Empire of office workers strikes back against RTO mandates Despite high-profile calls for employees to get their butts back behind their desks in a traditional workplace setting, more people - at least in the UK - are ignoring return-to-office mandates, a study has found. Researchers at King’s College London (KCL) and King’s Business School analyzed more than one million observations …
What people say when asked to take part in surveys and what they do in real life may differ.
Ultimately, the slice of the workforce that home working could be an option for, can already choose. With RTO mandates, the wealthier can and may walk. Some will do what most workers do about most issues: put a peg on their nose and comply.
The UK is an unusual case. Post-Brexit, good staff are difficult to bag, so you might think that they could make demands. But the economy is such a mess, that most people will hang on to any job they can. And companies are folding. The sums just don't add up so easily any more. Britons tend to have fewer cash resources than Americans. Quitting with a mortgage to pay is not an option for many.
An issue with regard to the tech of homeworking, may be security. Each homeworker is a potential access point to your servers. I'm sure malware folk are well aware of this. For workers, being at home may or may not be more convenient. Energy bills here are very high and we don't have air con at home. It may also be regarded as a lower tier of employment, with fewer chances of promotion. Swings and roundabouts.
It's a bit more complicated than a global war between employers and oppressed proles.
An issue with regard to the tech of homeworking, may be security. Each homeworker is a potential access point to your servers.
The idea that homeworking is some unique security risk because “each worker is an access point” is laughable. Every employee is an access point no matter where they sit - the difference is, at home, it’s their house.
In an open-plan office? You’ve got contractors, cleaners, delivery people, random interns, visitors - often in buildings with paper-thin badge systems, lax enforcement, and revolving-door policies. Try spotting a stranger slipping a USB stick into a workstation among rows of distracted workers. Good luck.
At home? You instantly know if someone unfamiliar is in your space. And let’s be brutally honest: a worker who’s forced back into the office, miserable, paying £300/month on train fares alone that they can’t afford, drowning in a cost-of-living crisis - they’re arguably more likely to rationalise bending the rules or slipping something to an outsider. Disillusion breeds vulnerability.
It’s not a war between bosses and oppressed proles - it’s a mismatch between corporate nostalgia and cold modern realities. Security risks are about human factors, incentives, and systems, not the postcode of the device connecting to the server. If anything, hybrid work demands better digital security - not physical proximity theatre.
"It’s not a war between bosses and oppressed proles - it’s a mismatch between corporate nostalgia and cold modern realities. Security risks are about human factors, incentives, and systems, not the postcode of the device connecting to the server. If anything, hybrid work demands better digital security - not physical proximity theatre"
That should be engraved in stone.
And then all the fuckwit CEOs behind RTO mandates should have their faces smashed against it. But we just know that won't happen, and things like the M&S attack will be used as ammunition to justify RTO.
"Try spotting a stranger slipping a USB stick into a workstation among rows of distracted workers. Good luck."
Beyond that, companies have been "embracing" hotelling where nobody has a designated work space. Somebody that can get in could plonk down their laptop, plug into Ethernet if available and hack away while the person next to them in noise cancelling headphones is completely oblivious. It would take some brass ones, but the prize could be worth the risk. Login credentials for the WiFi might be useless if one can't get signal so being in the office should mean plenty of signal and if the system assumes the user is legit being on the internal WiFi, problem.
Each homeworker is a potential access point to your servers
If a company is too dumb to implement proper 2FA then it is on them if their servers are compromised, not their employees.
Besides, which is more likely? That someone gets into your HQ who shouldn't be there (getting hired by a custodial company may be all that's required for nearly unfettered access) or someone gets into an employee's home, and bypasses the 2FA that's required for remote but not local access?
Unless a company completely BANS all remote work (even when an employee is traveling on company business) so employees can't access those oh-so-valuable servers AT ALL when they're not in the office, then your supposed point is totally moot. Because whether an employee remotely accesses corporate servers once per year or 5 days a week the risk is the same. It is probably higher in the former case, actually, because they're more likely to have forgotten the procedures and will call the helpdesk - and they'll become used to walking people through the procedure, resetting 2FA codes and so forth that allow people access who shouldn't have it.
Yes, but 2FA is not the solution to all security problems.
Discontented staff present a huge vulnerability. If a hacker says "I'll give you £10000 for access to your laptop", I expect a fair proportion of the workforce would take that and hand over the laptop fully logged in already.
And the same attack vector works in a corporate office but probably cheaper: "I'll give you £100 to let me in the door" - once inside they could just walk up to a desk and say "I'm from IT, I just need to check something on your computer. Won't take long" and they're unlikely to be questioned.
In the world of security, the weakest link is the weakest link, and it's not likely to be a biometrically-secured laptop in someone's home connecting via a VPN, it's a socially-engineered walk-in into an office, which is easier to achieve in a busy office full of lots of people, not all of whom can possibly know each other. In a near-empty office, where most people are working from home, this is harder because 1 dodgy person amongst 10 is easier to spot than 1 in 250.
Real intrusions into a company's infrastructure are more likely to be "virtual" in nature, and take the form of a phishing attack, and spear-phishing is becoming increasingly common. It's moot whether the victim is at home or in the office when they fall for it, and education is the solution, not a forced commute.
Then there's always "rubber hose cryptanalysis" - if someone's determined enough, then the weakest security link is always people, and any form of security access can be broken by a short time in a basement with a plastic chair, some baling twine, and a length of rubber hose.
So you propose that most sane employees would trade a 1 month severance for:
- Loss of Job
- Loss of references
- Fired for cause
- Criminal preosecution
???
I think you need brighter co-workers.
However you are correct that MFA is not a solves-all. It is 1 part of a complete plan.
"If a company is too dumb to implement proper 2FA then it is on them if their servers are compromised, not their employees."
In addition, companies could require office access for certain information and restrict downloading of large swaths of things. While you could look up a customer, you wouldn't be able to download the whole customer list. To get the data to put together the quarterly stockholder report would require a trip to the office to access the figures although somebody working from home could put together a template the data would flow into.
Somebody calling in to support as they have "forgotten" the procedure for MFA would need to come in to the office for that or go through their supervisor. You don't do that too often our your supervisor might write you off as hopeless. It can also be as simple as the help desk calling back using a number on file after having checked the person is still actively employed with the company. If somebody from my bank called with an issue, I'd call back using a number from my own files or visit a branch in person. Common sense these days.
"Save overheads. Let those who can and wish to work at home do so and close some offices if that's possible."
Office space is a room with HVAC, lights, internet and power points. Some furniture is handy, but a work surface and chair can sufficient. The table and chair next to it don't need to match. There's no requirement that the space is in highrise located downtown in a large city. Yes, a loo and good lighting are also important. Once all of the fancy is stripped off, there's office space everywhere.
One company I was supposed to start with before they blew their money on trying to set up a comprehensive tax dodge leased a house on the edge of the Silicon valley. We engineers and the founder with the patents would stay and work there for a period of time (3-4 days) and then return home to get on with our individual bits of work. The cost of office space in the area is off the peg and the founder with the tech had a home in the area so locating elsewhere wasn't in the cards. It was a good compromise and a novel way to save some money. The work on the product would be done elsewhere and it was contemplated that we would all do a similar sort of arrangement there when assembly and testing commenced. Even with the company paying a travel stipend, the money saved was huge. It would have been less expensive to locate everything someplace else, but they had to work around the one main person that didn't want to move.
"What people say when asked to take part in surveys and what they do in real life may differ."
Absolutely this. With more and more companies (the majority? a large majority?) requiring some form of return to office, if folks do quit, were are they going to go. Very few places seem to offer fully remote any more, more and more are requiring at least 3 days a week in the office.
"An issue with regard to the tech of homeworking, may be security. Each homeworker is a potential access point to your servers."
It's called a VPN, and it's a commodity service. And the primary infection vector is spoof/phishing emails
On your larger point, it Absolutely is a global war against the subsrerviant.
You know this because (to pull from a post farther down) ...
Study finds a quarter of bosses hoped RTO would make employees quit https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/09/rto_quit_study/
"Study finds a quarter of bosses hoped RTO would make employees quit"
Unless an employee has trapped themselves, the best ones will have the best options so the people that are left aren't the cream of the crop. Trying to lower headcount by doing this sort of thing is very risky.
Note to corporations: make sure your VPN is capable enough so that employees don't overload it. At [my former company], snow days stressed the VPN to the breaking point. And it's really hard to use CAD software locally without access to the license servers. Careful and intelligent configuration would put license server connectivity (only) over the VPN to save bandwidth, but then what do you do about model and part libraries and multiple people working on the same design...that traffic will kill the VPN pretty quick.
Anywhere that's moved to "the cloud" will find that access is faster outside the office, because a home worker isn't sharing a 1000Mbps link with 250 other people.
And of course, that also means the 10 people who actually do need to be there can have a far better experience.
"An issue with regard to the tech of homeworking, may be security. Each homeworker is a potential access point to your servers. I'm sure malware folk are well aware of this."
There's a mid-point where companies can put together functional workgroups in places outside a big city and near to housing. If a marketing team has the two floors above shops on the local high street, they have access to those shops and can be near to home/kids/family. Why does the marketing group need to be a glass divider away from accounts receivable? A stay-at-home mom could pack a small child into a pram and stop by the "office" to interact with others in the group while doing a bulk of her work at home. Trying to do that with a 1.5 hour train in between those points won't work. The goal should be work done and not hours an office chair is kept warm. If a manager can't work out what needs to be done and in what time frame, should they be a manager?
Show me an employee who works from home and doesn't have an employer-issued laptop. Laptop=security hole, and "home" is probably the safest place for them to be using it, other than work. So, they're back in the office full time. What do you suppose the odds are that they'll now be using that laptop on the train to work,or at the coffee shop? You could argue that RTO exposes MORE laptops to security risks, and WFH is actually MORE secure than RTO.
Retured, now, so DGAF.
The King’s College study proudly reveals what anyone with a working brain already knew: UK workers are flipping the bird at return-to-office (RTO) mandates - because why on earth would they volunteer for a pay cut just to get stabbed on the way to work?
The article solemnly reports that only 42% would obediently crawl back to their desks five days a week, down from 54% in 2022. What a shock. Have the researchers been on the Tube lately? Have they priced a monthly rail pass? Or are they sipping lattes in an ivory tower, unaware that UK public transport is a rotting corpse of delays, extortionate fares, crumbling infrastructure, and laughable “policing” that shrugs at muggings and assaults?
For the average worker, going back to the office equals taking a pay cut. Between the £300+ monthly rail costs alone, the hours lost to cancellations, and the joy of navigating crime-infested stations where low-level criminals operate with impunity (because real crime happens on X these days according to the police), RTO isn't just inconvenient - it’s financial and health self-harm.
And sure, the article notes higher compliance among minority workers, speculating it’s due to job insecurity and discrimination. But let’s also spell out the dirty little secret: UK businesses increasingly rely on immigrant workers who’ve already been hardened by surviving violent, precarious conditions - and are expected to tolerate three-shift rotas without complaint. It’s a quiet system of modern wage slavery, propped up by management paranoia and a refusal to pay anyone enough to live safely near the office.
Meanwhile, executives are terrified their staff might dare launch startups or, God forbid, do anything meaningful while working remotely. The irony? Remote workers consistently clock longer, harder hours and show more loyalty than their forcibly onsite counterparts.
In short: if bosses want bums in seats, they should start by paying city wages that cover gated-community safety, private transport, and first-world commuting conditions - not demand sacrifices on the altar of nostalgia for open-plan serfdom. Until then, no surprise workers resist. They’re not lazy. They’re just not suicidal.
I tried getting the train to my office once. I live far enough from a train station that it warranted a cycle/train combination. The best route was for me to ride 20 miles to my nearest sensible station, get on the train, then immediately get off the train since it was also the nearest stopping station to my work at that time of the morning and cycle the remaining 5 miles.
"The best route was for me to ride 20 miles to my nearest sensible station, get on the train, then immediately get off the train since it was also the nearest stopping station to my work at that time of the morning and cycle the remaining 5 miles."
Everybody seems to think that everybody else can do that much cycling. Just wait until they get older and have a nagging injury that's never going to be right again (be kind to your back). If it's pissing down rain or a really hot and muggy summer day, taking the bicycle isn't fun and can be quite dangerous. If there's a locker room at work to change and have a shower, bonus, but that's not usual. Secure storage for your bike is also important.
Your guy countryman Autoshennanigans @youtube did a test recently (two weeks ago) by taking his car from home to 'a place of work' and then taking the bus to that same place.. The car took him 37m with 3m minutes spare or to get a coffee, and the bus took him 3h5m and didn't leave him time for coffee.
I had a similar experience in Atlanta about 6 years ago. A trip that would have taken me 30m at 5am took over two hours via bus, then train, then another train, and finally, another bus.
"ut the public transport system is excellent compared to almost any other city in the UK"
Yep, quite! Try the West Yorkshire conurbation (Leeds / Bradford). No light rail / urban rail, and only limited heavy rail so it very much depends where you are wanting to get from and to - large parts of the urban area are further from a station than most would want to walk every day.
"the public transport system is excellent compared to almost any other city in the UK"
...and this is because of massive, nay, colossal investment.
Could we, the 85% who live in the provinces, please have a bit more investment? And not white elephants (A1 widening, HS2 yada) but actual careful planning?
"And not white elephants (A1 widening,
The A1 from Newcastle to Berwick is about 65 miles and mostly SINGLE carriageway. There's a few stretches dualled and we've been promised more for decades, the latest widening having been cancelled yet again. Dualling more of the A1 is certainly NOT a white elephant. Unless you are thinking of that massively underused 4 lane stretch down south.
"I've done it, many many times, it's nowhere near as bad as people like to whine but the public transport system is excellent compared to almost any other city in the UK"
If you are living in the right place and working in the right place, it's simple to eschew a car and just use public transport. The issue is that housing near transport is more dear and rush hour commutes are primal.
I'd never hire a car when I'd visit Prague. Many other European cities are also fantastic, but I live in the US where nothing joins up and the taxi driver's union can keep the light rail from getting to the airport.
Los Angeles used to have one of the best public transport systems in the US. Auto makers and oil companies bought it out then stripped it out. What has been put back over the years assumes everybody want to go to downtown LA in the morning and the other way in the evening, again with odd station locations and the same problem with security that London has. I found a nice presentation on YouTube using Los Angeles as a case study, but also showed a few other places with the same problematic hub and spoke configuration along with schedules that are heavily weighted in one direction in the morning and evening so they are only useful for a certain number of commuters.
Amtrak has a similar problem to local public transportation. They need to go to more large cities with at least two trains per day. That will take investment, but without it, it's not as useful so people stop considering it at all and the number of carts and horses isn't balanced. HSR isn't the answer as it means faster service serving fewer stations for a given amount of budget when the problem is often so many stops for the existing service to allow for freight that the max and average speeds that can be reached are blocked off. There also isn't the same travel services at train stations such as car hire. Things seem to be getting better with bus and tram/trolley connections, but far from perfect. Another issue is secure car parking for longer stays. Taking the train goes off the menu if it means a $100 taxi ride to get from home to the station since there is no longer term parking or it's not safe. Getting a ride back home from the station might be difficult if the train comes in during the wee hours outside of a very large city. For the $100BN+ that the Orange Menace wants to increase the military by was put into Amtrak, they'd go many more places with new rolling stock and that's just in year one. I don't think they could efficiently spend that much before the next fiscal year. Oh sure, thrown in some graft and theft and they can do it.
Buses are slower, joining traffic takes forever, and routes are limited. So sure, driving is a pain, but relying on public transport means paying more, waiting longer, and still being stuck in the same broken system. Parking is expensive to make sure only the well-off can afford to drive into the town.
but relying on public transport means paying more, waiting longer,
Depends entirely on where you are. In London - or even quite a few bits of the South East, traffic means there is no particular time benefit to driving, and public transport will be quite a lot cheaper. And you can genuinely relax, read, listen to a podcast, etc (not half-listening whilst you hopefully concentrate on the road!). Rest of the country you're screwed (bar maybe Reading, or living in Glasgow or Newcastle, which have Metros).
People cringe at the idea of a £1500 season ticket, but when you point out that's half the price of a £200/mo car finance plan (£2400/yr before you add petrol, parking or any tolls such as the Dartford Crossing), they realise they'd quite like the £1000+ back in their pocket. One-car households should be the norm. Not out of an authoritarian "we'll tax the bejesus out of second cars", but because public transport should be cheaper and of comparable speed for getting a worker, laptop and their lunch to a place of work. Cars are great for outings, big shops and Ikea runs, but the idea that every worker needs a car because it's the only viable way to access their employment is madness - and discriminatory against those without licenses, disqualifying health conditions, etc.
The idea we're habitually using two-tonne metal boxes to get individuals plus laptop to work (and providing sufficient parking for that metal box to stand idle for 8 hours) is insane use of land, resource - and bad for the economy. Far better to be spending money on British-made buses and UK-tax-paying drivers than on German/French cars.
All of which is inferior to WFH (where possible, Doesn't work great for nurses or surgeons), which is cheaper yet. But we should still have fantastic and universal public transport as the default option, servicing the needs of everyone.
‘no benefit to driving’ - spoken like someone privileged comfortably inside Zone 1-2, who’s never endured the slow, grinding misery of commuting beyond Zone 3. Driving is still faster because you skip the long walk to the bus stop, the endless waiting, the crawling bus that lurches through traffic, stops every few metres, and fights to rejoin the road. Rush hour by bus? It’s not just time-consuming - it’s a soul-crushing, often multi-hour ordeal.
Sure, you ‘save’ a grand, but you trade it for something far more valuable: your time, your energy, your sanity. That alternative cost? No one’s handing it back to you. You lose it forever.
And this fantasy of ‘genuine relaxation’ on public transport - tell me you haven’t set foot on a UK bus lately without telling me. Relaxation isn’t possible when the air reeks of piss, weed, and sweat; when you’re packed shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers shouting, blasting music, or worse; when every seat is a lottery - will it be gum, filth, or the ghost of someone’s unwashed backside?
As for the claim that needing a car is ‘madness’ or ‘discriminatory’ - no. What’s madness is pretending that Britain’s fragmented, underfunded, decaying transport system can actually serve everyone. For countless people, a car isn’t luxury or preference - it’s survival. And stripping away that option under the banner of ‘fairness’ only deepens inequality - turning mobility into a privilege, cutting off access, and pushing more people into hardship.
‘no benefit to driving’ - spoken like someone privileged comfortably inside Zone 1-2, who’s never endured the slow, grinding misery of commuting beyond Zone 3.
No. Sounds like someone who lives in the West Midlands whose commute used to take between 25minutes and 2 hours depending whether some tosser had been watching a movie on the M6 instead of... y'know... driving. Not that my commute involved the M6, but when someone spilled their car/caravan/HGV and closed the motorway, the traffic looking for a parallel route would bring the region to a standstill. Happened about once a month.
Like I say, WFH is preferable, but I wish I had had the option of taking a tram, or a bus with dedicated bus lanes. But like many, I'm in the position where public transport would have taken 90minutes vs. 25.
Sure, you ‘save’ a grand, but you trade it for something far more valuable: your time, your energy, your sanity.
I mean, I've just been to Brussels and back via Avanti and Eurostar. It was much less effort and much saner taking the train than driving up to Manchester airport, arsing around in a crowded departures lounge, being sandwiched into a teeny seat (even basic Eurostar is a step up from airline Premium Economy) and then having to drive home again on the way back (as it happens, I was in Eurostar Plus, which meant I got fed and had a glass of wine, so I really wouldn't want to be driving at the other end).
Sitting on a bus or metro for half an hour reading is a much saner use of my life and my time than braving the roads and all the lunatics who have forgotten how to drive (particularly since 2020). Even if I save 5 minutes on the journey, I've gained half an hour of reading time vs driving.
And this is the point really. People say "public transport is slower". And sometimes it's catestrophically so. But if the choice is 20minutes driving or 35minutes reading... actually I'm good with reading? Driving is "lost" time. Reading isn't.
As for the claim that needing a car is ‘madness’ or ‘discriminatory’ - no. What’s madness is pretending that Britain’s fragmented, underfunded, decaying transport system can actually serve everyone.
Sure, so f- the disabled then. If you can't drive, suck it up and spend your life being a political whipping boy as politicians decide whether or not to allow you benefits, whilst also denying you the infrastructure to actually access education of employment. What sort of vile rhetoric is this? The answe to Britain's public transport infrastructure is to fix it. Not to give up and say "Those who can, drive. Everyone else, tough titties".
For countless people, a car isn’t luxury or preference - it’s survival.
And you don't see any problem with that?
And stripping away that option under the banner of ‘fairness’ only deepens inequality - turning mobility into a privilege, cutting off access, and pushing more people into hardship.
Wait.... you haven't read the f-ing post have you. What a troll you are. I didn't propose stripping anything away. I said public transport should be so good that people would willingly forego a second car because they didn't need it. Reading comprehension.
For reference, this line in particular:
Not out of an authoritarian "we'll tax the bejesus out of second cars", but because public transport should be cheaper and of comparable speed for getting a worker, laptop and their lunch to a place of work.
Perfect - now it’s ‘I never said take cars away, I just want public transport so good people won’t need them!’ That’s adorable. Meanwhile, back in reality, the system is wrecked, underfunded, unreliable, and decades away from being that utopian alternative you’re fantasising about.
You had a nice Eurostar ride with a glass of wine? Congratulations - but comparing that to the daily filth, chaos, and exhaustion of Britain’s broken local transport is laughable. For countless people, it’s not a choice between a cosy bus ride and a car, it’s a choice between a car or no job, no income.
You talk about how ‘driving is lost time’ - tell that to the shift workers, the night workers, the ones outside metropolitan bubbles who can’t even rely on a bus showing up, let alone on time.
Pretending the answer is just ‘fix public transport’ ignores that for decades no government has meaningfully done that. People are drowning now. They don’t need wishful thinking. They need solutions that exist - not smug lectures about a system that only works in theory.
Perfect - now it’s ‘I never said take cars away, I just want public transport so good people won’t need them!’ That’s adorable.
"Now". No, no, no. That's how it was to start with. If you read my post properly.
It's not adorable. It's calling for better. In any German city >200k (so, places like Stoke-on-Trent, Wigan or Plymouth) would have a comprehensive tram network, light rail - all under the S-Bahn banner.
Meanwhile, back in reality, the system is wrecked, underfunded, unreliable, and decades away from being that utopian alternative you’re fantasising about.
Yes. It is wrecked. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today. So why the throwing up of hands and "ah well, it's screwed, forget it, we'll just lock into a car-first society forever". You say "people are drowning now". But you aren't proposing any solutions other than "Well, we'll just carry on with cars then". Which by your own description is drowning people. They are forced to own a car for survival even if they can ill afford it..
You had a nice Eurostar ride with a glass of wine? Congratulations - but comparing that to the daily filth, chaos, and exhaustion of Britain’s broken local transport is laughable. For countless people, it’s not a choice between a cosy bus ride and a car, it’s a choice between a car or no job, no income.
YES. I F-ING KNOW THAT'S THE CHOICE. THAT'S WHY GOING ON COMPETENT PUBLIC TRANSPORT IS SUCH A WAKE-UP CALL OF HOW MUCH BETTER THINGS COULD BE UNDER COMPETENT (local & national) GOVERNMENT. IT'S WHY I AM RESENTFUL WHEN I AM FORCED TO GET IN THE CAR TO DRIVE TO SOMEWHERE THAT OUGHT TO BE A BRIEF TRAM TRIP.
You talk about how ‘driving is lost time’ - tell that to the shift workers, the night workers, the ones outside metropolitan bubbles who can’t even rely on a bus showing up, let alone on time.
YES. I KNOW. THAT IS WHY I AM RESENTFUL ON THEIR (and my own) BEHALF THAT LOW EARNERS ARE LOSING THOUSANDS OUT THEIR PAY PACKET RUNNING A CAR THEY CAN ILL-AFFORD. WHY I SIGH EVERY TIME MY COLLEGAUE IS LATE TO OUR MORNING CALL BECAUSE THEY'RE DRIVING THEIR SON TO COLLEGE BECAUSE THE BUS DIDN'T F-ING TURN UP.
Pretending the answer is just ‘fix public transport’ ignores that for decades no government has meaningfully done that. People are drowning now. They don’t need wishful thinking. They need solutions that exist - not smug lectures about a system that only works in theory.
In theory? This is not theory. This is practice. It works in practice. We just don't do it. It took decades for Amsterdam to sort itself out. We have to start somewhere.
Look, I Know. This is the de facto situation. And it will take time to fix. That doesn't mean we shouldn't start now. The solution is not to say "Oh well, that's adorable in theory but it won't work". What solutions do you propose? What alternative do you propose to unaffordable car dependency?
And actually, some fixes are quick. We could improve bus services massively in 12-18 months - if government financially backed councils to nationalise or regulate services - not merely giving them the theoretical power to do so. Tram networks can be rolled out in 5 years - not decades. If they can secure funding.
There are short-term fixes. But Reeves won't sign off on them. She's too busy subsidising commercial banks to the tune of £35Bn/yr.
"depending whether some tosser had been watching a movie on the M6 instead of... y'know... driving."
My experience of the M6 in the West Midlands and the adjacent bit of the M5 Is that one could easily and safely watch a movie from the drivers seat if one wished - in fact several. Being called upon to drive would be at best intermittent.
My experience of the M6 in the West Midlands and the adjacent bit of the M5 Is that one could easily and safely watch a movie from the drivers seat if one wished - in fact several. Being called upon to drive would be at best intermittent.
Well yes! Usually because you're parked behind someone who got that equation wrong.
"But if the choice is 20minutes driving or 35minutes reading... actually I'm good with reading"
One thing I learned to do when working for others was to keep a work diary and a running to-do list. Both of those are things that can be done on public transport if there is space. Standing room only is a problem. I'd have no issue doing both tasks "off the clock" since the diary is for my benefit so I have written records if I'm accused of something and the to-do list kept me focused on the things I need to get ticked off which would often shift with that seemed like an hourly change of mind from management. Towards the end of my stay at the rocket company, the to-do list was morphing into a full blown project management regime to keep all of the flaming swords in the air.
Rest of the country you're screwed (bar maybe Reading, or living in Glasgow or Newcastle, which have Metros).
I dunno, before I escaped Reading, I'd say their commuting denizens are pretty well screwed. So I used to take the 17 bus (the purple people eater!) which was often full, but fortunately pretty frequent. That dropped me a couple of minutes from the station, which meant running the gauntlet of Zelenskys demanding money. Then joining the horde looking for a train that might, just might not be standing room only (for a sardine) to get to Paddington, where the tube entrances are probably closed due to overcrowding. So then joining another horde heading for Lancaster Gate, getting jammed into a tube to Bank, changing for the DLR, maybe.. And then getting to do the whole process in reverse once work is done.
No idea if Crossrail has improved things, but I try to avoid London like the plague. Especially when it usually meant paying an arm and leg to end up at a desk that was worse equipped and less productive than my own office. Especially when work often meant designing solutions for remote working for clients. Personally I think investors should look at RTO policies as companies they should avoid. After all, if employees WFH, that can be a substantial opex saving. If businesses can't trust employees to WFH, they have the wrong employees.. or the wrong (micro)managers
"Then joining the horde looking for a train that might, just might not be standing room only (for a sardine) to get to Paddington, where the tube entrances are probably closed due to overcrowding. So then joining another horde heading for Lancaster Gate, getting jammed into a tube to Bank, changing for the DLR, maybe.. And then getting to do the whole process in reverse once work is done."
That's the problem that's been exacerbated by companies. Every one of them wants everybody to start at 8-9am and leave at 4-6pm with the rest of the 24 hours of the day there for the office cleaners to do their thing. None of them stop to think if if would be better to utilize their offices more hours of the day and have people on beginning earlier and going later to be available to other parts of the world. It really doesn't matter if accounts payable does all of their due diligence at 10am or 8pm so the check run at 6am the next day is ready for sign off. There's a good number of staff that can save money by getting off-peak season passes as long as there are trains running early and late enough to shift schedules around.
Staggered start/end times work well as long as you can still fit in all of the face-to-face activities which make sense to be done in an office. Collaboration works slightly better in person, especially if you just go over to someone's desk to have a chat with them about something, or you overhear a topic in the office and learn some valuable information or can provide insight that would otherwise have been missed from a phone call between two individuals.
Companies therefore mandating "core hours" of 11-3 say make sense to work with this, as employees can arrive at any time in the 8-11AM period and leave any time in the 3-7PM period, and that gives you a guaranteed 4 hours of interaction time for those incidental conversations to take place.
One-car households should be the norm. Not out of an authoritarian "we'll tax the bejesus out of second cars", but because public transport should be cheaper and of comparable speed for getting a worker, laptop and their lunch to a place of work.
And gravity shouldn't exist because if it didn't air travel would be easier as well.
Public transport can work well for commuting if there is a single route, fairly direct, between your home and place of work - and it's adequately time-tabled. Many decades ago that existed where I live. It took half an hour to go by bus to the nearest town with four buses an hour, one of which served the next most outlying village. In peak times those were doubled up. Even so it only supplied a fraction of the transport needed because most people were able to walk to work as the workplaces were close by; this was the England of industrial villages.
Now the local mills are gone and the villages are dormitory, not industrial. The bus service is down to one an hour, not doubled up but reduced to single deckers out of busy periods. The journey takes 40 minutes because the route is less direct to cover (badly) two former routes. Some people work at home. For the most part the others have a choice of conurbations 20+ miles away.
Before I retired my last client site on the outskirts of one of those conurbations was c25 miles away. I could drive in 40-45 minutes. Public transport on a roundabout* route would have required about 2½ hours overall including a wait for about half an hour for one change of bus and a very tight 4 minutes for another, always assuming the bus could keep to its timetable on a crowded motorway.
A household with at least two working members is very likely to need at least two cars because those members are likely to be working in quite different places.
* Roundabout because of the hub and spoke nature of public transport. Nobody is going to provide buses for the sheer diversity of routes achievable by car.
Public transport can work well for commuting if there is a single route, fairly direct, between your home and place of work - and it's adequately time-tabled. Many decades ago that existed where I live. It took half an hour to go by bus to the nearest town with four buses an hour, one of which served the next most outlying village. In peak times those were doubled up.
There is, nonetheless, a major call for it though - every time a new rail station gets opened (improving the network effects of that line by adding a node), it tends to blow out it's passenger projections in 18months. The reticence of Treasury to fund more station projects despite the massive ROI is bizarre and counter-productive. And there are places like Penicuik - an Edinburgh dormitory down - which don't have a rail station at all. From Penicuik it's a 30-50minute drive into Edinburgh, or 90minutes on the bus (which visits all the little villages). A train could cover the 10miles in under 20mins. There's some exceptionally low-hanging fruit which would make a major difference to traffic in our cities.
Even so it only supplied a fraction of the transport needed because most people were able to walk to work as the workplaces were close by; this was the England of industrial villages.
Well yes, this is a significant issue. I live on the edge of a small West Mids town (within the ring road). The former light-industrial (garment-making) site at the bottom of our road has long gone and been redeveloped as housing. Other business sites in the centre of town are moving to edge-of-town with no real active-travel options, just a dual-carriageway. They're being replaced by more housing, from which people will presumably have to drive to the out-of-town locations.
The loss of mixed-development is a real social problem, leaving us in this decreasingly tenable position where people get in their car and queue down the bypass to get to an industrial estate, and then do the same in reverse at 5pm. The loss of co-located employment in residential areas is deeply problematic. People didn't need a car-per-adult because people could walk into work. And of course people walking into work don't need somewhere at work to park their car. Win-win for them and the employer. But now the area is purely residential and everyone has to drive out to get to work. If you'd told employers in the 1950s that their office building would need the same footprint of land again for car parking, they'd have laughed you out the room. How much do you think they're paying their staff? And yet, we're now in a position where we have hollow cities - not as bad as the US, but in areas quite problematic (Stoke-on-Trent) - where office blocks are separated by acres of tarmac and otherwise-able non-drivers are barred from employment because they can't get there by other means.
And then the government have the gall to suggest they cut disability benefits and push people back to work. HOW IS SOMEONE WITH MILD-BUT-DISQUALIFYING EPILEPSY SUPPOSED TO DO THAT? THIS IS NOT A RHETORICAL QUESTION.
A household with at least two working members is very likely to need at least two cars because those members are likely to be working in quite different places.
Yes. This is the problem. It should not be necessary for someone to require two tonnes of car (which has to be parked somewhere both at home and work) to get themselves and their lunch to their place of work. Public transport should be good enough to allow at least one, if not both of them to go by bus/tram/rail and reserve the household car for exceptional use.
"The former light-industrial (garment-making) site at the bottom of our road has long gone and been redeveloped as housing"
Ah, yes. The double whammy. Now we not only have the occupants of the housing of the walk to work era needing to commute, we also have all those living in the new housing that replaced the work places. Ideally those old workplaces should have been repurposed as new-style workspaces, encourage their use as offices instead of city centres by favourable taxation policies.
Why didn't this happen? Ever since WWII having housing and workplaces next to each other was frowned upon, partly because slum housing was found in such locations (spot the syllogism) and partly because the old industrial sites were often heavily polluting by having coal-fired boilers. Yes, this mess has been carefully planned.
"Ideally those old workplaces should have been repurposed as new-style workspaces, encourage their use as offices instead of city centres by favourable taxation policies."
The manufacturing company I had was classed as light industrial and it would not have impacted a residential area. The vast majority of the work was electronic assembly types of tasks. We did make some noise, but that could have been mitigated to not bother people around the shop during the daytime. That can be one of the issues. At home, I can open the garage and make a huge racket with the table saw, routers, air nailer, etc and there isn't a blind thing the neighbors can do about it during the day. Even at night the filth can't be bothered to have a chat with somebody testing the engine on their race car at 2am (thank bog that idiot moved). Add a commercial aspect to the noise and any becomes too much.
"The loss of mixed-development is a real social problem, leaving us in this decreasingly tenable position where people get in their car and queue down the bypass to get to an industrial estate, and then do the same in reverse at 5pm."
A friend of mine with a photography/advertising company had to queue up and pay a premium price for a new live/work project opening up for sale. Loads of professionals and small businesses wanted space so the owner could live upstairs from their office. Part of the covenant was that the buyer was the occupant and had a legitimate business operating from their unit. He knew the developer and heard how difficult it was for them to get it zoned and approved. The city had no experience with that sort of thing and the people were completely at sea to figure out what to do. It's weird since human kind had a long tradition of the shop owner living above or behind their business, having a family, etc. Many older downtowns in the US have retail shops on the ground floor and residences and/or offices on the floors going up. That's a requirement for any sort of walkable city. An abandoned downtown at night is a target for bad things. A shop owner living on the first floor can dream about pouring boiling oil on burglars, but at least they'd hear the alarm/people breaking in.
"and discriminatory against those without licenses, disqualifying health conditions, etc."
I disagree with that argument. It's like saying that since not everybody can ice skate, there should be no ice rinks.
I'm getting older and have to face up to being more limited in what I can do. The city I live in has "dial-a-ride" service so if I lost the ability to drive, I could still get to shopping, the doctor, etc. I already work from home but I'd have to switch to something that doesn't have me doing field service as part of it for the bulk of my income. If I had to move someplace where I had more support available, that's what I'd have to do.
I disagree with that argument. It's like saying that since not everybody can ice skate, there should be no ice rinks.
No it isn't. Building out a car-first society where access to an industrial park is exclusively via private car is absolutely discriminatory. Of course people can choose to drive, but the development should also include bus stops (or indeed a train/tram station if such a network exists, or passively provisioned to accept an extension from an existing network). Along with parallel walking/cycling routes, the businesses should have secure bike storage (if you think this imposes an expense, wait till you see how much paving a large car park costs - a bike shelter saves money compared to paving the equivalent number of parking spaces. You can buy less land and do less paving. Fewer potholes to fill as well).
Nowhere have I argued for not having cars. I have simply argued for making them a lower priority than public transport which everyone (including car-owners) can use.
"Building out a car-first society where access to an industrial park is exclusively via private car is absolutely discriminatory. Of course people can choose to drive, but the development should also include bus stops (or indeed a train/tram station if such a network exists, or passively provisioned to accept an extension from an existing network)."
That does exist in some places but only for 1st shift workers. There's so little use outside of those times that it's very inefficient to operate busses, trolleys or trains for 2nd/3rd shift workers. I've run into that bias when trying to find public transportation to pick up something for sale online. I could get to the location in the morning, but would than have to wait hours until the trains were running the other way to get back. 12 hours on the train or 4-5 hours of driving. Cheaper to have the item shipped than to drive, but either adds too much to the cost for the thing to be a deal anymore. Taking the train would be cheaper and has some adventure value to it but not for an entire day.
"Parking is expensive to make sure only the well-off can afford to drive into the town."
Parking is expensive because parking spaces in London are a very scarce resource. As a scarce but desirable resource it becomes expensive. That only the well-off can afford it is a consequence. Get your causality sorted.
Many years ago when I commuted into London by rail there was a train strike and free parking was provided in Regents Park (not a suitable long-term measure). I'd never seen such free-moving traffic down Marylebone Rd. I almost overshot the turn-off.
The last time I drove into London, I had no issue driving right into the middle of the South Bank (apart from the bit where Google Maps tried to take me down the Mall), and it got me to where I was going without unexpected delays. Compare this to the time where I parked on the outskirts of London to get the tube to an exhibition in central London, only to find that they'd picked that day for engineering works on that line, and to spend two hours on a baking hot rail replacement bus crawling along the A4 at 0.5 mph.
"Compare this to the time where I parked on the outskirts of London to get the tube to an exhibition in central London, only to find that they'd picked that day for engineering works on that line, and to spend two hours on a baking hot rail replacement bus crawling along the A4 at 0.5 mph."
The exhibition was likely planned over a year in advance and who knows how the figure engineering works. It's bad luck in your example. I've had similar things happen which has me always figure a backup/back out plan.
Not quite as severe, but, including commute, my working day is 11-12 hours if I use public transport, if I use a car it's less than 9.
WFH my working day is 8 hours and I get an excellent selection of cheap lunches, coffee whenever I want and I can wear my fluffy bunny slippers around the office.
I had occasion to drive into central London last year (the South Bank no less). It took less time than public transport would have, and factoring in petrol costs, wear-and-tear, congestion charge for two days, and 24h parking round the corner from the South bank centre, it was still several hundred quid cheaper than the alternative of three people taking the train for the same journey, and that doesn't even account for the need to drive to a train station from where we started and pay for parking at the station, which would have cost at least three times the parking cost in Central London (it was £7, booked in advance).
Public transport in this country is an absolute farce, and the reasons for this have everything to do with privatisation and unregulated free-market economics, where the "free" bit just refers to the freedom of those holding the capital to fleece everyone else for every penny they have.
"Public transport in this country is an absolute farce, and the reasons for this have everything to do with privatisation and unregulated free-market economics, where the "free" bit just refers to the freedom of those holding the capital to fleece everyone else for every penny they have."
Some people make it work and can't fathom how/why people would even own a car.
A problem with public transport can often be naysayers countering any expansion as too expensive and will never pay for itself. What they mean is it won't pay for itself from the fare box, but they don't take their analysis, such as it is, any further. Roads cost money to build and maintain. Signals, lighting, car parks, pollution, noise, ordinance enforcement, etc cost money. There's also a hard to track increase in economic activity that comes about by having good public transportation.
When I go to a trade show, I want to take public transportation from my hotel and have it drop me off at the front of the venue. I don't want to hire a car and park it there with a mile to walk to the registration desk and then have to find the bloody thing (which isn't mine, so what does it look like?) when I'm tired and want to get refreshed and go have some supper. It's even better when there's transport from the train station to the hotel if it's not walkable. A concert I went to in 2024 in Albuquerque, NM by train was completely walkable. I called a taxi to pick me up from the train station and never heard back so I just started walking and it turned out to not really be that far. The concert hall was about the same distance again which was nicely broken up about halfway with what I'd call a food court that had some tasty smash burgers. There turned out to be a custom car meet going on downtown which was loads of fun and after the concert, the walk back to the hotel was fine (even after the bartender found out they DO have Guinness). Spent some time the next morning enjoying the downtown and taking photos I have yet to go through before heading back to catch the return overnight train. Not exactly cheap, but it was the last tour the band was ever going to do so "Last Chance to See". Because the train station is so close to the city center, it was the best option. Traveling overnight bother way
Well, that depends on where you live and work. Most of us choose one to suit the other.
Still, if we're willy waving I'm currently working from "home"* in a country that has precisely no railways at all. Or airports**. This (the working) is only possible because my employer mandated work from home, back when that was the only sensible course, and then moved premises to somewhere much smaller so that we plebs are not allowed back in without prior authorisation.
-A.
*I'm lucky enough to count more than one. Two, precisely.
**While we're at it, there's no motorway network or sea access either.
"*I'm lucky enough to count more than one. Two, precisely."
I expect you mean working two jobs from home which is another advantage. Not commuting can mean having the time for a "side hustle" and not expanding your work day at all. It can also mean not needing to pay for childcare which could be a massive savings. Not paying commuting costs can more than offset higher utilities.
When I was young my mom worked nights as a nurse after my parents divorced and we had a live in sitter that got free/cheap rent to keep an eye on myself and my sister since my mom had to get some sleep during the day. Jackie went to the local college and we were 10-11 so didn't need nappies changed, meals made. Just somebody to keep track of where we were, got back from the school bus ok and did our homework.
Bosses don't want bums in seats. They want people to actually act on what they said here, and quit.
What's not to like? All the shareholder-pleasing benefits of a layoff round without the bad publicity.
Bonuses and martinis all around!
Who cares if the serfs fall on bad times because of this? That's what they are for. And who cares if this causes the best and brightest to leave? That's a problem for next FY and for sure can be fixed with more layoffs
Wow!
That’s a lot to unpack.
The getting stabbed on the way to work thing. Hmmm. I’d say that may not fly when telling your boss why you won’t be at the office.
“Sorry boss, there’s a 1 in 10,000 chance I’ll be stabbed commuting so I’m going to be fully remote from now on.”
This is all clearly very specific to your location, so it doesn’t really fit with the trends this article is reporting on.
Of course! Because we all live in some charming, crime-free neighbourhood with flawless trains and buses humming past every five minutes. Naturally.
Let’s be real: most people are priced out of those areas so fast their head spins. They’re dumped on the fringes - where the buses barely show, the stations are falling apart, and every walk home after dark feels like playing the lottery with your life.
Sure, go ahead and call it ‘overreacting.’ Easy when you’ve never sat on public transport trying not to breathe in the piss-soaked air, praying you don’t sit on gum or worse, or watching the drunks and gangs size each other up two rows down.
For most, commuting isn’t a charming little inconvenience - it’s a daily gamble stacked on top of the cost-of-living crisis.
So spare me the patronising ‘wow, that’s a lot to unpack’. No, mate - what’s a lot is the daily grind people endure while you sit back and chuckle at their so-called overreactions. That’s what’s truly obscene.
Oh get yourself some perspective already, seriously!
You don't know me from Adam, you don't know where I live and what I've experienced.
Migrants arriving into this country would laugh their arses off at what we consider a "dangerous" commute.
I've done some serious commuting mileage in some areas considered really dodgy. Lived in some really crappy places in my life.
The kinds of places that people say you would be mad to live in.
The thing I've found is that if you want to be a "mark", if you are that clueless, you'll be a "mark".
If you want to walk around with a tag on your back "mug me", you can.
And as for Daily grind? - FFS.
Nurses, paramedics etc. - THEY do daily grind.
The unskilled holding down multiple gig economy jobs to try and get by - THEY do the daily grind.
OP in this case, whinging about WFO and how OP reckons it's so dangerous to commute because it might get a bit stabby - give. me. a. break. snowflake. alert.
Life is dangerous, you could fall down a hole because there was no cover.
You could have a momentary distraction and get knocked down by a near silent EV.
You could get knocked down by a bicycle.
A brick could fall on your head just before you walk under scaffolding.
What are you going to do?
Hide like a snowflake or just get on with it?
FFS
Many of the OP arguments are absolutely sound - totally agree with the cost of commute, the time it takes, the awful stress it can have on you over a long period of time.
Agreed.
The stabby bit?
That's... well, it's just silly.
My current job is fully remote and has been since well before the pandemic. My current project team are based across 7 countries.
RTO has just been announced by HR. Mandated 3 days a week. i.e. change of contract!
HR droid did a Zoom call to announce this.
I asked if it was to apply to those of us with WFH only contracts - "Yes, everyone".
I asked where the office was that I had to attend - "The nearest one".
I asked if I could remain WFH as the nearest was a 2 hour flight away in another country - "Don't be ridiculous, you will have to move".
I asked if it applied to the C-Suite - "No, they are always travelling, so it can't apply to them".
Someone else said that they had a reduced hours WFH as they cared for an ill parent - "You will have to put them into care for the 3 days you come to the office".
People asked if they could still work from home some weeks when they are visiting family or in their home town during a festival time (it is a big cultural thing is some countries) as they had been doing it for 20+ years in some cases i.e. do exactly the same job, but from a different physical location - "No". (The HR droid had a real problem understanding variations of this question and so it was asked multiple times.)
I gave up on the call after 1 hour, but apparently it continued for another hour in a similar vein!
Is the RTO problem really coming from Managers, or HR who just have no idea about the real world?
Problem with HR in big companies, I've found, is they may be perfectly good at managing people but often have little idea of the technical logistics of how the company actually functions.
Like the example above, where a team was split over multiple countries. You may be in your office in one country but spend most of your time remotely connected to another country's servers.
Something you could do from anywhere.
If I needed to work from home I had RDP access to my office PC, with SecurID 2FA. Just as if I was sitting at my desk.
""What's the relocation package like and will you be able to arrange the viass for myself and family?" Press the erk for so many details that they can't escape thinking about the logistics."
To include 6 children and 3 aging parents. You'll need supplemental pay to cover the health costs that are provided in the country where you live now. That's for you and your family, of course.
We recently had a similar Zoom call; the biggest difference was that the information was _presented_ to us; there was no chance for anyone besides the presenter to speak.
One of the main points that was given was that our customers need to be able to contact us... so apparently all our company-issued cell phones all work better while we're sitting in our offices?
"For the average worker, going back to the office equals taking a pay cut. Between the £300+ monthly rail costs alone."
Before the pandemic, by far the vast majority of folks were in the office 5 days a week. Very few places offered work from home, esp on a regular basis. So it can be argued that the average worker got a pay rise of £300+ monthly, just by no longer having those rail costs. Your "pay cut" would just be a return to the norm.
"Have the researchers been on the Tube lately? Have they priced a monthly rail pass? "
How about a wardrobe, child care, needing to take a whole day off to be home when a new appliance is being delivered or the plumber needs access? It's hard to join groups or do a little volunteering when 3-4 hours a day is taken up with commuting and getting ready to go to work.
If bosses really wanted people to come in to the office, then it might be good not to make the office a living hell.
An often cited reason for RTO is collaboration, but this relies on people being easy to contact. Eg, not behind closed office doors. Natural progression of this argument is an open plan or cube farm hellscape. (I don't buy this excuse, but rather more psychological base needs of C-suite and expressions of power "Oooooh, look at the size of my army" (as a proxy for other small parts of C-suite anatomy) ) Funny that the C-Suite almost always have their own office, potentially even guarded by a dragon (um, normally a personal assistant). C-Suite seem to collaborate between themselves just fine, while keeping the peons out.
Make the office environment actually pleasant to be in. Nooks, crannies, plants, and chill out areas at a minimum. Some places do this well, others, not so well or at all.
On the other hand, a manage that sets clear expectations, and takes time to build the team, will probably be able to pick the "best of the best". And also from a Worldwide talent pool, rather than those within a 2 hour commute of the office.
My personal experience is an open plan area that was so loud I would constantly leave the office with a headache. Concentration was a non-starter. I think i was heading for a burn-out before Corona shook things up.
Now I have had a cup of wake me up juice, is the other reason why C-Suite and BoD love RTO mandates. Colour me surprised, it is packed with self interest.
Commercial real estate is often valued as a multiplier of last commercial rent, not at what the market will bear. With WFT, there is less demand for real estate, so, pressure on rents to drop. Cue happy business? No, cue unhappy BoD.
Often the BoD have interests in real estate, directly or indirectly. What better way line the pocket "full of green" to have an over the odds rental/purchase of property? Conflict of interest? Much, but I'm sure the other members of the board will vote the right way, after all, you'd do the same for them, right? Same applies even if the company owns the premises - that's been used to prop up loans and cover up declining value for years, I'm sure.
Time for a second cup of evil.
About a decade ago, the company I work for built themselves a huge swanky office. Then they sold the office to a property management company and signed a 30 year lease.
The company has been shrinking over the years as its market shrinks, so they now only occupy 30% of the building, having leased out parts to other companies. Still, they are stuck in the 30 year lease and the senior manglement, desperate to avoid looking like idiots for tying themselves up in a lease they can't get out of, are ramping up the pressure for everyone to start working at the office again. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm 60, they would have already received my resignation. None of the people I work with are in the head office - they all work in another city some 450km south. Even so, I'm expected to go to the head office at least three days per week under threat of disciplinary action if I don't.
I'll stop now, before I get really annoyed.
"About a decade ago, the company I work for built themselves a huge swanky office. Then they sold the office to a property management company and signed a 30 year lease."
Many companies do a similar sort of thing. Especially retailers. The company buys some land, builds a building to suit their needs that will last 15ish years and then sells the property with a lease for the remaining estimated life of the building. This moves the store from a capital asset with taxes due to a monthly expense item and rents having an annual cap on rises. Tax reasons. The retail company then frees up the cash tied up in that property so they can use it to construct another, invest some and plan to move the store when the lease it up across town leaving behind a tired building that will be costly to renovate. During the intervening time, about all that needs to be done is fresh paint every few years to keep the building looking fresh. By the time the HVAC needs to be completely replaced and the roof can't get by with just a patch, they're out of there. The big box stores are the worst since they'll argue the property tax position based on an empty building whose size in a retail zoned area has zero demand. In the US, many commercial leases are "NNN or Triple Net" where the tenant is responsible for maintenance, repairs and certain taxes.
There is great merit in the "collaboration" argument. You need to know and interact with your team-mates. And office banter can improve cohesiveness.
On the other hand - if you need to concentrate on a specific task for a couple of days, say - being on your own can be beneficial.
I did that once. There was a deadline to write complicated change-control docs for a major migration/upgrade and kept getting interrupted.
Got the OK to spend a couple of days at home finishing it.
"I did that once. There was a deadline to write complicated change-control docs for a major migration/upgrade and kept getting interrupted.
Got the OK to spend a couple of days at home finishing it."
We did that at the rocket shop as during the height of summer and depths of winter, what there was for HVAC was dismally lacking the ability to keep up. Mondays were all hands meetings and we'd coordinate test days and when there was a need to put everybody together. I could layout a PCB from my home office just as well as from my cubby in the shop. Usually better since the canteen was 10 steps away. I also had a better computer at home with two larger monitors. The cost to run my AC was less than the cost of petrol to be at the office.
This post has been deleted by its author
For those who can effectively work from home then it makes sense on many levels.
I am aware that not all jobs permit this (building stuff requires hands on at a plant of some description) but my job (primarily electronics design) can be effectively done from my home office just as well as the company office(s).
My $company has a pragmatic view on this; just about all the engineering staff (including management) are on a hybrid pattern with varying amounts of time in the office, driven by need. There are times I really need to be in the office / lab / production and I fairly regularly go to the main office for precisely that reason (it's a bit of a hike so I go there for a week). There is a (fairly) local office but the lack of public transport in my neck of the woods means driving but I do go in but when it adds value, not just to see my butt on a seat.
The company has a 'green' initiative and has an annual report on how much we are contributing to pollution (this report is increasingly being demanded by our customers) so it is a win for everyone.
I gain more flexibility (my commute is about 10 seconds) and the company gains more productivity (no interruptions or distracting noises from Joe in sales). Collaboration? We use online tools and there doesn't seem to be a problem with that.
The management isn't paranoid about seeing people at desks; they just want results.
"The company has a 'green' initiative and has an annual report on how much we are contributing to pollution (this report is increasingly being demanded by our customers) so it is a win for everyone."
I'd be surprised if most of the businesses doing this include commuting.
This puts me in mind of a big, highly bureaucratic tech company I worked for in the 1980s. One character of a colleague had so little actual work to do that as a protest he spread holiday brochures over his entire desk and just sat there smoking all day. Another workaday story for the Surreal Times.
My partner's company (publicly listed fintech firm) told all staff they need to come back to the office. That is after they froze pay increases the last few years partly off the back of wfh being cheaper. So obvious question is: who is going to pay for the extra commuting costs?
RTO is all a great idea until the bosses realise its their idea and they should foot the bill for it.
The management types that want to see everyone being miserable ought to put up or shut up. Show us this fabled declining productivity, concrete evidence that home working doesn’t work please. Perception is a funny thing and what our leaders perceive doesn’t seem well aligned with objective reality.
"Show us this fabled declining productivity, concrete evidence that home working doesn’t work please."
It should be easy enough to see who works and who skives off just as it's always been. Set a list of tasks and a time line. If it's reasonable, it's on the worker to get the work done or discuss with their supervisor that the load is unreasonable. For somebody that's highly efficient, they get rewarded with more free time. If they're more efficient in an office, all they'll get is more work.
Successful WFH requires a competent manager. I rest my case.
I was lucky enough to WFH as a freelancer for a wonderful manager back in the day, and that was in the days before public internet access. A copy of WinFax Pro on Win3 on the Shuttle XPC that I built myself (TWO monitors thanks to Matrox graphics) and a direct modem connection to a "server" in the office. The office was in London, home was a house in Kent with a sea view from the bedroom that served as an office.
There are several things that seem to conflict but are all true.
When COVID hit, we sent basically everyone home. Most office staff already had laptops, IT worked miracles to get laptops to those who didn't. After some initial problems with VPN capacity and just getting people working it all settled down. What was the impact of everyone working at home for that period? Basically, zilch.
Lockdown of course wasn't a choice, but it did demonstrate to the business that most existing staff could be trusted to work from home. We'd already been heading in that sort of direction, so we accelerated it. I haven't worked in an office (apart from the occasional visit) since lockdown. It has its good and bad sides.
Longer term though and we can see problems. It's harder to supervise remote staff.. even if you are happy with their work, they can still be doing things they shouldn't. Even posting as anon I can't really do into details, but a lot of people really did do some very bad stuff when they thought they weren't being watched. It's also harder to onboard new starters, there's a lot to be said for having a boss and coworkers on site to help you learn the job. Water cooler chat should not be underestimated. There's also health and safety - a lot of home workers have really unsatisfactory workspaces that would never be allowed in the office.
But some of the "problems" with supervising remote staff are really just management problems. Lockdown propelled home working several years into the future, but management skills have been slower to adapt.
And there's also costs to consider. Sure, commuting by car or train takes a lot of time and money (£30k+ in my case but my spouse shares the office) but if you want to equip a workspace in your home that can be a substantial capital investment, and then there's the costs of running your home office (heating and cooling can be especially expensive). I sure do miss someone coming round to clean as well. The 30 second commute to the office is great though.
I think sadly finding what's right for both employees and the organisation is beyond a lot of businesses, managers with legacy skills are flailing and there's a whole bunch of young professionals who have NEVER worked full-time in the office and don't expect to.
a lot of people really did do some very bad stuff when they thought they weren't being watched.
That is location agnostic.
It's also harder to onboard new starters
Fair, but only because this is still relatively new.
there's a lot to be said for having a boss and coworkers on site to help you learn the job.
It's actually easier and more efficient online if you use right tools.
Water cooler chat should not be underestimated.
Yes, workers associating workplace as their "second home" are easier to exploit.
a lot of home workers have really unsatisfactory workspaces that would never be allowed in the office.
Yes, employers pay pittance and have no idea about cost of living. Mental.
"Water cooler chat should not be underestimated. "
I never worked in a place which had, at least to my knowledge, a water cooler. I suppose we just managed without.
"if you want to equip a workspace in your home that can be a substantial capital investment"
It's not usually going to be a cost on the worker. You said you equipped the newly remote workers with laptops if they didn't already have them and I'd guess non-company laptops would have been unacceptable. True they would require an internet connection but that would almost inevitably exist.
My daughter is on her third job working almost exclusively from home had laptop, extra monitor and printer provided. Maybe the exclusive printer is one thing that the employers wouldn't have had to provide had she been office based - that and the VPN.
"You said you equipped the newly remote workers with laptops if they didn't already have them and I'd guess non-company laptops would have been unacceptable. "
A desktop computer can be more cost efficient if there isn't a burning need for a laptop. I'm too spoiled with a good graphics card and two nice big monitors. I also have a fancy mechanical keyboard that's so much nicer than a laptop for typing.
I have worked 99% from home following the pandemic. The cost of setting up a home office are not much, I would suggest I've got quite an expensive setup, sit stand desk, large premium monitor, premium chair (2nd hand from an office sale admittedly) and expensive keyboard mouse, work only provided the laptop. All of that equates to maybe 2 months of 5 days a week commuting costs. Seems like a good investment for me.
"if you want to equip a workspace in your home that can be a substantial capital investment"
I don't see why. Second hand office furniture is darn near free. Just about everything else is either owned by the worker or the company and would have been purchased anyway. My backup laser printer is something I picked up for free from an online posting. Turns out that the toner is made from precious metals going by price, but I found a new cartridge that it needed for a good price by having the time to look. It's on the shelf against the day it might be needed, but the one I use is still going strong. I have another cartridge for that one that I got on the cheap by having the time to look. When It goes in, I'll look for another.
I'm not thinking there's much of anything else that would make putting together a workspace at home very expensive. Obviously, you can spend whatever you want, but that's all discretionary. Some people plonk their laptop on a dining room table and do work from there. When the day is done, they fold it up and put it on a shelf somewhere out of the way.
"It's also harder to onboard new starters".
It was 2 years after joining my company as a new starter that I visited HQ. My more recent colleague still hasn't visited HQ. The OIYH (Office In Your Home) model works fine for us. However both of us were experienced workers albeit not in the current field. We are on both sides of middle aged. It's not about new starters, it's about will the next generation of young people be as adaptable as us oldies?
Too much journalistic and CEO pontification in the media, when many of us know 'it just works'.
@AC
These things vary
"then there's the costs of running your home office (heating and cooling can be especially expensive"
For me, that is essentially a rounding error - as those costs incurred anyway (partner at home, plus we care for a disabled relative who lives with us, so house is heated (if needed)))
Only additional cost is power consumption of laptop & monitor (& coffee maker - but hey, quality coffee!)
Big saving on commuting costs (and time - as would be 2 trains & a bus each way so would be a massively long day)
I could only do this job if WFH - only viable commute would be car due to location being nowhere near train stations but well served by M-Way, but health reasons prevent me doing that commute, so WFH is allowing me to keep working (& gives employer a DEI tick box for people with health issues) rather than be unemployed
My first thought was one way to improve productivity would be to ship management off to a comprehensive course on Universal Credit And then let them do the practical component for a few decades. :)
A few years before covid I went fully remote (~2000km); the alternative was early retirement; It worked out well for all concerned until after covid when unrelated structural changes meant RTO or sodding off. At that point retirement was by far the better option.
If I were ten years younger would my decision been different? Possibly but post covid the economics of housing in the city hosting the workplace, which was always pretty bleak had become outright desperate; So realistically no.
I suspect firms, industries and occupations that tend to hard-line a "in office" culture and policy will attract less talent and further skew their already abysmal diversity and gender profiles which in turn attracts less...
The AI encouraged hollowing out of skilled employees by management may well prove terminal for many large firms when the little remaining talent realize the insolvent economics of their employment and head for the exit. I am sure you can, and do get 100% RTO in Mumbai but at that point with AI agent based customer service the question remains - would you will actually have any customers?
The reality for employers is that many potential employees will expect, or demand work from home, and the reality for employees is that many employers will demand being in the office.
Having been both employer and employee, there are reasons for both. I've worked in defence and other high security positions where I worked on classified material, and there was absolutely no way that I could access that material remotely, no way, no how. In some cases, even working at home on it by writing things down would actually be a criminal offence. And, of course, if you're a lab technician or work with other physical assets, you have to be in the office or on site.
The flip side is that I've had positions where I was the one-man support team for a few European customers. Being based in Canada, if there was a crisis in Berlin at 2pm their time, it made much more sense for me to deal with it from my home office at 8am Toronto time. But no, corporate rules required that I drive to work, even if there was a snowstorm, meaning I could leave at 8am and get into the office at 10:15, more than two hours later, so I could then remote into Berlin and look at the problem. I didn't interact with any local co-workers, there were no resources in the office that I needed, and it wasn't so confidential that I couldn't do it from home. It was simply corporate policy.
Companies that demand everyone be in the office without a legitimate reason "just because" are going to find that's a turn-off for potential employees, just as employees are going to find that demands to work from home full time aren't going to be acceptable to most companies, either.
I find most low and mid level managers are flexible, with most taking an "as long as the work gets done" attitude. If the company allows work from home for six months and sees a 20% drop in productivity, they've got a strong argument when employees ask why they don't allow it, or why they're more restrictive about it. Likewise, if they allow it and productivity is unchanged, or even goes up, there will be employee pushback if the company demands everyone be back in the office full time for no stated reason.
The problem, as usual, is when upper management simply blasts out edicts company wide, without considering the implications, and simply expects complete compliance.
I've never heard anyone even suggest that going into the office for legitimate reasons is a problem.
The argument is against the RTO that results in people spending 2hr a day commuting to an office to have remote calls with the same people they remote called from home.
So global says back to the office, unaware that locally there is no longer an office to go to.
If going back to the office we wonder about the huge pay cut we've now got to deal with to pay for transport.
Global says we're zero carbon, employees wonder what happens with the carbon from our commutes.
etc etc, generally people aren't completely stupid. We can see that being forced back to an office to sit on video calls all whilst the execs crow about their eco credentials is a pile of hypocritical BS.
But we also know that members of boards are all completely mental and have no idea or any cares about what their staff actually think
"nd no longer have to deal with crap like RTO, etc..."
I've been shifting what I do for money over time and have set myself up so I can keep working, which I enjoy, but not need to earn maximum amounts of money or starve. I advocate for people to buy a home so at some point they have housing security they control. If they can't afford where they are, they need to plan for a move. If I stopped paying property tax, it generally takes about 6 years before the county would take a property and auction it off where I live, I could save some money. The vacant lot next door is past that and I'm waiting to pounce on it when it comes up for auction. I think they keep putting it off since it's not going to sell for much and they have many more properties that will fetch more. The taxes do pile up and the minimum bid is at least what the past due taxes are. The problem with that is there are properties near me so far in arrears that the tax/penalties/fees due grossly exceed the fair market price and they'll just sit there until Sol blows up into a Red Giant.
The TL:DR is to put yourself in a position that you can tell the boss to ........... and not suffer for it.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
