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As much as I love working from home, I also don't mind working from the office. I like seeing my coworkers, I enjoy the communal work space, and the general buzz of a physical office.
That being said, the fact that I like working from the office has a lot to do with the space itself. I have my own desk (with lovely pictures of my cats), there are more than enough private rooms if I need some quiet time, and the general feng shui of the office is practical and aesthetically pleasing. If it were any different, I would probably fight for any remote day I could get.
When a company announces they are bringing everyone back to the office after years of working remotely, that is a tough pill to swallow. Finding out that the office is not even big enough for everyone to work there together is enough to make many employees call it quits and find a better alternative. Here is how that went down for the employee in this story:
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"Company is forcing return to office but the space isn’t even set up for the number of people they’re bringing back"
BrightPrice7698
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We’ve been remote for almost three years and leadership just announced mandatory RTO three days a week starting next month. The problem is they downsized our office space and now there aren’t enough desks for everyone who’s being forced back.
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Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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Their solution is "hot desking" where we have to reserve a workspace through some app and can't have assigned spots anymore. So not only are we losing remote flexibility but we're also losing any sense of having our own space at the office.
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I went in last week to check out the setup and it's chaos. The desks are crammed together with barely any privacy, there's like two small conference rooms for the entire floor, and the wifi was struggling with just the few people who were there that day.
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The thought of being forced to work from a space without even being guaranteed that I would have a desk to work from is enough to drive me away from any job. You can't force people out of their homes if you have no real alternative for them. Do they actually think employees would work better from a crammed office rather than the comfort of their own home?
Keep scrolling to read what the employee had to say about that next.
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Our team lead is furious because she's been trying to hire senior talent and everyone she's talked to has specifically asked about remote options. Now she has to go back and tell candidates it's mandatory in-office which is going to end our recruiting.
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Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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I even looked at modular office furniture pricing on alibaba out of curiosity after seeing how cheap their current setup looks and realized they probably went budget on everything just to cram more bodies in.
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The whole thing feels like management trying to justify the office lease rather than actually caring about productivity or employee satisfaction. Anyone else dealing with terribly planned office spaces after RTO mandates?
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I would not be surprised to hear that this will cause a mass resignation, but maybe that is what the company was after in the first place. After enough people quit, they will finally have space for everyone in the office. They might even be able to assign employees to their own desk; what a dream, right?
What they would do with all the unattended workload is another issue, but that is a problem for the future, I guess. At least for now, everyone is in the office, working like they did in the good old days.
More people shared their thoughts about the situation and how they would have handled the workplace mistreatment. Scroll down to read some of what they had to say.
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