work is the co-workers. If the important co-workers are remote, then the office isn't valuable. Mandating it is the only way to do it company wide. Thats not to say that in-office is better, but in office can only work if everyone is there. We see this "laissez faire" suggestion all the time, and i'ts willfully missing the point.
On the other hand, this is your perspective as a recent hire. Your coworkers who have not returned have signaled that they think differently than you, that the costs for them to return to the office are not worth what they get from it.
Obviously with competing needs and perspectives, you can't please everyone, so it comes down to how to please as many people as you can and rectify the issues with the displeased people as best you can. Chances are, a company that has been around for a few years is not all new hires on boarding, so the majority of employees might be like the coworkers of yours who don't feel the need for hands on learning time or want more focus versus new hires who really do like that sort of direction and attention. That doesn't mean you leave the new hires dry, that means you reevaluate how you onboard people in this new remote world so that your new hires do feel confident about their situation and how much training they are getting. This latter approach is all too rare unfortunately; its a lot easier to throw your hands up and say you've tried nothing and are all out of ideas than to work thoughtfully on something that doesn't directly relate to your profit centers, especially when the try nothing idea is so popular in business news.
Absolutely! Before I changed jobs, I happily worked remote (95% of the days). Once I fully onboarded, I happily worked remote again.
The needs of the business are not always the needs of the employees. It’s beneficial to have your employees in office, it’s beneficial to have the flexibility to be a remote employee (social and home life preference aside). I think a reasonable reality is that you need to be paid to commute and you should plan for your employees to be together at least once a quarter but not expect it daily.
I joined Google on the first "RTO" day (April 2022) when they tried to mandate it. My team only saw like 1/3 regularly go back by the end of the month, and it's still not better. I would have preferred my teammates be there to help ease onboarding. When no one went back, it reduced the value for me to return, regardless of my preferences. I stopped going in to office to reclaim my commutes, because there was no value in the office.
For better or worse, the value of in-office work is the co-workers. If the important co-workers are remote, then the office isn't valuable. Mandating it is the only way to do it company wide. Thats not to say that in-office is better, but in office can only work if everyone is there. We see this "laissez faire" suggestion all the time, and i'ts willfully missing the point.