It's not binary (remote or office). My company was going to rent about 600 extra desks this year, but we added 0. Management is surprised how much we got done while being 100% remote. After the pandemic we will come back to a hybrid work schedule - 2 or 3 days a week from the office and hot desking.
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Call me oldfashioned (despite being early 30s), but hot desking does not sound appealing to me. I want to feel like I have a space that's mine at work.
Where would I store my work papers? Right now at my work desk I have a little library of technical books. What about putting up pictures of family? Decorations during holidays? The older I get the more these things are important to me, as silly as they may sound. Perhaps it's because work becomes a larger and larger portion of my life. When I was fresh out of school it kind of felt like something I did for X hours before coming home to my "real" life, like a pseudo-school environment. But as time passes (and if you like where you work), work can become a bit of a second family. Having my own space adds a sense of belonging and stability that really acts to boost my productivity and sense of team commitment. I did something that that basically amounted to hot desking at a previous job and I found it miserable. I never felt settled.
Perhaps there is some sort of introvert/extrovert thing going on. I am social and love my coworkers but at heart I'm an introvert; having my little space gives me a sense of being able to retreat a bit. Paradoxically that improves my sense of belonging -- it begins to feel a bit homey. Maybe extroverts are able to fully get their sense of belonging just from being around people.
I do think that flexibility will probably be the way forward. If Bob wants to be full time remote, and Mary wants to be a hybrid, totally reasonable. I would just seriously miss "my" space.
Hot desking for a day or two a week where 25% or more of that time is face to face meetings it wouldn't be a big deal to me. I get wanting "my space," but that would be my remote desk.
Hot desking as a day to day thing sounds awful and dehumanizing.
I just don't see the appeal of triggering PTSD from late nights grinding at what was de facto a hot desk in the basement of my college library as a full time job until I retire. That sounds like a horror movie to me, honestly. I also need my workspace to be mine.
Agreed. Nothing says “interchangeable drone” more than not having your own space at work.
Forget about private spaces. Age-bias is real. Especially after 35+ when you start to lose hair. WFH does help significantly to fight against age-bias. I hope full remote becomes the norm.
Me over here fully bald since 21 wondering what life could have been like if only
That would be true if you don't have any video calls, or all the interviews are done without resume screening...
I sense an opportunity for some anti-aging software.
Exactly that's my point which i should have been explicit. Currently technology exists to smoothen wrinkles in real time video. Also considering asking for age is not legal in may places this would significant avoid age bias.
Somehow, Scanner Darkly's pictures of anonymity shell comes to mind...
You should try coming to Europe.
I have repeatedly had to tell recruiters that no, I am not adding a picture and date of birth to my CV.
They were completely baffled by the concept.
Well, the fact that I have more than 25 years of experience kind of tells that I am not a 28 years old anymore, doesn't it?
Also, I think it is pretty standard in Europe (and I think I saw this in Australia too) to refer to person in newspaper as Name, <age>, which makes it a "common practice" of sorts...
It is hard to hide an age :)
The way one recruiter explained it to me is "they want to build a mental image of the candidate while looking at the CV".
So either
(a) they want to discriminate (even subconsciously, like thinking 'I can't imagine this face having this experience) or
(b) (which I find more likely) they just want to turn away candidates before investing the 30-45min first call that's meant to establish that the CV and the person actually go together (and the candidate hasn't just made wild shit up).
So "understandable" but undefendable in my eyes.
Are you meaning they expect that in Europe? I've not seen it asked for in the US.
Yes, the first sentence was meant to follow "You think that's bad, ..."
Why they would try to open themselves to discrimination lawsuits is beyond me.
No one over here is as sue-happy as the US is (at least in popular perception).
Germany and Sweden are the top 2 most litigious countries in the world, so I guess perception is off.[1] The USA is still in the top 5 though.
[1] https://www.academia.edu/35495485/The_Most_Litigious_Countri...
For discrimination maybe they should. It's quite an important issue.
True, but the question about whether they "may reduce office space" is binary.