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So we’re going back in Sept. or what? 🤡
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Does anyone know Tiktok's return to office plan?
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I had more than one person tell me they get the same amount of work done at home in 5-6 hours as they did in 8 hours at the office. Reasons for that included no one drops into their cube multiple times per day to waste 20+ minutes talking about non-work related topics. No morning and afternoon 15-20 minute walks to and from the coffee shop. No extended lunches. No walking 10 minutes between meetings on campus (we had a standard of 45-50 minute meetings to allow walking time), etc. They were honestly amazed to learn how much time they wasted while in the office. Granted that’s not everyone, but still an interesting self-analysis on the part of some team members. They are indeed aware their 5-6 hours of productive time will resume being stretched over 7-8 hours upon return to the office. Plus 1-3 hours of total commute time. They’re not excited about that.
To back that up, we are working now more than ever.
Obviously a lot of reasons go into that- this meeting point, it being hard to sign off, everyone knowing you’re probably within an arms length of your devices, there actually being more work, etc
Are agencies prepared for a drop in productivity and how that impacts their clients and what they’ve come to expect? Before WFH our hours and turn around times were a bit insane but I’m expecting a drop off in productivity due to this meeting point, the return of office distractions - meaning literally basically everyone seeing each other again and fielding the same “wow this is so weird to be back in the office what have you been up to” conversation 100 times.
So aside from how are we going to handle the expectation of days 100% blocked with meetings, how are we preparing to explain why we are potentially getting less done?
The reality is once you set a performance bar you can't do less. No matter what modality you use. People won't be understanding. It's business.
I am doing more but working more. I assume this expectation will remain and I'll still just be in meetings all day then doing my actual work end of day when everyone goes home anyway. To me that's a net loss - though I do enjoy being in the office sometimes the personal utility ain't that high.
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My company actually has an FAQ and guides on the hybrid workplace and meetings. I haven’t read it, but we have some sort of guide in it!
I think there’s also an assumption that people can automatically start with meetings at 9am and go through 7pm - cuz, why not. With commutes that won’t be possible to maintain (and since not everyone will be in at the same time, it’s not like we’re making up for some of those meeting with hallway chats.
One thing we’ve been doing is making more meetings be 45m instead of an hour, giving people time to get a coffee etc. That will work nicely as we go back to the office.
Marathon meeting days were the norm before COVID, they just got worse during WFH.
And yes, feel like people will definitely be staying later and getting less done.