* Less sick employees since they don't spread their germs in an office
* Much lower attrition and retention of institutional knowledge
* Lower rent costs or possibly zero rent costs for office (actually this one is very easy to measure)
* Able to hire from outside local metro area
None of these was enough to move companies even an inch towards WFH pre-COVID. And yet now vague issues due to lack of water cooler conversations is enough to shift everything back to in-office?
Pre-pandemic, why would you risk testing out an unknown style of work and management that almost no one had experience with?
Now there's a significant portion of the labor market that expects WFH, companies need to produce a policy on WFH/RTO instead of treating it as a non-decision.
Data gives no clear insight into which is better, which makes this a judgment call, and everyone with >5 yoe has enough experience in both modes that they feel qualified to make that judgment. Many think requiring some in-office time is superior. You can try and dismiss those opinions as "vague issues due to lack of water cooler conversations" but that's not going to actually convince anyone with the power to effect these decisions - even if you're right! You need answers to concerns like "virtual communication is too low bandwidth to build alignment on strategic shifts that are necessary for the company to grow to profitability" (quote to me from a director at a company with >1,000 employees).
My argument is basically: if you could have addressed those concerns, it would've happened during the pandemic. Manifestly, those concerns were not addressed in a satisfactory way. Therefore the only real resolution now is to wait 5-10 years to see if RTO/WFH is a meaningful differentiator for companies.
* Employee happiness
* Less sick employees since they don't spread their germs in an office
* Much lower attrition and retention of institutional knowledge
* Lower rent costs or possibly zero rent costs for office (actually this one is very easy to measure)
* Able to hire from outside local metro area
None of these was enough to move companies even an inch towards WFH pre-COVID. And yet now vague issues due to lack of water cooler conversations is enough to shift everything back to in-office?