Of course companies can make everyone go back to the office. Make us
- get up early to get ready
- dig out the office clothes, formal coats and uncomfortable shoes
- struggle with the commute
- pay top prices for coffees, cakes, lunch
- pay extra for the city centre gym or just miss exercise all together
- do deep work in a noisy office with constant interruptions
- travel all over the place for meetings
- get home too late to eat with our family, bath the kids, walk the dog, have a life
Companies were struggling with low levels of employee engagement, loyalty, productivity and creativity before COVID. Forcing people back to the office against their wishes is just going to make these problems worse. Much worse.
You see, companies can make us go back to how things were before but they can’t make us forget what we’ve learnt over this past year. That
- a significant part of our work can be done, and done better, away from the office
- we can integrate work and personal demands and have a better life
- we can have greater autonomy over what, when and where we work and it’s better for everyone
We used to wonder whether the company really cared about us.
If they make us go back to the office, they will have removed all doubt.