After the pandemic, our home becomes less and less office space

In-person work will end! You heard this during the pandemic and even a little after it, I’m sure. There was a chorus shouted from all sides. The employees were already fed up with the traffic, the crowded public transport, the meeting that could have been an email answered on the laptop in the living room.

On the other side of the counter, there were those who could no longer bear paying the often very expensive office rents, maintaining a heavy physical structure at a time when technology already allowed all those meetings in glass aquariums to be held from the comfort of the living room sofa. .

In reality, this had been rumored for some time, but the pandemic brought the trend forward. And many people believed that this was a path of no return, that offices with a lot of people together had already signed the notice on the job market. More and more companies were advertising vacancies with the possibility of working from home. And it was like that until February 2022, when 4 in every 10 vacancies advertised on LinkedIn had the possibility of remote work.

But as the pandemic became more and more just a tragic memory, the offices in the mirrored buildings found themselves missing their usual visitors. And it was precisely when the home office philosophy seemed to fit perfectly into the job description From almost every wave, some of the world’s great corporate leaders began to shift into reverse on this route that seemed so natural.

Tim Cook, Apple’s big boss, for example, was one of the best-known advocates for employees to return to standardized office desks. This, according to him and other bosses, would encourage more innovation and collaboration. With so many important minds starting to think about this, the same LinkedIn numbers showed in February of this year that remote vacancies had already dropped to 25% of opportunities.

Even Stanford University endorsed these arguments with a study showing that, with everyone at home, communication issues increased – a lot –, creativity in general decreased and, along with it, productivity, which could drop from 10 to 20%. Then, from the beginning of 2023 until now, the list of those who agreed to settle for expensive rent and condominiums has increased with Google, Amazon, Salesforce and so on.

The last light at the end of the tunnel for many of those who dreamed of never again turning a turnstile in a building with porcelain tiles to the ceiling went out when Zoom asked employees to return to in-person work more times a week. Yes, the company that popularized video conferencing around the world did not see the remotest possibility of 100% remote work continuing to exist. Then it chipped once and for all!

But, looking inside, distance offers in Brazil are still well ahead in volume if we compare them to other countries like the United States, India, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Anyway, it seems that the Brazilian enjoyed this business of working while soaking up the sun on his balcony. So much so that if we only listen to employees, out of every 100, 85 are willing to move to another position if there are more home office days. At least that was the profile that Infojobs found in April of this year in a survey in partnership with the Top RH group.

And what exactly does all this say? Do companies need to have in-person or remote work? It is quite possible that neither one thing nor the other. According to several management and leadership experts – and I agree with them – all this data I brought and many others show a very clear conclusion… before deciding whether to go here or here, companies urgently need to listen to their employees. Like almost everything that seems very obvious, asking key stakeholders what they want is not always done automatically.

Think with me here, what’s the point of having the best option for the company’s C-levels and leaving the majority of the payroll irritated or unmotivated? The risk, in this case, is choosing between one option and another and temporarily improving the indicators. Dissatisfied employees do not remain productive for long. Emotional balance needs to be on the table, whatever that table may be.

The coffee from the vending machine at the end of the hall tastes horrible, but that’s where you make pleasantries with your colleague between one task and another, and that can be great, analyzing a report on the New Future of Work, made by Microsoft. The document shows that from home, employees have a general tendency to feel more alone and more guilty when they get sick or take breaks. And, guilty, he tends to work more hours, but producing less. Again… these are all numbers that point out trends, show average behavior. Each sector has specific employees, each city has its own culture, with local behaviors.

Is it possible to put everyone in the same box as if a single decision would work for all companies in the country? Having said all that, I’m here to – again – probably state the obvious, okay?! Don’t know whether your employee will stay in the office or work from home? Ask what he wants and demand the result you expect from him in the model in which he feels most comfortable. I’m not entirely sure if this is the best solution… but I think it’s certainly the most empathetic. And empathy is good anywhere. Both at home and in the office.