They’re never going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle. While many people don’t like WFH, lots of others love it. No commute. Saving on gas, parking, and wear and tear on their vehicles. Far more productive without all of the distractions and interruptions in the office setting. Able to work more at their own pace.
I think WFH will continue to be an option for many indefinitely long after COVID is behind us.
tl;dr - 93% of employees at my old employer have voted to continue WFH permanently. A decision is pending in the next couple of months.
This is certainly the case at my old company, which I retired from at the end of December, 2020.
I keep in touch (by text, email, and phone) with four friends who are still working there. I haven't seen them since the office switched to WFH on March 13, 2020, with the exception of two brief, distanced porch visits with a couple of them.
Two of these friends initially hated WFH and stated they could not wait to return to the office when it was safe. One of these friends had mixed feelings in the beginning, and stated she missed the office environment quite a bit. The fourth friend was just like me - she had wanted to WFH for years; she has thrived on it for the past 15 months; she never wants to go back.
A couple of months ago the organization established a "return to work committee" composed of staff members to explore the logistics of safely returning to work, and to survey staff about their preferences for WFH and their feelings about returning to work in an environment where some percentage of folks will decline to be vaccinated (for whatever reason).
I predicted that a high percentage of staff (over 50 percent) would want to WFH forever, but even I was blown away by the responses. In a company with 130 employees,
93% said they did not want to return to the office and preferred to WFH permanently! People have adapted and they have no interest in going back to the "old way" of doing business.
Not surprisingly (to my friends and me) several supervisors want everyone to return to work in person, despite the fact that productivity has been high and everyone has gotten their job done from home for 15 months. These supervisors value "face time" for its own sake, and they very much want to monitor their employees in person.
The committee is scheduled to present their findings to senior management in mid-April, after which presumably some sort of plan will be made. I imagine a "hybrid" model will be offered, with some WFH days and some onsite days.
All four of my friends mentioned above are now diehard fans of WFH and
none of them want to return to in person work!
My old department has onboarded two new staff members since March 2020, as have several other departments. It can be done.
More and more applicants are turning down positions at the company because they are not permanent WFH positions. They have not been able to fill my position for this reason.
None of my four friends can afford to take a stand and leave if they are forced to return to full-time, in person work - they are in their early fifties and have not ever planned on early retirement.
I am very curious to see what the management decides to do, and what employees choose to do in response. At the very least, if they require 100% onsite work, I think they will lose a slew of the IT folks - they will go to greener pastures with the WFH option.
If I weren't already retired it would be a no-brainer for me; I would retire on the spot if required to return in person. Unfortunately not everyone has the luxury of making that choice.