Supermarket chain Asda has joined the growing number of firms demanding staff return to the workplace. Does this signal the end for remote w
Articles like this about hybrid working vs full time in office really get on my nerves.
Back in 2021-2022, the conversation was making hybrid 'the best of both worlds' and balancing in-office face-to-face collaboration with the flexibility and focus that comes with working from home, tailored on a case-by-case basis depending on someone's job, position within the company hierarchy and personal circumstances.
Since then, this nuance has been flushed down the toilet and it's all about having all office workers in three, four, even all five days a week regardless, with no consideration regarding what's actually more productive.
A lot of these companies have outright admitted it's intended to get some staff to quit without having to make redundancies, yet this aspect is almost never brought up.
And this impacts some demographics far more than others. Remote work is a massive boost to so many disabled people, and the government supposedly wants more of them in the working world - so why the hell aren't they supporting one of the key measures that could get more of them in the workforce? And as for working parents (primarily working mothers, but some fathers too!), that loss of flexibility can be the difference between actually getting to spend some time with their kids or not. Or being able to access the childcare they need or not.
I'm comparatively lucky as our company is only mandating two days a week in office, but even that is pretty pointless when many of our teams are located across the country (in some cases even abroad!) and you'll be spending the whole day on Teams calls anyway...
