Labor Day, 2022

My office view, 2010: I didn't mind coming in.

On Labor Day, 2022, employers are pleading, demanding, and even subtly threatening their employees to make them come back to the office.

After months of encouraging white-collar employees to return, or attempting to coax them back with free pizza, warm cookies and catered lunches, many executives now say they feel emboldened to take a tougher stance. No longer can workers merely come to the office if they so choose; this fall, executives say, attendance is expected and the office resisters will be put on notice.

With fear of the coronavirus fading, employers think it's time to recapture the benefits of working in the presence of others:

promoting collaboration, energizing the corporate culture and helping younger employees connect with colleagues

Companies who have the capability are trying to persuade with data:

Some are linking identification-badge swipe data with separate metrics to show whether employees who go to the office regularly are more productive and engaged, said Zig Serafin, chief executive of cloud-software company Qualtrics, recounting an experience of one of the company’s clients.

Some kind of hybrid schedule will probably be the norm. Take Apple, for example:

Apple Inc. set a Sept. 5 deadline for corporate employees to be in the office at least three days a week, marking its latest return attempt after COVID-19 spikes delayed its plans several times. The company will require employees to work from the office on Tuesdays, Thursdays and a regular third day that will be determined by individual teams. That is a shift from Apple’s original plan, which called for in-person work on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Your humble blogger put in at least 37.5 hours per week for 40+ years at five different employers' locations, so it's difficult to work up sympathy for a new generation who won't go back in, especially if they accepted the terms of their job pre-pandemic.

That said, this manager was flexible with granting time off when staff had to go to the doctor or pick up kids, as long as the work was of acceptable quality and completed on time. My key realizations were: I did not want to look over the shoulder of staff closely, whether they were in or out of the office. My function was to teach, review their work, and trust them to come to me with problems and questions.

The most important decision, by far, was the hiring one. If gotten right, everything falls into place, including asking people to return to the office after Labor Day.