Romney, Manchin Introduce Bill to Get Federal Workers Back into the Office

Stupid. If remote workers at any job aren't meeting their responsibilities, get rid of them. Adding a commute, clothing costs, vehicle costs and other miscellaneous costs isn't going to increase productivity.

 

Studies are saying hybrid work is the best - fully remote is slightly less productive but people are a lot less satisfied with fully in person. In addition, communication isn’t as effective in fully remote and is essential to many government jobs. I’m fine with them codifying hybrid. Although I think direct managers should have the flexibility to give employees more work from home days if requested. Flexibility is the key.

 

It depends on the job role really. Basically any backoffice job can be work from home. Any engineer. Accountant. Finance. HR. Etc. Some would probably be surprised to learn there are even nurses and pharmacists working 100% from home (only the ones doing the behind the scenes stuff, since they aren’t doing virtual patient visits, but actually some doctors do telemedicine from a home office while consulting with a hospital…so… almost nothing is out of bounds). For the office worker, all they need is the laptop/computer and VPN connection. In most cases they are logging in literally to the exact work environment, whether at home or in office, they see the exact same screens either way. Except working from home saves them possibly an hour of commuting time. This is HUGE in big cities where commutes can well exceed 1 hour. Do these politicians factor that in to “productivity”? I’m guessing not.

Of course there are roles that are hands on too. Some jobs have to be 100% on-site (most nurses obviously work directly with patients, only a few work from behind the scenes). I’m sure there are also jobs that transition from 100% work-from-home to 100% on-site depending on the phase of the job (going from design/planning to construction).

This seems a knee jerk reaction to the amount of office space going unused. They inherently assume it’s a bad thing, thus want to arbitrarily put in a 40% threshold. 40% is a very low threshold imo. Unless a job is 60% meetings (meaning not a very “productive” job in the first place) then this is just an arbitrary nonsense from two old guys who at this point probably don’t understand any of the innovations that allow for full productivity from home.

 

sorry, but for my line of work, civil engineering/surveying/planning, it cannot be effectively done without being in the office unless you are simply a production person and even then, it requires constant communication for all but the most sr employees, or an employee can go down a wrong path that takes time to go back and fix. I have 7 junior engineers from early PE's to right out of school graduates working under me and they all need some form of guidance as problems arise and new challenges confront them. Much easier and more effective to be able to sit with them and explain things than using teams or zoom. Also much easier to mentor them and include them in conversations when they are here in office.

 

Yes, there are certainly jobs where it is superior. There are some where it is totally irrelevant. A lot of this is CEOs who know other CEOs who own commercial real estate and want to help them regain their lost value.

 

Why do they care if office space is open? Sell it if there’s extra. That’s a win for everyone.

 

You, back in your cubicle! Don't forget the tps reports!

 

Old guys introduce bill to prove they are old. The work location should be crafted around the job and there are few reasons for a job to be in person everyday unless you are customer facing.

 

Most times I see a full in person office everyday I think it’s a dinosaur operation. Even what you described seems like you could transition to hybrid after a training period of months. What’s the worst that could happen? A building fall down or something? lol.

 

Commuting in DC is a nightmare already ... imagine if you were forced to do it more. I'm sure workers will love this.

 

Dumb bill. We need to encourage remote work where possible to lower the demands on the real estate markets near most job locations. If an individual job needs in location work for productivity, okay, make it a job requirement. But there is no reason to make it a blanket requirement.

 

people are much more likely to engage in open communication/collaboration/problem solving when they are across the hall rather than making a teams call. It is also much easier to read a person to understand what they are understanding or not when in the same room. access to large printers and scanners to print out product and redline plans is also critical. redlining can be done digitally but it is much less efficient based on my experiences and industry

 

it goes beyond that though. think of the all the businesses that cater to those employees from the lunch shops to the shoeshine guy to the local watering holes after work. I know for a fact that some of the best mentoring and team building occurs after work hours where people learn to build relationships and engage in conversations that having nothing to do with producing the product. I tell my employees that you spent a lot of money getting a college degree that didn't really teach you what you need to know, invest some time off the clock in yourself learning your craft and developing your communications kills if you want to be something more than a 40 hour per week paycheck person. To some degree, it is analogous to how cell phones and social media has limited the ability of people to actually communicate and empathize as human beings rather than an anonymous cog in a wheel.

 

Great deal on an office quad w restrooms, dining center, and lounge! Affordable rents!

 

Agree with BLING that it probably depends on the job role. I personally prefer being physically present in the office, but I'm fortunate to have an easy 15 minute commute.

 

Imagine paying people, to work at home, then having an awful time getting them to come back to the office.

 

I’ve been to the office 2 times since Covid. And I am doing fine.
I work a lot with the government agencies, there are a bunch of them who restructured their lives arou f being primary remote. This won’t go well.