Today, we’re talking about work. Specifically, where we work, how our expectations of working remotely were radically changed by the covid-19 pandem

What’s really behind Big Tech’s return-to-office mandates?

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2024-11-07 15:30:03

Today, we’re talking about work. Specifically, where we work, how our expectations of working remotely were radically changed by the covid-19 pandemic, and how those expectations feel like they’re on the verge of changing yet again. For many people, the pendulum has swung wildly between working fully remote and now a push to return to the office from their bosses, and there are a lot of theories about what might be motivating big companies to try and bring everyone back.

Here on Decoder, I’ve talked to lots of CEOs about the benefits of working fully remote versus hybrid or having everybody back in the office over the past several years, and I’ve heard the full spectrum of responses. Some executives are adamant that people need to be in the office, and others are equally adamant that fully remote is the way to go. We’ll play some of those answers for you as we go so you can get a sense of the enormous range of opinions here.

If you look at the surveys, it’s basically 50/50 — quite a lot of people want to work remotely, and they can be pretty loud online. But there are a lot of people, who are often quieter, who want to go back to the office for pretty good reasons. Some folks just don’t have the space to work from home, or they’re simply tired of making video calls in sweatpants all day and never really leaving the house. I know some people who really like just being able to leave work at the office when they head home for the day, and I’ve heard from a lot of younger people who are struggling to get face time with the more senior and experienced people at their companies in order to build relationships and grow their networks.