（People would rather quit than go back to the office.）
（人们宁愿辞职也不愿回到办公室。） 新闻： How would you react if you were suddenly told you had to go back to the office full-time?
如果你突然被告知必须回到办公室全职工作，你会作何反应？
If you were in the privileged position of being able to work from home during the pandemic, you might have got used to the flexibility of managing your hours and the increased freedoms of not having to commute.
Now, many bosses want people back in the office – but it looks like they could have a fight on their hands.
现在，许多老板希望员工回到办公室，但看起来他们可能会为此打一场硬仗。
New research has revealed that almost half of UK office workers (47%) are ready to walk away from their current job and look for new opportunities if flexibility is not provided by their employer, rising to 60% in workers aged 25-34.
However, almost half of UK businesses (48%) are insisting that their employees return to the workplace, at least on a part-time basis.
然而，近一半（48%）的英国企业坚持要求员工重返工作岗位，至少部分时间在岗。
This decision has not been well received – upsetting nearly a third of UK employees (32%), which rises to 44% of employees aged 25-34, making them 74% more likely to look for another job if they don’t get the flexibility they want.
The results have come from data collected from interviews with more than 3,000 people who work in organisations employing more than 200 people. It is part of an independent research report commissioned by Velocity Smart Technology.
Researchers found that people are happier with this flexible way of working with a third (34%) insisting their mental health has improved since being allowed to have more flexible working.
Anthony Lamoureux, CEO of Velocity Smart Technology, says, ‘As the research confirms, employees don’t just expect flexible working, they are actively making career changes to better suit their commitments outside of work.
‘Whether that is flexible hours, locations or a mixture of both. Employees that are not offered the chance for flexible, remote or asynchronous working will walk – straight into another job.’
These figures should raise alarm bells for businesses already scrambling to avoid the cost and disruption associated with staff turnover. Companies have experienced a huge spike in job moves in recent months, and almost 7 in every 10 UK employees (69%) say they feel confident to move to a new job in the next couple of months.
‘Employees have rediscovered the joys of taking time to be outside during the working day, from walking the lockdown dog to managing side jobs,’ Anthony adds. ‘Substantial numbers of individuals now recognise the nonsensical nature of the old nine to five.
‘It now needs to become an essential part of recruitment and retention strategies for businesses to firm up flexible employment models – or else, they may be left without an office to fill.’
learnerdiveruk Hell yeah! It's ridiculous that we're expected to commute an hour to the office in an industrial estate with no housing nearby, just for a job that can be done at home!
太tm对了！我们要花一个小时去一个附近没有住房的工业区上班，就为了一份在家里就能完成的工作，这真是太荒谬了！ FineusUnited Kingdom Seriously. I interviewed for a job that would've been very much like this. They did offer some remote working but I would've been facing about 3 hours travel a day on piss poor roads (not bad condition, just horribly busy). Thank god I turned that down.
learnerdiveruk You definitely dodged a bullet. Whenever I have to be in the office, I wonder "why the fuck did I travel all the way here when I could be doing the same shit from home?"
nathanbellows I feel exactly the same. On the rare occasion when I do need to go to the office I feel more stressed and I feel like I'm wasting my time, money and energy all to do my job in a cold, dark, noisy office and eat terrible, unhealthy and expensive food. Would I want to work in that environment and feel confident enough to say that I could do my best? Hell no. Thankfully I work for an accommodating employer that lets people pretty much do what works for them. If anything good has come out of covid, it's home working. I can work from home, feel better about my job and myself, feel much safer, save lots more money whilst also saving my employer valuable office space that they can use for someone else who wants to work in the office. If I were ever to change employer, if they didn't offer the option of 100% remote working on equal pay compared to an office worker, I wouldn't even bother applying or turn up for the interview. I have no interest in serving a company that has no interest in treating it's employees fairly or making an effort to be accommodating for their working style. Offices are an outdated 20th century unnecessity and ought to be treated as such, especially when in certain environments literally everything can be done cheaper, better and easier remotely which benefits everyone.
AJackson3 Several years ago I was invited to a meeting at a different office from the one I worked in. So I confirmed do I actually need to travel there. Yes. So I arrange a hire car, get up at 5am and drive 3 hours to this other office. On arrival I find out that me and one other person will be using the video conferencing in the meeting room to meet with another office. I could have done that from my office!!! Same company also put me on a plane from Birmingham to Glasgow at 6am so I could join a Skype call with people in Edinburgh.
OfficialTomCruise The future is offices with a lot of amenities, such as a free on-site restaurant, gym, free car charging, etc. Employers will need to incentivise employees to come to the office. If the journey is free, the food is free and you can get a workout done before or after work, then you may actually save time and money by commuting into the office. They will be able to fund these amenities through the savings they get from not having to support the majority of the work force that stays at home.
Aggressive-Toe9807 I’m sick of the rhetoric that people in remote working jobs are lazy and sit around watching Netflix all day. Most of us are still monitored constantly and have targets and endless communication from our managers checking in on us. You can’t just ‘skive’ in a job. I’m never going back to the 6am alarm, travelling 20 miles on public transport and spending £150 a week to do a job I can do from my livingroom lifestyle. If a company is going to force me to come back to the office I’ll find another job. Simple. And any passive aggressive or sarcastic comments towards people like me is really disheartening. We should be supporting eachother guys. Better working conditions for all.
Capitalism_Is_Broken I'll be honest, if I wanted to I could easily skive in my job. As it stands I work in an industry where I have an amazing boss and I get to make an actual difference so I take on a lot of side-projects where I can. But if I wanted to, I definitely could. I think, broadly, it's also about treating people as fellow adult human beings and not as cogs in the machine. If you give people respect, you get it back and then people will actually want to get their work done. If you hover over them constantly checking their Teams status or having morning and afternoon "check in" meetings, it breeds a feeling of distrust because managers are essentially telling people I don't trust you to get the work done without me breathing down your neck. And that is toxic.
Concerned-Pineapple I'll admit I do watch Netflix while I'm working. I wouldn't necessarily say I was skiving though. It's a call centre. Sometimes it's really busy, sometimes it's dead. Today for example it was a bank holiday and I took a total of 2 calls. It can fluctuate pretty wildly - other days I might be taking 50 calls. If there are emails to work on, I work on them, but once they're done I basically am just sitting there waiting for calls to come in. I can either sit there and stare blankly at a wall, or I can watch something. Of course I'm gonna do the latter. Easy enough to pause whatever I'm watching when the phone rings and I'm always checking for new emails as well. I like it. Jobs should have some downtime. It's not like I get paid a fortune (I believe it's just a hair above minimum wage) so it works out.
bulldog_blues Our company tried to make everyone go back in two days a week but have since softened their tone and simply 'encourage' people to come in once or twice a week but ask for a minimum of two days a month which people are happier with. Whenever I've been in the office it's practically deserted and most of my team are based elsewhere anyway so the benefits are very limited for me. It's a box ticking exercise to go in when I do.
PluckerpluckHertfordshire I'm a strong believer that any requirements to go into the office must have the entire workforce come into the office on the same day. The only advantages the office provide all require people to be there. It doesn't work if only a third of people are about. I do accept that some office hours are important though. Being a new hire without in-person training is difficult, and you really don't connect to colleagues the same way.
glimmerousdream I go into the office one or two days a week, but at least have the freedom to assess each week and decide what day to be in the office based on my workload and calendar. I also have the freedom to not go in at all, like I did last week when I was full of a horrible cold/flu thing that I really didn’t want to spread. Flexible working isn’t just about working from home to me - it’s a sign that my manager and my team trusts me to do my role. We all trust in each other, and we are just as productive as ever (if not more, as they get more hours out of people when they’re working from home). I wouldn’t want to work in an environment without that trust, as that would generally mean micromanagement instead of being given autonomy to do your job. I couldn’t go back to working for a micromanager.
The_Flurr Your comments about trust are such a big deal. So many of those insist on workers returning to the office seem to have zero trust in their employees to work if they're out of their sight. Or they seem to think that employees can't cope without direct orders. Trusting your employees, and allowing them freedom to achieve their given goal their own way, leads to better productivity. Weird comparison, but part of western military doctrine is Mission Command. In simple terms, all units are aware of the overall strategic obxtives, and are given freedom to achieve their individual obxts within certain parameters. This leads to greater adaptability, requires less direct oversight, and encourages creative solutions. On the other side, the Russian military continues to use a more top down Detailed Command system. Information is concentrated at the highest levels, and specific detailed orders are passed directly down the chain of command. Lower level officers do little but relay and enforce orders from. The result is a lack of flexibility and adaptability, need for constant contact and oversight from superiors, and generally more resentment for higher ups. Not saying all businesses should be run like an army, but there's clearly some applicability. Good employers should set obxtives, then share those with their managers, who can then set obxtives for their departments and trust their teams to find their own ways achieve them.
DanMan874 I work from home 95% of the time. I might head in to run a workshopping session every now and again. I’m a 20 minute drive from my office. I’m so much more productive at home. It’s so easy to dip in and out of meetings. I have 3 monitors and often carry on working while in meetings while listening to the convo and chipping in when needed. That said… I live in a village and we have very few amenities around.. I want to put another question to people. As the high street is losing money due to WFH, do you think it’s possible that as a society we can get away from our reliance on urban living and actually start spreading out more? Will people tend to shop more locally if demand for it rises enough?
kindanew22 So you want to build on the countryside? Doesn’t sound very sustainable to me. Urban living is better for the environment than living in a village where everything you need is a long drive away.
marshal_law_42069 I love working at home. The majority of my time in the office is taking calls, so the higher ups can gibber about the Ukraine and COVID. They'll be worrying about their marketing a lot more if they cancel my work at home days.
theunspillablebeans If people want this then they need to stop being keyboard warriors about it and speak out at work. The internet seems to be overwhelmingly in favour of remote working but whenever I go to the office, almost everyone prefers the face to face interaction and relationship building that in person working provides. Start speaking up where it matters and you might be heard.
CG1991 People have realised a better work/ life balance and are now exercising their worth. I'm currently in a standoff with my manager over it. Fortunately, she needs my skills a lot more than I need this job :)
The_Flurr What's great is that people are realising exactly this, that employers need employees more than the other way around.
令人高兴的是，人们正意识到这一点：雇主更需要员工，而不是反过来。
HettySwollocks There's certainly been a power shift in favor of the general workforce, that said employers will fight tooth and nail to reverse this trend I guarantee it. Not sure what tools they'll use but we all need to remain on guard.
BoxingFan88 Offices are less productive, unless you have a specific reason
办公室的工作效率较低，除非你有特别的原因（非得在那）
Nit_not Yes, offices should be for occasional team meetings and any external meetings that are better handled face to face. Going into the office to answer emails and do day to day work on your own is unnecessary
Littleloula So I like working from home but in all honesty for some people it's awful for their physical health, mental health or productivity. Giving people the choice is best
h00dmanWales It's 50/50 for me. If I'm in the office and everyone is behaving themselves I'm more productive in the office, but if people are chatting and joking about all day I completely lose my concentration and struggle to get anything done. As much as I hate the morning commute I do prefer the feeling of leaving an office and travelling home to just turning off a laptop and moving to another room. A 4 day week where I could go into the office 1-2 days a week would be my ideal working schedule.
OfficialTomCruise I'll be honest, I'm more productive in the office. It's too easy to waste 20 minutes on my phone at home. In the office there's the lingering feeling that someone might notice I'm just sitting there on my phone for 20 mins, so I don't do it. Plus the environment is brighter and wakes me up more. But I don't have a home office yet. Maybe that is the key.
一半的英国员工“威胁”说，如果不提供灵活的工作模式，他们就会辞职
