1y ago

Opinion | Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

wapo.st Opinion | Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office.

Office space is leasing at a discount, making this a good time for employers to give workers individual offices, complete with desks and doors that close.

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https://archive.ph/TZtIu

cross-posted from: https://derp.foo/post/119697

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

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68 comments

Force them to treat commute time (within reason) as work for which the employee must be paid, and you'll see a bunch of companies blanch and do an about-face on their attempts to get people back to the office.
As for the primary thesis of the article, well, if I go into the office I'm the only person on my floor even if the building is at full occupancy—there are two desks in the basement and the other has been untenanted since a couple of years before the pandemic. I'd still rather stay home, and not waste the time and gas, even though it's only a 15-minute drive along back roads.
- I don’t know how you can factor commute time in. Is it my fault if my coworker decides to live twice as far as I do? Unless the company moves the office, the worker decided to work there.
  
  Honestly this kind of attitude hurts workers way more than it helps them "well yeah I could get an extra $10k a year, but Bob over there might get $15k, so no deal."
  And if your coworker wants to spend an extra hour in their car (even if it's paid), that sounds like their problem, not yours
  
  No it’s about shared duties and having to complete more tasks because I live closer to the office. That’s not right. I could be listening to an audiobook or podcast if I had a long commute. Even play a game If I take a train or bus. In fact this kind of unequal treatment is part of the push for unions in certain environments in the first place.
  
  Start time is 8am bob leaves at 630 and sits in traffic or train you leave at 745 how are you working more or doing more duties.
  
  Either those that live further away work less non-commuting hours or get paid more. Either way that’s not going to go over well. Unions almost always equal things out, sometimes to a fault.
  
  Not your fault, but it hardly hurts you if your coworker is being asked to work an hour more than you are.
  In some ways, it helps you because you would be more valuable, because you cost less.
  
  I think you can factor it in along with all other benefits. Employees absolutely consider commute time when applying for work. If companies want employees in office and are trying to compete with employers that allow remote work, they need to start making a case for why the commute is worth it. Tech companies tried doing that with ping pong tables and beer, but now that remote work is so common that doesn't carry much weight. Compensating an employee for commute time in some way seems like a reasonable benefit that companies should consider offering.
  
  Mileage compensation is one thing, but not including it in hours you work. I guarantee that would create resentment and hostility in every workplace.
  
  I think that differentiation is only a difference in how the benefit would be calculated. It would be quite a departure from the current state of things, but it's worth being part of the discussion.
  Assuming we're all compensated at different rates based on our value to the company, then one person's time is more valuable than another person's time. As the employee, commute time and work time might as well be conflated since it's time spent away from the rest of our lives. It's different for the company, of course, since commute time is not productive work time, but if we're talking about this as benefits that companies might offer in order to retain or attract employees then I don't think the company's opinion matters.
  
  For the sake of discussion, let’s say it’s now the law to compensate workers for their commutes. Wouldn’t this incentivize employers to hire only people who live close? Further limiting the working opportunities of rural workers doesn’t seem intuitive.
  
  Is it my fault if my coworker decides to live twice as far as I do?
  I'd rather just let them sit in traffic thinking they gamed the system.
  
  https://media.tenor.com/39G19ef98iEAAAAC/okay-sounds-good.gif
  
  Well, I did say "within reason". So the company would need to factor in how close the nearest available housing that the employee can afford is to the office, and/or where the employee lived before they were hired. So they can define a maximum distance that they'll make payments for, but it has to be sane.
  If there isn't enough housing for their employees within a sane distance of their office building, maybe the company should move.
  (There's also a whole discussion in there on the extent to which employment is a choice, and who has the decision-making power.)
  
  the company would need to factor in how close the nearest available housing that the employee can afford is to the office
  Define "affordable".
  Are we talking for a studio apartment with a fold out single bed that converts the dining room into a bedroom, or are we talking enough land for your teenage kids to ride their motorcycle around without noise complaints - because the neighbours are too far away to hear it. Something in between perhaps?
  There's plenty of housing on the same city block as my office. And I can afford to live there. No way in hell would I choose to live there though.
  My boss, by the way, lives so close to work he uses the company wifi network at home. He also starts work before breakfast and finishes work several hours after dinner, every day. And works weekends too. Your probably don't want to get into a debate with your boss about working conditions - chances are they work under far worse conditions than you do, even if they have a private office.
  
  That's an implementation detail, but I would say: two-bedroom apartment or small detached house in decent condition (no bugs, rot, mold, etc, water and electrical working, not in the middle of a crime hotspot or environmental disaster, reasonable access to shops and services, no oddball problems like being on the approach path for a major airport) for no more than a third of the employee's after-tax salary. A place where it wouldn't be torture for the average person to live, with maybe one or two other people if it suits them.
  
  This feels like a disingenuous argument formed to prove WFH is the better answer. Similar to the argument that salary shouldn’t be based on COL wherever the person lives.
- I would love it if companies also paid for commute. It would be 2 -2.5 hours each day for me.

68 comments