Well anecdotal story… I have a friend who works at a small biotech company. She’s on the administrative staff and they and support were all told to go back to the office starting next week…
However all the scientists and researchers…They are allowed to work remotely indefinitely.
Now this might seem a bit unfair, because it is. But you know why the company did this, right?
The company views the administrative staff as easily replaceable so they get treated like crap. And their philosophy is well if you quit go ahead we’ll just find a replacement.
However, when it comes to the scientist and engineers. It seems like they don’t want to fvck with them, because I guess if they said the same thing, the scientist and engineers would just walk across the street to a competitor.
Go figure.[/quote]
My employer provides tech-adjacent professional services and anyone who has agency and is aware of it is deciding for themselves whether to come back now that we’re “open” — I’ve been in a few days over the last two weeks and opposite me is a row of empty window offices. The lights are off and everybody’s home.
On the staff side, the standard is 3 days in the office, two from home. But if you look at the departments that are the worst to work in, it’s a different story. An entire high visibility/high responsibility/low status/low pay department is now 100% WFH as a Band-Aid for problems that can really only be solved by spending more money on people (and refraining from f*cking up vital systems via irreversible “upgrades” designed by people who don’t use said systems).
My org is experiencing challenges with recruitment and retention on both the professional and staff sides, though. All of our main competitors have offices within a mile of us/the ocean, which doesn’t help.
