Employers no longer have all the cards. We are starting to lose people because our company is requiring employees to return to the office and there are so many options with WFH tech jobs needing talent. Apple and Google are also having a problem retaining employees because they are insisting their employees return to work. Many will but many will have their foot out the door looking for something else until the policy changes. Covid was a huge game changer about expectations. I am only giving the Bay Area a year before I return home as WFH with this company or somewhere else.

Yeah, that's why they aren't doing it. Apple just delayed their return plans because of "rising number of cases" lol. But it's really due to resistance from employees (and probably a lot of execs too).

Also, this is not to say that employers should mandate everyone go back to the office. I'm just saying that they could.

Don't forget to get your free Covid test kits via the Government:


https://www.covid.gov/tests

" Every home in the U.S. is eligible to order a 3rd round of free at-home tests. Order yours today. "


"" Thank you for placing your order on USPS.com®.

Reminder: This order includes 2 packages of 4 individual at-home tests (8 tests total). Packages will ship free, separately.

This email confirms one of the packages in your order. You’ll receive separate confirmation and tracking emails for each package. ""

There's rumors from today we might delay RTO as well. That's a recent development for both us and Apple. Yes they could and are mandating returning to work but employees have a lot more bargaining power as tech companies are vying to keep talent from being poached. All one has to is offer permanent WFH and the resumes will fly in.

Would that mean WFH is preferable to working at a place x miles away? I'll let urbanist arguments slide btw...
As a manual labor person I'm envious of WFH, but I don't hate.

For god’s sake. You’re missing my point.

Employees are refusing to go back to the office, and employers aren’t going to force them to. They’re only going to push so hard. Anything from the city or its health department that seems like a step back on Covid (and this guidance does) is going to be another argument that employees can use.

“Well you know, cases are rising. They’re saying we should wear masks inside again. I just don’t feel comfortable coming in, especially since I need to take the subway.”

No company is going to tell this person they have to come in anyway, at least not one with an HR person or even legal counsel.

The perverse mental illness continues well into 2022.

Now over 1 and 1/2 years after having a vaccine widely available that turns Covid into a bad cold….

:haha:

In Ontario they just stock grocery stores with them at the customer service counter for free. I grab a 5-pack of tests like every other week. We had a close contact a few weeks ago with someone who was positive and burned through 8-10 tests by testing daily for a few days to make sure we were clear.

It's good to have.

I got your point. I just don't agree with it. First, this shouldn't dictate what public health agencies advise. They should be advising based on science. Did they establish a metric to recommend mask wearing? Do we meet the metric? Then that's it. All of this talk about the mayor dictating public health recommendations is silly. That's not how this should work.

Secondly, if your employer wants you in the office they will just tell you to go. Plenty of workers are back in the office. The state of New York ordered its workers back to the office in June 2020. If you work in the city of New York, your employer can do it and they will do it if/when they want to. The only reason they haven't done so yet is because they don't want to.

Well yes technically they can, but realistically they aren't going to do that especially if they are in the private sector. For one, many managers like working from home and it's hella awkward to try making staff come in while you Zoom from home. Everyone is saving on expenses. Gas prices going up plus inflation has made coming into the office even less attractive. And if staff is happier with the way things are and productivity is up, why try to go back to the 20th century way of commuting into the office for the 9-5. I went through Koreatown the other day and the amount of for lease signs for office space was incredible. This same neighborhood used to be packed with office workers but now a ghost town during office hours.

The future of office space is conversion to residential, simple as.

I don't think its an either/or thing?

My employer (both my department and the larger agency as a whole) is mostly on a hybrid system: Come to the office if/when you need to, but telecommute otherwise. Hell, my department downsized and moved to a smaller building last year to account for the increase in WFH.

My employer had us come back to the office 3 days a week last August 2021. We then were able to work from home again from X-mas through the end of January 2022, but have been back to the 3 day in office hybrid since then.

When I was in Sydney and Melbourne their CBD's seemed pretty lively and a lot of people seemed dressed for work. I am not sure if most employers had their workers come back full time or it is just the CBD's are more mixed with a lot more residential. Regardless, their CBD's seem to be back in full swing.

Yeah, this is what the new normal will be. The 5 day/week presence in an office is dead for most white collar workers. Some employers will request your presence for a certain number of days, some won't.

But honestly, I haven't had to be in an office on a Friday on a regular basis in a decade. The pandemic is just accelerating a trend that was already in motion.

Depends on the company/org. Mine had offices in seven cities across the west and now only officially has our HQ office in the Bay, which is really only used by some from finance, a couple boomer managers that were based there and still like the office, and the receptionist who still handles orders/shipping. Once our Bay Area lease expires in a year or so, an office designed for 40-50 people but currently has 10 max that go in on any regular basis, we'll for sure downgrade to a much smaller office.

There's been a handful of people in the other cities who wanted office space, which we've found some coworking spaces for, but everyone else (90% of the org) is still working from home full time with no plans of going back/wanting to go back after a survey went out. Renting the coworking spaces is much cheaper and flexible.

On the flip side, what we're doing is having more mandatory in-person staff retreats (what I suggested). We use to have one a year, now we're having two, plus another one for the different departments (so 3-4 total per staff member).

Public health agencies shouldn’t be recommending mask usage regardless of case numbers because cases don’t matter. If people aren’t vaccinated and die of Covid, it’s their own damn fault. No health care system in the US is actually under real stress from it either.

Why would you want to test yourself for Covid?

Okay lol.

Visiting an elderly or immuno-comrpomised relative? I have an uncle who hasn't been able to get vaccinated and is on immune-suppressing medication. I've only seen him a couple times but tested myself like 5 times in the 48 hours before.

Plus we now have Paxlovid, which is an added layer of protection for higher risk people, and very easy to get.

I've already prescribed it for 4 people.

Our society is full of idiots, plain and simple. Many of them are not worthy of the standard of living that they enjoy, so scared are they of basically nothing at this point. Shameful

That, there, is a legit reason.

Sadly, for every 1 person like you, there are dozens of morons testing themselves who can't come up with any good reason other than "I just want to know"