Wasn’t quite sure what community to post this…
A recent EnhancV survey of 1,000 full-time U.S. workers subject to new or stricter return-to-office policies found that 72 percent suspect these mandates are really a voluntary attrition strategy — a strategy by their own employers to make them quit their jobs.
The damage is strategic, not merely emotional. Baylor University’s reporting on office mandates and brain drain found that firms with mandates faced greater turnover among women, senior employees, managers and high-skilled workers, while job vacancy duration increased and hiring rates declined. In other words, the people with the most options are often the first to leave. The employees who remain may not be the most committed — they may simply be the least mobile.
Another work story. I worked for a company that bought some office space - it was an older building, and it had a maze of spaces that were basically really small rooms. Not sure if it was a dentist or doctor’s office prior or what.
We all set up in various areas as programmers, 1-3 of us in spaces, with walls, and eclectic office furniture, etc. This was the back portion of the company, and you didn’t lead clients through these areas - they had separate entrances, too. You could hide the people doing the real work and let them do their thing. It was really quite nice.
The company came into some money and wanted to be More Professional ™ and cleared out all the offices, put in new carpet (the old carpet was pretty rough), new drop ceilings (same as carpet - it could have used an update), painted the walls, etc., and then…put in cubicle-height (about 5 feet or so) drywall (!) sections.
It had all the drawbacks of cubicles, and none of the benefits. Good luck reconfiguring your workspaces with drywall, LOL. Every sound bounced right off the drywall, so it became much noisier. Some of the interior rooms now had more (indirect) sunlight I guess. But it was one of the stupidest decisions I’ve ever seen.