Return to office | Page 8 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Return to office

Mad Mike said:
My feeling is WFH will slowly disappear and office work will move back to the office over the next 3 years.
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I certainly agree with your comments, but I am unsure if WFH will totally disappear. Outbound calling, appointment setup are just two things that many businesses could utilize WFH employees, I would much rather see this then jobs going over sea's etc.
 
Mad Mike said:
True you can waste time equally at home or in the office, but that's not the only consideration.

For WHF to be totally effective, the employee needs to be a sole contributor, has mastered their position, has easy-to-measure performance metrics, and is not looking to be upward n their career.

Anyone that is developing in their role, working in a team, performing leadership duties, or looking for career advancement will not be as successful or valuable in WFH.

Large companies, also have to deal with other things: Fairness - can't have some at home and others in the office; people and leadership development are slower for WFH, as are the cross pollination of skills, corporate navigation, and networking -- all needs of a business.

But I think the big one is productivity. Initially, WFH showed productivity improvements, particularly for big companies. Absenteeism went way down, and focus way up. I know a large employer that went from 14 absent days a year to 3 during the pandemic. WFH slowly drifted back to 14 days, and productivity is declining below pre-pandemic levels mostly because employees are taking considerably longer to develop in their roles.
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And all this is based on what exactly?

I work for one of the largest companies in Canada, we worked WFH before COVID, and obviously continued WFH after. My boss is in MTL, my team is spread from Vancouver to Quebec City. I haven't been to the office this year, and I don't see the reason to go there, as I will continue to work via Google Meet anyway, as the people I interact on a daily basis are all over the globe anyway.

And I think we are doing fine as a company.
 
Jampy00 said:
I certainly agree with your comments, but I am unsure if WFH will totally disappear. Outbound calling, appointment setup are just two things that many businesses could utilize WFH employees, I would much rather see this then jobs going over sea's etc.
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I agree, there are a lot of telephone jobs that can be done WFH. A lot of support work as well, processing case files, tech support, operational support -- most contact center work.

It can be hard on the employee if they have ambition, ideal for those happy making a career out of their current job.
 
Maniac said:
And all this is based on what exactly?

I work for one of the largest companies in Canada, we worked WFH before COVID, and obviously continued WFH after. My boss is in MTL, my team is spread from Vancouver to Quebec City. I haven't been to the office this year, and I don't see the reason to go there, as I will continue to work via Google Meet anyway, as the people I interact on a daily basis are all over the globe anyway.

And I think we are doing fine as a company.
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Not saying it can't happen, just that it's likely that business will pull back from WFH as to improve productivity. Even our Liberal gov't is weary of WFH, they are resisting engraining it into union contracts as they saw monstrous productivity losses (all those issues with passports, immigration files, court backups, CRA tax investigations were hamstrung due to productivity losses.

Till mid-Covid, I worked for one of the largest companies in Canada (with 6000+, my campus had a fraction of the workforce). I had pretty good visibility into productivity data, before and during, the Pandemic. I don't have access to the fine details, but I interact with enough industry colleagues to have a good feel for the challenges.

Right now companies are treading carefully as employee retention is a big concern. That may not go on forever, should the economy slow down, that could change.
 
Mad Mike said:
Not saying it can't happen, just that it's likely that business will pull back from WFH as to improve productivity. Even our Liberal gov't is weary of WFH, they are resisting engraining it into union contracts as they saw monstrous productivity losses (all those issues with passports, immigration files, court backups, CRA tax investigations were hamstrung due to productivity losses.

Till mid-Covid, I worked for one of the largest companies in Canada (with 6000+, my campus had a fraction of the workforce). I had pretty good visibility into productivity data, before and during, the Pandemic. I don't have access to the fine details, but I interact with enough industry colleagues to have a good feel for the challenges.

Right now companies are treading carefully as employee retention is a big concern. That may not go on forever, should the economy slow down, that could change.
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Private sector has an advantage in that they will purge employees not meeting performance metrics. Government keeps everybody on. WFH allows an even higher percentage to screw the pooch without consequences. JT's solution is hire more losers. Private sector solution would be fire the dead weight keep the high performers.
 

Olivia Chow wants to bring Toronto’s downtown back to life — and she’s meeting bank CEOs about increasing office days to do it​

www.thestar.com

Olivia Chow wants to bring Toronto’s downtown back to life — and she’s meeting bank CEOs about increasing office days to do it

Toronto's mayor has been meeting with the CEOs of some of Canada's largest companies to discuss how to get workers back in the office at least four days a week
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com

CEO- You want my company to rent expensive office spaces and at the same time pi$$ of my employees?
Chow - Very much so
CEO- Let me think about that!
 
justride said:

Olivia Chow wants to bring Toronto’s downtown back to life — and she’s meeting bank CEOs about increasing office days to do it​

www.thestar.com

Olivia Chow wants to bring Toronto’s downtown back to life — and she’s meeting bank CEOs about increasing office days to do it

Toronto's mayor has been meeting with the CEOs of some of Canada's largest companies to discuss how to get workers back in the office at least four days a week
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com

CEO- You want my company to rent expensive office spaces and at the same time pi$$ of my employees?
Chow - Very much so
CEO- Let me think about that!
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Good - may all who voted for her suffer in silence for the rest of eternity.

Amen 🙏
 
POWERMAN said:
Good - may all who voted for her suffer in silence for the rest of eternity.

Amen 🙏
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But most of the people who work in those downtown offices dont live there (and therefore wouldnt have voted for her) and often times commute through various means (go train, cars, etc) to get there. Between AI and bots replacing more and more manual work and people not wanting to go back to the office, and the outrageous prices as you live closer to downtown, i don't see an increase in office presence happening very soon.
 
LePhillou said:
But most of the people who work in those downtown offices dont live there (and therefore wouldnt have voted for her) and often times commute through various means (go train, cars, etc) to get there. Between AI and bots replacing more and more manual work and people not wanting to go back to the office, and the outrageous prices as you live closer to downtown, i don't see an increase in office presence happening very soon.
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As bike lanes make the commute longer more of those workers would like Work from anywhere else. Fewer lunch customers and lunch shoppers downtown.

How about satellite offices in the burbs?
 
nobbie48 said:
As bike lanes make the commute longer more of those workers would like Work from anywhere else. Fewer lunch customers and lunch shoppers downtown.

How about satellite offices in the burbs?
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What's the point of satellite offices in the burbs? I'm mandated to go to Scarborough office 2x/week as a minimum.

I go into the office, I have a coffee with colleagues, 1 or 2 in person meetings, and the rest of my meetings are all in Teams because they're with people from varying locations.

There is zero justification for office days, if the majority of the time is spent on Teams / Zoom calls with others.

If the entire team is in the office on the same day, at the same time, then yes...I see the logic behind it. Otherwise...not so much.
 
LePhillou said:
But most of the people who work in those downtown offices dont live there (and therefore wouldnt have voted for her) and often times commute through various means (go train, cars, etc) to get there. Between AI and bots replacing more and more manual work and people not wanting to go back to the office, and the outrageous prices as you live closer to downtown, i don't see an increase in office presence happening very soon.
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My buddy in the feds says they will be increasing the number of days in office soon. 2 now, going to 3 or something like that.
 
sburns said:
My buddy in the feds says they will be increasing the number of days in office soon. 2 now, going to 3 or something like that.
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It's funny the workers are acting as if though WFH was a god given right to them...and now fighting tooth and nail.

While I'm all for WFH...it was a perk that is/was great...and I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

If ours is ended, I'll be looking for a new job. I'm not driving to Scarborough 5x/week for fun.
 
I think today workers have the power, limited return to office will be the norm for a while, but I think more and more will return to the office.

From a company's perspective, managing WFH productivity is harder unless the type of work can be easily monitored (calls per day, cases per day, adherence to deliverable schedules), but less so for people managing things/people. My banking buddies tell me the best employees become slightly more productive, the lesser employees lose considerable productivity. In the sample I have access to, the overall productivity declined about 15% on a team basis for WFH.

Another challenge is employee movement. Larger companies need people moving from the entry positions up the escalator as they become trained and experienced. The 2 banks I have connections with are struggling with this as WFH employees are getting less exposure to new opportunities and are taking a lot longer to get ready for moves. If financial services companies were not reducing headcounts, they would be in a real jam with upward mobility stalled.

Get back to work!
 
mimico_polak said:
It's funny the workers are acting as if though WFH was a god given right to them...and now fighting tooth and nail.

While I'm all for WFH...it was a perk that is/was great...and I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

If ours is ended, I'll be looking for a new job. I'm not driving to Scarborough 5x/week for fun.
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I think the problem is when people are being pulled back in the office for the wrong reason.

If its to increase productivity, sure.
If its for the culture, sure.

If it's to grease up the pockets of corp real estate investors? Not so much

The way i see it, it's on a case by case basis... and we see it in my organization, and the ones who make decisions at VP level can be connected to (or disconnected from) reality and figure out the needs of their teams and the output from the team.

But when the workers, and their boss, and their directors don't see a need for as many in-office days and output stays the same or improves, then why the heck not!?
Oh and then when you start working with OTHER departments/segments, everything goes back to virtual anyways as theyre in on some other days, or they work out of a different building... or THAT team has gone full remote.

It's a special landscape to be working in lol
But looking at that gardiner 3-year repair and the traffic caused by it, i won't be the first one in line to ask for more days to sit in traffic for 20 minutes to go 500m at an onramp (while everybody lane splits around me LOL)
 
LePhillou said:
I think the problem is when people are being pulled back in the office for the wrong reason.

If its to increase productivity, sure.
If its for the culture, sure.

If it's to grease up the pockets of corp real estate investors? Not so much

The way i see it, it's on a case by case basis... and we see it in my organization, and the ones who make decisions at VP level can be connected to (or disconnected from) reality and figure out the needs of their teams and the output from the team.

But when the workers, and their boss, and their directors don't see a need for as many in-office days and output stays the same or improves, then why the heck not!?
Oh and then when you start working with OTHER departments/segments, everything goes back to virtual anyways as theyre in on some other days, or they work out of a different building... or THAT team has gone full remote.

It's a special landscape to be working in lol
But looking at that gardiner 3-year repair and the traffic caused by it, i won't be the first one in line to ask for more days to sit in traffic for 20 minutes to go 500m at an onramp (while everybody lane splits around me LOL)
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I'll fix your errors

If its to decrease productivity, sure.
If its for the toxic culture, sure.

If it's to grease up the pockets of corp real estate investors? 100% for sure
 
Jampy00 said:
I'll fix your errors

If its to decrease productivity, sure.
If its for the toxic culture, sure.

If it's to grease up the pockets of corp real estate investors? 100% for sure
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But why immediately go to toxic? I like being in the office, and I enjoy meeting with my team in person....

I like being in the office, I HATE driving TO and FROM the office.
 
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1ddle4m/gardiner_westbound_york_street_onramp_blocked

this is today

https://www.reddit.com/r/mississauga/comments/1ddn2sc/qew_closed_today_footbridge_accident_surreal

this was yesterday

and thats just one highway (technically not but wtv)
why do you want to put your employees through this stress more often..people have decidedly lost all patience and skill in this post covid world, people drive more like douchecanoes, just subscribe to Torontodriving (heck even bramptondriving) subreddits. I mean people were aholes before but it's been amplified now.
Life is too valuable to be wasted in traffic
 
mimico_polak said:
But why immediately go to toxic? I like being in the office, and I enjoy meeting with my team in person....

I like being in the office, I HATE driving TO and FROM the office.
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" I HATE driving TO and FROM the office." <--- That is a major part why many office cultures are toxic
All it take is one A-hole to ruin an entire environment, even worse if it is management.

Also my reply was somewhat tongue & cheek... :p
 
justride said:

Olivia Chow wants to bring Toronto’s downtown back to life — and she’s meeting bank CEOs about increasing office days to do it​

www.thestar.com

Olivia Chow wants to bring Toronto’s downtown back to life — and she’s meeting bank CEOs about increasing office days to do it

Toronto's mayor has been meeting with the CEOs of some of Canada's largest companies to discuss how to get workers back in the office at least four days a week
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com

CEO- You want my company to rent expensive office spaces and at the same time pi$$ of my employees?
Chow - Very much so
CEO- Let me think about that!
Click to expand...
The downtown and possibly the GTA attitude.

Customer: Could you help me for a minute?

Clerk: Can't you see I'm talking to my coworker? Isn't it bad enough I have this dead end job and can't afford a house and nice stuff but now I'm expected to cater to your wishes? Geeze
 
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