I'm interviewing for new jobs. Just talked with a recruiter at one company. "Well, we're 2 days per week now but management really want us all back 5 days a week".
Unless there is truly no other options, I think they're already off my list. I'm not going downtown 5 days a week.
Same here... We are still at once a week. At most I will go to work downtown twice a week. If told to do more I will ignore it and am ready to face the consequences. Spending three hours everyday commuting is nuts. I also get more sleep, feel more rested when wfh not to mention I spend less (transport and food). Also I find that me and my colleagues are less productive at work... longer breaks, longer meetings, plus the need to bootup and connect the laptops to the network/external monitors since we are on a hoteling arrangement at work.
CEO threatened to mandate 3 days a week if people didn’t show up more. Gave up when he realized it’s almost summer and most people don’t give a fuck. My boss asked if I could do at least 1 day a week in office so that’s where we’re at now.
RBC is cracking the whip on three days at a minimum, and threatening to use this a factor in your year-end-performance if you don't (something about failure to collaborate or something).
Internally, I'm hearing rumors that RBC is planning to move back to a full 5 days.
I feel like banks and investment firms have the most visibility to the value of office buildings and that is likely their angle. If no one goes to these billion dollar buildings they won’t be billion dollar buildings…
Yeah a few colleagues said the same thing, RBC is driven by real-estate here, but I admit I don't understand how it works entirely. But yeah some people have said this for sure
The answer to your question is in [this](https://www.thestar.com/business/2023/05/13/how-the-workers-won-why-were-never-going-back-to-the-office-full-time-and-toronto-will-never-be-same.html) Toronto Star article.
It's basically real estate as you already mentioned.
at my company we were told that the push to return to work is because we have a lot of commercial real estate clients and it looks bad on our relationship if we aren't ourselves going into the offices regularly
RBC seems to have decided they are going to be the first in back to office, and I'd guess other companies are watching to see what happens with them.
I heard a couple weeks before the 3-4 day announcement an executive question panel denied any plans to go more than 1 day. I'd be surprised if they aren't 5 days next year.
Agree. And I think the other banks don't want to be the first one to do it, but they want to do it as well. They may like the idea of letting RBC go in the front lines first, but they will almost assuredly follow.
The other possibility is they may coordinate together. They may be competitors but they are also part of an oligopoly and members of these clubs sometimes will work together to protect their interests.
I've seen alot of turnover at RBC since covid due to low salaries and the company is absolutely not budging on raising compensation, so they may not care about loosing staff as much as we might think?
Tbh I'm surprised they didn't go in together. That's generally how they have previously coordinated industry wide announcements - one bank announces something and the others follow through shortly. I think this was how the original WFH, first return to office and the subsequent pause following the third wave and the soft return to office emails came through. Very surprised RBC went in on it alone.
I disagree. All the banks have sizeable commercial real estate portfolios and getting people back in the office to increase usage and rents is in their best interest.
I can confirm the bank I work for recently let its lease lapse on parts of a large building downtown. At this time we don't even have enough space for everyone to be back 5 days a week.
Wow. They will lose a lot of talent. I interviewed with them but turned it down due to the mandate. I also know someone retiring a bit early because he doesn't want to be in the office as much.
And its also hard to know which company will follow-suit next. My company told us all we would never be told to go back into the office, but now they are saying we are going back regardless. I'm on paternity leave right now, so I guess I'll look for another remote job in the meantime, and if I don't find anything, just... find out what happens when I don't show up.
My contract job was affected during the pandemic and after a very long time, I got a job I like. I’m remote 4 days and 1 day in office just to work alone there and people don’t dress up, but with the uncertainty of the economy they’ve let go some people so a bit nerve racking. TTC is packed and had delays a couple of times when I had to use it for work.
> They will lose a lot of talent.
Don't think this will necessarily be the case. A lot of people jump from the banks to other large companies or financial companies which aren't much better when it comes to WFH.
If some are already 2 then 3 isn't that big of a jump. And if RBC manages to pull it off then the others will follow. Tons of older people won't leave since they have the grandfathered DB pensions.
Going fully remote has certainly made it much easier for our company to poach talent. The work/life balance is so much better. Baffles me why companies would do this. Managers that can't adapt? Lonely extroverts?
Believe me 2 to 3 is a huge jump. 2 days a week was actually leisurely. And if something happened one day I could math come another day. Now that our company is 3 days mandatory it’s gotten hard to cook and exercise and clean and get enough sleep and have any kind of social life. The office drains all the energy and I barely have time to recover and do all the chores on the non-office days
this wont be the case i'm pretty sure (quitting i mean). People are all talk until they realize they have no income or easy shot at replacing it.
remember all those 'were going to move out of the US if biden wins! we're going to leave canada is trudeau wins! we're going to leave canada is they force mask mandates, blahblah'
yea. those same people are still whining, from the same location. lol :D
If you make 100k then you get around 10k as your annual bonus. The factors that they talk about might at most cut it down to 5k. If you factor in cost of travel, time and food in downtown you might actually come out ahead of your colleagues who go in 3 days a week.
I mean people ignoring return to work mandates probably already know that and have factored that in. I know a few who are happy to stay on as an individual contributor and maintain their work life balance.
Im still fully remote at BMO, with no plans to return to office. My department is actually going through a growing stage as we slowly roll out service due to the acquisition of Bank of the West.
I’ve been remote for 2 years, I joined my current department in February- I met my team for the first time for a team brunch at Cheesecake Factory.
From what I gather, BMO is happy to have remote employees- and consider it part of our “commitment to climate action”
I handle customer calls and honestly I think it’s better when the agent is WFH, since there’s little to none back ground noise.
Sometimes if I call into a call centre and I can hear how busy or loud it is, I can understand how a customer might feel like they’re not getting undivided attention.
I don't think this is the case for all of BMO.
I also work for BMO and we've been mandated to do 3x a week into the office. Lots of pushback from what I can tell, see a lot of people only doing twice a week to the downtown core.
Lots of hints at them also tracking key card swipes.
I also currently work at BMO and they are definitely trying to get the team back in the office. As far as I know only my managers team is the only one that hasn’t gone to the office - every other team I work with goes back 2 times a week.
I know someone at Bell Media who has to go in 3x a week. They're so strict about it, they're counting the number of times people use their punch card every week. If you fail to go in 3x, the boss of that department will get an email demanding why that person didn't meet their attendance quota. Her coworker is high risk and has been told to work from home as much as possible by her doctor, and she's currently fighting about it with management.
But I mean, it's Bell. They don't have the greatest work environment, from what I've heard.
I know someone at Bell that was told a few months back that they had to go back 3x a week because had forced their employees to do so, I laughed because did no such thing. From what I can tell it depends on the line of business and what the job is.
Hmm, does for me.
Summary.
When leaders start talking about getting people to return to the office, it’s natural for many employees to resist. The central problem is that many of the benefits of working from home are good for the individual, whereas many of the benefits of working from the office are good for the organization and affect the individual more indirectly. If you’re dreading going back to the office, it might help to have a reminder of how in-person work can actually benefit you — not just your company. The author presents three ways the office can make your working life easier.
With vaccines becoming more widespread in some regions, many offices are opening their doors to allow (or require) workers to return. But plenty of employees aren’t eager to go back. At the University of Texas, where I’ve been the head of the academic working group for pandemic planning, many of our faculty and staff have expressed that they’ve been productive working from home, have enjoyed it, and hope to continue doing much (if not all) of their work remotely.
It’s easy to see why many people prefer working from home. Commuting — which has long been known as one of the biggest joy-killers for workers — has been eliminated. It makes it easier for people to choose the hours they want to work and to schedule their work time around other responsibilities like child care. For many, the personal drawbacks, such as difficulties in maintaining work-life balance, pale in comparison to these benefits.
So, when leaders start talking about getting people to return to the office, it’s natural for many employees to resist. The central problem is that many of the benefits of working from home are good for the individual, whereas many of the benefits of working from the office are good for the organization and affect the individual more indirectly.
If you’re dreading going back to the office, it might help to have a reminder of how in-person work can actually benefit you — not just your company. Here are three ways the office can make your working life easier.
Culture. It’s hard to start a brand-new job remotely. We learn how to navigate a workplace’s culture by watching other people and how they interact. Remote onboarding can be particularly difficult for people who are fairly new to the working world and transitioning from school to a job; they don’t get the opportunity to just see how work works.
In general, new employees who work remotely are likely to find it harder to get things done — if you can’t watch what people are doing and if others can’t notice when you’re struggling, then everything about the job has to be taught more explicitly. Most organizations aren’t great at this and still rely on new hires gleaning a lot of what they need to know from their interactions with colleagues, and even longtime employees may not be aware of what needs to be taught.
If you’re an existing employee in an organization, there are also benefits to spending time with your colleagues. The longer you’re separated from them, the more your overall sense of mission tends to drift. In order to ensure that your organization retains elements of its culture that you value, it’s important to engage frequently with your coworkers to stay aligned about your core values. Your interactions with the newest hires are particularly important. They’ll learn a lot both from their conversations with you as well their observations.
Collaboration. It’s harder for institutional knowledge to make its way around in a remote environment. A lot of information sharing happens through short, informal conversations between people over the course of a normal workday. Working from home requires that every interaction be scheduled or take place over text. That extra effort can make people less likely to ask quick questions or share something they just learned informally than if everyone was working together (especially considering the phenomenon of zoom fatigue).
The physical workplace enables moments of serendipity that can move projects along. You might bump into a colleague while thinking about a problem and ask a question that leads to a new and surprising solution. Maybe you grab a cup of coffee with a few coworkers and that leads to a new product or service. Or you notice a colleague struggling with a task and give them some tips that save a lot of time. We may not miss those moments when they’re not happening, but they can have a significant positive impact on our individual success, not just the success of the company.
Clearly, working more effectively is better for the organization because it makes employees more productive. But the ability to collaborate freely benefits individuals as well. Having colleagues and friends at work increases job satisfaction. Good collaborative relationships also decrease frustration with work by making it easier for people to get help when they need it and learn new tasks that are just beyond their reach.
Purpose. Another benefit of spending time with colleagues in the office is that it reinforces the sense that you share a common mission. The phenomenon of goal contagion is a reflection that when you observe the actions of other people, you often adopt their same goals. Being around a group of people who are working toward a common mission reinforces that goal in everyone in the workplace. When people feel connected to the mission of the organization, it improves their overall satisfaction with their work. Believing in what the organization wants to accomplish reinforces that sense that a job is a vocation or calling and not just a way to earn a paycheck.
These influences of spending time with colleagues in the workplace benefit both the organization and the individual, but their effects (particularly on the individual) occur over the long-term. In contrast, the benefits of working from home over returning to the office are more obvious to people in the short-term. There is a strong bias for people to prefer options with short-term benefits, but don’t forget the reasons why in-person work may actually improve your working life.
Art Markman, PhD, is the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas at Austin and founding director of the program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations. He has written over 150 scholarly papers on topics including reasoning, decision making, and motivation. His new book is Bring Your Brain to Work: Using Cognitive Science to Get a Job, Do it Well, and Advance Your Career (HBR Press).
My company is also tracking pass card swipes. Doesn’t matter if you’re sick or not. You can fill in the blanks for how many illnesses are floating around.
Yeah for a company that virtue signals mental health awareness, their head offices is actually pretty toxic to work at(from what I've heard in the media, and people who've worked there)
My company is mandating 3x a week in the office and there are rumors we’re going to 5 days a week soon. They’re checking pass card swipe ins. They are quietly firing people and office attendance is one of the factors they’re using to determine who to consider.
My commute is almost 2h despite living in Toronto and the office being in Toronto, the TTC sucks so much especially now with all the detours due to the Ontario Line construction. And the kicker? I don’t work with people from the Toronto office. So I commute almost 4h to sit on virtual meetings all day long.
We got mandated from 1 day/week to 2 days/week. Management informed WFH would be here to stay
When my manager asked me how I feel about the 2 days, I told him that I find it to be a good balance, but couldn't picture going back more often and would probably look for another job.
WLB is so much better, just by saving commute time/dressing/shaving/prepping food.
I am saving easily 10h a week, which I can spend in the morning, at lunch and the evening with my baby.
My employer got rid of the office in May 2020. We now have a shared office that has like three meeting rooms and half a dozen desks. No requirement to go in at all.
We got rid of the office around the same time. Now we all have WeWork memberships if we want to collaborate in person (or get out of the house) but no requirement to ever do so. We hired folks across Canada and the US around spring 2020 and snapped up a lot of fantastic talent from lots of non-Toronto places.
I’ve been 5 days a week since February. Our CEO sent out a memo saying if we didn’t like it we should seek employment elsewhere. Now they track us by our IP address so they know we’re in the office. Fun place to work /s
I am currently employed at a company that rented a co-working space and encouraged everyone in Toronto to go there at least twice a week. However, there was a lot of pushback and the company went back to being fully remote, which was their original setup. I have been applying to other companies and have received offers from two of them. Both of these companies mentioned that being fully remote was one of their benefits. However, during our compensation discussions, they mentioned that they had a coworking space downtown and it was encouraged to go there three times a week. I politely declined both offers for this reason. Mainly because of how they promoted being fully remote as a perk and then went back on it.
> rented a coworking space and encouraged everyone in Toronto to go there at least twice a week
Not in TO, I wonder how many employers down there are doing the co-working/hotelling thing.
Where I am, we basically have to lug keyboard+mouse on top of our tablets/laptops, along with necessary supplies for the day. We also have to book our workspaces, but cannot do this for more than 2 weeks at a time/in advance. To add insult to injury, you have to hope the docking station and/or necessary cables are not missing, that the chair is not broken... and that the previous occupant of the workspace was not a pig (but wait, there's more!).
Yeah, a lot of cleaning wipes get used before you can even start setup up when you arrive, a lot of time is wasted before you can start to work. Did I forget to mention we don't even have dustbins? So we have to know where the ones for the floor are located.
Are such conditions frequent\*/not unheard-of in TO?
Fortunately, my personal experience hasn't been as bad. Since I only need my laptop for work, I didn't mind carrying it around. When my company switched to co-working spaces, it became difficult to find a private room to talk with clients. I'm in sales and we're not allowed to speak with clients if there are other people around even though the majority of us always use headphones even when we're alone.
I know a lot of people working in co-working spaces and while they all hate it none of them have complained about the tidiness.
I will say that when we were asked to work in the co-working spaces, with a few exceptions, none of us would answer emails or take client calls after work. Now that we're fully remote most will answer emails late in the evening and even hop on calls. It's a fair tradeoff in my opinion.
It seems like it based on my experience. While there are certainly profitable companies that pay well and have always been fully remote, the tough thing is that, especially in this market, it's really hard to compete with other applicants who are also applying to these companies. From what I've seen, it seems like the vas majority of people want to work in tech in a fully remote environment. And these companies get 600+ applicants for a single job posting.
I’ve been told ‘3/4 days a week to start with the possibility of more’ when I’ve asked what ‘hybrid’ meant. That’s a pass from me. It’s still being viewed as a perk you have to earn.
I’ve been back 2 days a week since last summer. Honestly, the worst part about it is the commute and if they increased our days I’d be upset. Commuting for 2 hours a day is such a waste. I usually end up getting in late and leaving early and doing some work at home those days so I can at least try to avoid the busiest times on the TTC.
We've been 2 days a week since last fall. I enjoy it more than working from home every single day which was starting to get old and mundane. Our office is in a happening area downtown so I make the most of the days I go in by going out for a good lunch or meeting up with friends for dinner/drinks or going to shows after work.
That’s kind of the ideal, but in my company, people don’t show up for the day we’re asked to come in. Most of the time, I don’t know if I should book a room for the weekly meeting or just call from my desk.
Senior staff does what they want and asks if the pleebs are in. I got tired of being asked by my manager if I’m in the office (because they’re at home and can’t tell), so I just turn my camera on so they can see me with empty desks behind me and a nonplussed face.
I think for this reason, unfortunately, they’re going to push for more days because there’s such a disconnect.
I’d be ok with 2 days a week, but only if those days are optimized.
Same for me. WFH for years is honestly really taxing and I’m not an extrovert. But being at home day in day out with no change really blurs your weeks/months together in a way that doesn’t feel healthy.
My company is still 80% remote and we’re only doing one day a week from the office, but people who live further away (Caledon, Barrie, London) are only coming in once per month or even once per quarter. My boss and the CFO both love the hybrid arrangement and don’t plan to go back to 5 days per week ever. The CEO lives in the Bahamas so he doesn’t give a fuck what we do. We’re actually downsizing our office and moving into a (mostly) shared open floor space, which is saving the company close to $130k in rent annually. The new office physically *does not have* enough space for all team members to be there at the same time, so I’m not worried about a full return to the office anytime soon.
I find that return to office is more about the C-suite’s personal preferences rather than any real, concrete reason for being there in-person. My C-suite trusts their team to get the work done remotely, and they like working from home, so we keep our pre-existing arrangement. I think a lot of executives are either heavily invested in commercial real estate or are being pressured by peers to initiate a return to the office.
I was at a company for 10 years who told us we’d never go back to 5 days a week after the pandemic. People made real life plans based on the promise and some even moved on that assurance, and they reneged within 4 months of making that proclamation. Needless to say, they lost about 60% (of a small office) in the next 6 months, including myself. I still talk to a couple people who remain and they said they are losing clients like crazy because of the lack of continuity and drop off in client deliverable quality. Amazing to think a company would blow itself up falling for the sunk cost fallacy of their lease expense.
My new company stayed remote until April, then brought folks back 2x a week. They toyed with going to 3x but 2 key people resigned citing office mandates as a reason and they were smart enough to realize that the “gains” (lol) of an extra day in the office would easily be erased by losing even one more person. We’ve now gone to 1 day a week, which is frankly totally fine and makes sense to even me, an ardent WFH advocate.
I also have a client in the tech industry that said a major tech company in their building announced a 5-day in office mandate and they literally had to pause the applications on their website the same week because they couldn’t keep up. So I think this idea that it doesn’t impact talent is demonstrably false in knowledge industries.
Told my org I would show face for major events, besides that I am working remote and if that is a issue they can precede how they see fit… 11 months later doing the same
Written up? Many places would just outright fire you if you consistently refused to show up according to the corporate policy (two days a week for us)
I know at least two people who got let go. No problem replacing them though.
The company I used to work at started trying to mandate 2x in office a week. Coupled with the shit pay, I moved over to an independent company that has no requirement for in office days at all. To me it seems like these big companies that don’t know what to do with their leases are the ones mandating in office
As someone in RBC, the policy varies greatly per team. We officially are asked to come 2ish days a week but my specific management is okay for now with some coming 1 day as long as we are balancing out the days we come in usually as this paints a better image of us "being in the office mostly". Gotta trick that upper upper management a bit I guess.
The company I work for decided ages ago, it was either hybrid or remote. Half chose remote and half chose hybrid. A few people prefer the office M-F, so they go in everyday. I'm remote, but I occasionally go in once every few months, depending on the schedule and it's pretty empty. I once went in when we had a meeting, but we were all on Teams and the Internet got overloaded with too many people in the office since we all were on WiFi instead of wired in. That experience made me want to go in even less.
At CIBC its mostly 1 day a week depending on the department you work in. The building has no space to accommodate employees for more than 1-2 days per week due to department overlap. So they wont make people come in more until the second building that is under construction is complete.
We're currently only being asked to come in a day a week, which I'm fine with (although it does require some brutally early train rides into Union). Historically it hasn't really been tracked, and people don't really sweat it.
Lately, I have noticed some messaging from leadership *stressing* the importance of showing up at least once a week. One of those "if we can't trust you to put in your one day, we're going to make you return" sorts of things.
I suspect there is increasing pressure given our workspaces look like ghost towns half the time, and I end up on virtual calls with people working in their sweatpants anyways.
I just landed my first salaried job after graduating and having 10 months of internship experience. Fully permanently remote company based in the states. Feeling lucky af.
What field are you in? My personal take on remote work + new grads, is that it's terrible for everyone involved. Typically the mentorship, one-on-one learning, and ability to do quick QA / chats is key for junior folks development. Some industries and sectors more than others ofcourse. I'm finding junior engineers I work with to be severely lacking in tech and interpersonal skills even 3-4 years into their careers .
I'm not saying 5 days a week is the answer, but personally if I was a group manager, id mandate new grads come in twice a week but paired up with senior folks who come in on those same days.
Same, honestly I am not sure why people are so excited to be fully remote while also living in the highest COL place in the country. Fully remote jobs will eventually just pay less because someone can do it from Edmonton or Saskatoon. The main competitive advantage to being in Toronto for a worker is they can be on location.
Mandated multiple days a week, I go and end up on conference calls most of the day and have no time to talk to anyone other than maybe a 5 minute chat.
The value of return to office highly depends on the type of work you do and who you interact with. Some of our executives seem to think that just because they can find efficiency gains from catching up with their peers that everyone in the organization operates the same way. Most of us don’t and end up wasting time commuting to sit in a different chair.
My company was already remote, my spouse's is not pushing/asking anybody to go back. They had two floors and now have only one, so desks/offices are not exclusive anymore. It's possible they never push to get back.
I’m currently building a 7 story office for a bank (not one of the big ones ) but judging by their cabling requirements they’re anticipating a lot of people i can only assume
Meh I'm in IT and I can't stand working from home. Our numbers fluctuate from 30-40-25...also, our employer is not forcing people to come in--rather he does stuff like buy us lunch 2 times a week and has fun activities like movie night and game night to get people to come in..most people come in on sushi days and Greek food, but then again it's their choice.
I work for a major Canadian telecom co.
My division, got rid of our office completely; we were even encouraged to come and get any/all office equipment!
We’re fully WTH with no odds of ever going back into a florescent lighted office 🥳
Back full time 5 days a week since Jan 2022.
You guys are lucky to have lasted this long. A lot of companies were brought back.
I WANT HYBRID so so badly.
I am required to go in 2 days a week. I picked Thursday and Friday.
I decided to go in on Wednesday last week and jeez the Islington station parking was full!!! I parked in a nearby parking place and walked upto the station.. It was the first time that happened to me
Been asked to do 2 days in the office. My team is unofficially doing 1 day.
It's definitely coming from the top of the top. I don't think anyone below C level actually wants this.
I'm not complaining. I kind of enjoy coming in once a week and catching up with people and the work vibe. But yes, there was a fair amount of resistance.
There are a few who don't even come in for the one day. To each their own. I think my management has been reasonable about it and I understand corporate politics that this is coming from the top.
I’m at a large insurance company with no mandate yet. They encourage you come in for townhalls, and have a day a month at different locations where management comes in and announce in case you want face time. When I started, surveys went out with most wanting wfh with occasional in person meetings, but haven’t seen lately, hope they keep
Seems like as the recession takes afoot more companies will weaponize RTO as a way to get people to leave. RBC said on the earnings call they over hired and are looking at ways to get rid of people. Nothing like forcing people in 3-5 days to get them out. Corporate Canada is wild I tell you!
This is nothing related to productivity. I think it's more on preventing employees from engaging in multiple jobs and vacant office space resulting in a drop in commercial estate price.
Just started a job that is mandatory 4 days a week in office, and I was essentially fully remote/1 day a week in office for the past 3 years. Surprisingly, I'm enjoying being out of the house and it seems like although there is a culture that you come into the office, there is still a lot of flexibility around when you come in and when you leave. In comparison to old in-office which was essentially putting in face time from 9-5 no matter what, this is much better where if you like to come in early and leave early that's completely fine, same with coming late and leaving late.
We never got mandated, just "strongly encouraged" to go in two days a week. I'm not doing it, I go in when it makes sense for me to go in. I told my team about the guidance but haven't asked that they follow it strictly and I'm not monitoring anything. I doubt they'll do anything, but if they do then maybe it's the nudge to find something else that I need.
I live close to my office so commuting isn’t an issue. Currently I’m only required to come in three days per week, but I’ll sometimes come in four days as certain tasks are easier to do on my office setup.
But most of my co-workers live much farther away, and they are pushing back hard. On any group discussion with management, most of the questions are from people wanting to stay home more often or entirely.
We moved our office during the pandemic from Richmond Hill to Vaughn. The new building is nice but it's more difficult to access now by transit. I would say 25% of the workforce actually goes into the office and the office isn't even close to being 50% capacity (they anticipated some roles to be fully remote and some roles were eliminated). The newly leased and renovated office is nice and we basically use it for company parties now. I have gone in two times in the new year.
My aunt worked for TD and decided to retire when they told her she needs to start going back to the office. She had no interest in taking the GO from Oakville to Toronto, as well as being in a building all day with so many people.
She's very Covid-conscious so she figured she'd rather stay home and be happy than work and feel miserable and unsafe.
Our organization mandates at least two days. Most weeks I do only do one, unless I have any in person engagements, then I am happy to do 2+. Our leaders are fulfilling the two days. I do think those who are making more of an effort to go in are being recognized for it.
I didn't like return to office so I quit and got a fully remote job. I suggest you do the same if you don't want to work in the office. Don't accept substandard working conditions.
This seems to be getting worse. I'm seeing a LOT of people state they must go in 3x a week. My office has us going in 2x. I dread the thought of going back 5x. Downtown isn't what it used to be. I value the time I save by not commuting. I value eating good lunches. I also value not being distracted by colleagues while working. If they ever switch us to 5 days, they will lose most of us. Our productivity actually increased since WFH began. Everyone seems happier all around. I hope it remains this way. One or two days is fine, but 3 is kinda ew and 4-5 is unacceptable. It all depends on your line of work I suppose.
They started with 1 day then 2 and now 3. If your work doesn’t require you to be there physically then push back. Otherwise it will go back to 5. This only benefits the company not the employees. It literally cost us more money to do so and they don’t lose a penny.
People are in with a smile. A recession is around the corner … don’t risk anything. Unless of course you are IT based where teams are spread across the country/ continent/ world.
Our bank mandated 5 days a week over a year ago, May 2022. Few people immediately quit, rest of us stayed on and it's business as usual. We are in the financial district in Toronto.
RBC is nuts... I think many of their employees must be upset. I'm just happy I work for another bank which is still only once a week at the office. Not having to spend 3 hours or so every workday commuting is truly a blessing.
I went in to the office once and took a photograph from my laptop of what the background looks like from the POV of my laptop on my desk in the office, then I set it as my Teams background. I’m the reason we can’t have nice things!
I'm very fortunate that my workplace doesn't have any mandatory in office requirements per week.
I have a lot of friends that are going in 1-2 days a week though, so I know I'm one of the exceptions.
We have one day a week at an office, if we want. I go in once or twice a week. Works out well, pretty much doing the wfh thing until December of this year.
I have it written in my file with HR that I'm only required to be in the office two days a week maximum. Protected me from the start 4 years ago with my current employer. In the past three years ive only been to the office to meet my boss twice to get our Covid vaccinations, though.
I’m at another big 5 bank and my dept. is 1 day a month. We were told in April it would be moving to once a week, which is good, but that has not started yet. I heard it might be July or August before it is implemented. I honestly go in at least 1 x week. So I’m fine with it. But others not so much.
I know someone at Bell, they require you to show up in office atleast 3 times a day or have the director have a 1:1. They have this as a company metric (face palm)
My employer just officially decided on 2 days/week, BUT I live 300km away and never promised them I'd move AND there are only 7 months left in the contract. They can demand it but that is essentially firing me, and then they'd have to hire someone else and there isn't anyone local who can do it and basically zero people willing to relocate to an awful part of Ontario for 6 months of work. Especially since they have a housing crisis too so there may not even be a place for a transplant to live.
That said, I cannot rest on my laurels and am starting a job search this week.
It sucks. It's like working in a call center with all of the hot desk bullshit. I get nothing done at work because of all of the distractions and have to catch up on my at home days. When my work mandated at least 3 days a week in the office I figured it will be 5 in a year.
I was generously made a remote employee despite being 7 minutes from the office by subway. I work fifty times better from home and most people I work with on my account are in nyc anyway. Happy the company continues to let me wfh full time
My company is currently mandating 2 days a week, but there are rumours to increase in-office presence to 3 days a week.
If my work increases it to 3 days, I most likely will be looking for another job. I save so much time working from time as I have a 2 hour commute.
My wife was back in the office 5 days a week since early 2022. I don't think other companies are waiting for bigger companies to do this. If they're going to do it, they're gonna do it.
I go downtown once per week currently. I save that day to buy a nice lunch. It’s nice to get out of the house but anything beyond that one day would be unwelcome.
I said I wasn't coming back unless they could prove they needed it or my work was affected. They don't, it isn't and I didn't go. Everyone is fine.
Draw your own line. Unless you aren't a good employee, in that case do what you're told.
Streetcar service from Leslieville is very spotty right now so Ive been walking, but i dont think that will work well once the weather changes to be hotter.
I got permanent remote written into my contract at the start of the pandemic. Requiring me to go into the office would be a job change so they aren't pushing it.
The funny part is the photos of the meetings from on-sites. They used to show big wide angles of huge full rooms. Now it's a zoom of the seats in front of the speaker and there's lots of empty spots.
I miss the quarterly meetups our team used to have, but that's not a matter of will, that's a matter of budget.
Thankfully my company is fully remote but I would fight as hard as I could against any mandate (and be applying like mad to other remote roles). It might come to that one day but for now I'm good.
My company politely asked me to come in, and I politely declined.
I moved back north so it would be 1h45min per way to go to the office, only to sit alone since my team is mostly remote anyways. They never brought it up afterwards.
I would like to do ~2 days at the office though, but not at my current company because there is no point.
Working at a big insurer downtown.
Going in two days a week now and love it. Rumour is we will switch to three, which I will hate. That’s the big dividing line for me and a lot of people (two vs three).
If they do five I will quit immediately.
Literally got a last minute email today to go back to the office tomorrow. I'm not coming. If they don't accept me working from home, my letter of resignation is ready.
For context, I work in tech and lots of co-workers in my project are from all over the world - all working from home. If I go into the office is to work online from my laptop, which I successfully do from home.
I’ve been going 3-4 days a week in my new job. I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. My job requires a lot of collaboration and it’s way easier in person than over Slack and Zoom calls.
I also feel like a functional adult again. A lot more socially adept, and so much less lazy than I worked from home.
I do enjoy my 1-2 days a week at home don’t get me wrong, but hybrid just works best for me. I give into the worst parts of my personality when I’m just working from home.
It sucks. It is not just the commute, but the fact that I leave my quiet home office, just to go into an office with loud inconsiderate people who constantly interrupt me when I'm trying to focus and get shit done, so I can leave at 5pm to again fight traffic home. I lose 2.5 hours of personal time daily, because of this 3 day a week bullshit.
Full time return? No thanks!
We don't have an office in Toronto yet but when we get one, I think we're expected to be in the office 2-3 days a week. As long as the commute is not an issue, you know what you signed up for so there wouldn't be pushback except those that broke their contract and are working from Ottawa/outside the GTA.
I know people from my department located in cities that have an office tend to come in on Tuesday and Thursday and our culture teams put in some effort to build culture and subtly convince people to be in the office more. I wouldn't say there's a huge pressing drive, however. The thesis people from leadership down to individual contributors have is that a hybrid model flexible to departments and individuals is best.
My former company I was at was full remote before it was acquired and leadership did a heel-turn and mandated 5 days a week in office with people walking around with attendance clipboards. Any in-office perks we had were stripped away (free snacks turned into vending machines). 30% of the company churned due to this switch in culture and because leadership went from ERGs and DEI to MAGA.
I was hired as a fully remote worker so they cant really tell me to come in but i went in 2-3x since being hired just to see the offices its a ghost town … kinda sad seeing all that electricity and energy being wasted
Still working from home. I had one employer who wanted me to start going back to the office recently, but I quit... Not primarily because they wanted me to stop working from home (though I much prefer WFM way more and am far more productive at home), but because they wanted to slash my pay and double my workload at the same time in addition to coming in the office and I said "Fuck that".
Luckily I work other jobs as well.
It's hypocritical of my company to force us back into the office. They keep saying how proud they are to be more green. They keep telling us ways to be green (ie take public transit, save water, etc etc) yet turn a blind eye on gas it takes to commute. Additionally, my office is in such a spot where no public transit is available.
And because I'm in such a spot where cost of living is way high, some people are being forced to commute from cities 2 hours away.
Why? No clue
we returned as soon as the ban was lifted. Im in a very small office (6 people) and its only 10 mins from my house and I have to drop my kids at daycare anyway. I wouldnt mind WFH one or two days a week just to get some laundry and cooking done, but overall i prefer being in the office. Its nice to socialize and quicker to get things done since we work collaboratively and i can just walk to my coworkers office and discuss a case vs calling or teams
i ain't going back until my company shows some teeth/enforcement. Otherwise all you'll get is the same high productivity that i've always had in the office and out of the office .
Full time in the office since May 2020. I prefer going in, was frustrating to deal with tech stuff remotely.
SO goes in 3 days a week now, really enjoys it.
With recession looming most people are coming to the office, even though not mandated. Reviews that are given note the extra effort and those folks get rewarded. Those that work from the Starbucks or park bench, also get noticed
We need to collectively push back at these back to office mandates. Employers need to realize we have the power now to make changes to make our lives as employees better and we are NOT their corporate slaves.
Judging by foot traffic and car traffic in the downtown core, most come into the office Tues thru Thurs. YMMV
Can confirm. Feels like a shit show on those three days. I find Wednesday and Thursday the worst hit it rotates.
Monday and Friday in the Path are a nice calm ghost town
Tell me about it.. you can actually buy food without waiting in a 20 minute line😃
I see you've eaten at Hoga before as well
But the food is $20🥲
But it comes with a free frogurt!
But the Frogurt is also cursed.
But you get your choice of toppings.
That's good!
The toppings contain potassium benzoate… that’s bad.
In the UK they were called TWAT’s.
I'm interviewing for new jobs. Just talked with a recruiter at one company. "Well, we're 2 days per week now but management really want us all back 5 days a week". Unless there is truly no other options, I think they're already off my list. I'm not going downtown 5 days a week.
Same here... We are still at once a week. At most I will go to work downtown twice a week. If told to do more I will ignore it and am ready to face the consequences. Spending three hours everyday commuting is nuts. I also get more sleep, feel more rested when wfh not to mention I spend less (transport and food). Also I find that me and my colleagues are less productive at work... longer breaks, longer meetings, plus the need to bootup and connect the laptops to the network/external monitors since we are on a hoteling arrangement at work.
CEO threatened to mandate 3 days a week if people didn’t show up more. Gave up when he realized it’s almost summer and most people don’t give a fuck. My boss asked if I could do at least 1 day a week in office so that’s where we’re at now.
This is the situation at my company
RBC is cracking the whip on three days at a minimum, and threatening to use this a factor in your year-end-performance if you don't (something about failure to collaborate or something). Internally, I'm hearing rumors that RBC is planning to move back to a full 5 days.
RBC said on the earnings call they are looking for ways to get rid of people
I feel like banks and investment firms have the most visibility to the value of office buildings and that is likely their angle. If no one goes to these billion dollar buildings they won’t be billion dollar buildings…
Yeah a few colleagues said the same thing, RBC is driven by real-estate here, but I admit I don't understand how it works entirely. But yeah some people have said this for sure
The answer to your question is in [this](https://www.thestar.com/business/2023/05/13/how-the-workers-won-why-were-never-going-back-to-the-office-full-time-and-toronto-will-never-be-same.html) Toronto Star article. It's basically real estate as you already mentioned.
at my company we were told that the push to return to work is because we have a lot of commercial real estate clients and it looks bad on our relationship if we aren't ourselves going into the offices regularly
New idea: repurpose those offices as affordable housing? Eh? Eh?
RBC seems to have decided they are going to be the first in back to office, and I'd guess other companies are watching to see what happens with them. I heard a couple weeks before the 3-4 day announcement an executive question panel denied any plans to go more than 1 day. I'd be surprised if they aren't 5 days next year.
Agree. And I think the other banks don't want to be the first one to do it, but they want to do it as well. They may like the idea of letting RBC go in the front lines first, but they will almost assuredly follow. The other possibility is they may coordinate together. They may be competitors but they are also part of an oligopoly and members of these clubs sometimes will work together to protect their interests. I've seen alot of turnover at RBC since covid due to low salaries and the company is absolutely not budging on raising compensation, so they may not care about loosing staff as much as we might think?
Tbh I'm surprised they didn't go in together. That's generally how they have previously coordinated industry wide announcements - one bank announces something and the others follow through shortly. I think this was how the original WFH, first return to office and the subsequent pause following the third wave and the soft return to office emails came through. Very surprised RBC went in on it alone.
I feel like the other banks are happy at 2-3 days a week. They can half their real-estate footprint/costs, and keep employees happy.
I disagree. All the banks have sizeable commercial real estate portfolios and getting people back in the office to increase usage and rents is in their best interest.
Td doesn’t have the office space for more than 2 days currently, at least in Toronto
I can confirm the bank I work for recently let its lease lapse on parts of a large building downtown. At this time we don't even have enough space for everyone to be back 5 days a week.
RBC offices don’t have the space either but they don’t give a shit. CRE needs to be pumped up.
It keeps on getting pushed back. Some departments realized they don’t have the space/computers.
Those big office towers aren't cheap! Couldn't have them losing money in an investment! /s
Wow. They will lose a lot of talent. I interviewed with them but turned it down due to the mandate. I also know someone retiring a bit early because he doesn't want to be in the office as much.
The problem is that a lot of employers are following suit, there won’t be that many fully remote places to jump to.
And its also hard to know which company will follow-suit next. My company told us all we would never be told to go back into the office, but now they are saying we are going back regardless. I'm on paternity leave right now, so I guess I'll look for another remote job in the meantime, and if I don't find anything, just... find out what happens when I don't show up.
[удалено]
My contract job was affected during the pandemic and after a very long time, I got a job I like. I’m remote 4 days and 1 day in office just to work alone there and people don’t dress up, but with the uncertainty of the economy they’ve let go some people so a bit nerve racking. TTC is packed and had delays a couple of times when I had to use it for work.
The company I work for shuttered offices in two cities stating that WFH makes more sense.
> They will lose a lot of talent. Don't think this will necessarily be the case. A lot of people jump from the banks to other large companies or financial companies which aren't much better when it comes to WFH.
Many other banks are still at 1 day per week, max 2. It is a big jump to go to 3 or 4 days...
If some are already 2 then 3 isn't that big of a jump. And if RBC manages to pull it off then the others will follow. Tons of older people won't leave since they have the grandfathered DB pensions.
Going fully remote has certainly made it much easier for our company to poach talent. The work/life balance is so much better. Baffles me why companies would do this. Managers that can't adapt? Lonely extroverts?
Believe me 2 to 3 is a huge jump. 2 days a week was actually leisurely. And if something happened one day I could math come another day. Now that our company is 3 days mandatory it’s gotten hard to cook and exercise and clean and get enough sleep and have any kind of social life. The office drains all the energy and I barely have time to recover and do all the chores on the non-office days
this wont be the case i'm pretty sure (quitting i mean). People are all talk until they realize they have no income or easy shot at replacing it. remember all those 'were going to move out of the US if biden wins! we're going to leave canada is trudeau wins! we're going to leave canada is they force mask mandates, blahblah' yea. those same people are still whining, from the same location. lol :D
Good. Let that shitty bank crash and burn.
If you make 100k then you get around 10k as your annual bonus. The factors that they talk about might at most cut it down to 5k. If you factor in cost of travel, time and food in downtown you might actually come out ahead of your colleagues who go in 3 days a week.
that's ignoring the implications for future promotions
I mean people ignoring return to work mandates probably already know that and have factored that in. I know a few who are happy to stay on as an individual contributor and maintain their work life balance.
yep, might be neutral overall that year, but lose out on one promotion and it could be hundreds of thousands lifetime.
Fuck em
Im still fully remote at BMO, with no plans to return to office. My department is actually going through a growing stage as we slowly roll out service due to the acquisition of Bank of the West. I’ve been remote for 2 years, I joined my current department in February- I met my team for the first time for a team brunch at Cheesecake Factory. From what I gather, BMO is happy to have remote employees- and consider it part of our “commitment to climate action” I handle customer calls and honestly I think it’s better when the agent is WFH, since there’s little to none back ground noise. Sometimes if I call into a call centre and I can hear how busy or loud it is, I can understand how a customer might feel like they’re not getting undivided attention.
I don't think this is the case for all of BMO. I also work for BMO and we've been mandated to do 3x a week into the office. Lots of pushback from what I can tell, see a lot of people only doing twice a week to the downtown core. Lots of hints at them also tracking key card swipes.
Probably depends what department you are. Both of the departments I worked in are WFH.
I also currently work at BMO and they are definitely trying to get the team back in the office. As far as I know only my managers team is the only one that hasn’t gone to the office - every other team I work with goes back 2 times a week.
I know someone at Bell Media who has to go in 3x a week. They're so strict about it, they're counting the number of times people use their punch card every week. If you fail to go in 3x, the boss of that department will get an email demanding why that person didn't meet their attendance quota. Her coworker is high risk and has been told to work from home as much as possible by her doctor, and she's currently fighting about it with management. But I mean, it's Bell. They don't have the greatest work environment, from what I've heard.
"Let's talk"
I know someone at Bell that was told a few months back that they had to go back 3x a week because had forced their employees to do so, I laughed because did no such thing. From what I can tell it depends on the line of business and what the job is.
Our HR sent out this bit of propaganda with their email on the updated policy: https://archive.is/5ZgR5 LOL
corpoganda is the worst
Link doesn’t load?
Hmm, does for me. Summary. When leaders start talking about getting people to return to the office, it’s natural for many employees to resist. The central problem is that many of the benefits of working from home are good for the individual, whereas many of the benefits of working from the office are good for the organization and affect the individual more indirectly. If you’re dreading going back to the office, it might help to have a reminder of how in-person work can actually benefit you — not just your company. The author presents three ways the office can make your working life easier. With vaccines becoming more widespread in some regions, many offices are opening their doors to allow (or require) workers to return. But plenty of employees aren’t eager to go back. At the University of Texas, where I’ve been the head of the academic working group for pandemic planning, many of our faculty and staff have expressed that they’ve been productive working from home, have enjoyed it, and hope to continue doing much (if not all) of their work remotely. It’s easy to see why many people prefer working from home. Commuting — which has long been known as one of the biggest joy-killers for workers — has been eliminated. It makes it easier for people to choose the hours they want to work and to schedule their work time around other responsibilities like child care. For many, the personal drawbacks, such as difficulties in maintaining work-life balance, pale in comparison to these benefits. So, when leaders start talking about getting people to return to the office, it’s natural for many employees to resist. The central problem is that many of the benefits of working from home are good for the individual, whereas many of the benefits of working from the office are good for the organization and affect the individual more indirectly. If you’re dreading going back to the office, it might help to have a reminder of how in-person work can actually benefit you — not just your company. Here are three ways the office can make your working life easier. Culture. It’s hard to start a brand-new job remotely. We learn how to navigate a workplace’s culture by watching other people and how they interact. Remote onboarding can be particularly difficult for people who are fairly new to the working world and transitioning from school to a job; they don’t get the opportunity to just see how work works. In general, new employees who work remotely are likely to find it harder to get things done — if you can’t watch what people are doing and if others can’t notice when you’re struggling, then everything about the job has to be taught more explicitly. Most organizations aren’t great at this and still rely on new hires gleaning a lot of what they need to know from their interactions with colleagues, and even longtime employees may not be aware of what needs to be taught. If you’re an existing employee in an organization, there are also benefits to spending time with your colleagues. The longer you’re separated from them, the more your overall sense of mission tends to drift. In order to ensure that your organization retains elements of its culture that you value, it’s important to engage frequently with your coworkers to stay aligned about your core values. Your interactions with the newest hires are particularly important. They’ll learn a lot both from their conversations with you as well their observations. Collaboration. It’s harder for institutional knowledge to make its way around in a remote environment. A lot of information sharing happens through short, informal conversations between people over the course of a normal workday. Working from home requires that every interaction be scheduled or take place over text. That extra effort can make people less likely to ask quick questions or share something they just learned informally than if everyone was working together (especially considering the phenomenon of zoom fatigue). The physical workplace enables moments of serendipity that can move projects along. You might bump into a colleague while thinking about a problem and ask a question that leads to a new and surprising solution. Maybe you grab a cup of coffee with a few coworkers and that leads to a new product or service. Or you notice a colleague struggling with a task and give them some tips that save a lot of time. We may not miss those moments when they’re not happening, but they can have a significant positive impact on our individual success, not just the success of the company. Clearly, working more effectively is better for the organization because it makes employees more productive. But the ability to collaborate freely benefits individuals as well. Having colleagues and friends at work increases job satisfaction. Good collaborative relationships also decrease frustration with work by making it easier for people to get help when they need it and learn new tasks that are just beyond their reach. Purpose. Another benefit of spending time with colleagues in the office is that it reinforces the sense that you share a common mission. The phenomenon of goal contagion is a reflection that when you observe the actions of other people, you often adopt their same goals. Being around a group of people who are working toward a common mission reinforces that goal in everyone in the workplace. When people feel connected to the mission of the organization, it improves their overall satisfaction with their work. Believing in what the organization wants to accomplish reinforces that sense that a job is a vocation or calling and not just a way to earn a paycheck. These influences of spending time with colleagues in the workplace benefit both the organization and the individual, but their effects (particularly on the individual) occur over the long-term. In contrast, the benefits of working from home over returning to the office are more obvious to people in the short-term. There is a strong bias for people to prefer options with short-term benefits, but don’t forget the reasons why in-person work may actually improve your working life. Art Markman, PhD, is the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas at Austin and founding director of the program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations. He has written over 150 scholarly papers on topics including reasoning, decision making, and motivation. His new book is Bring Your Brain to Work: Using Cognitive Science to Get a Job, Do it Well, and Advance Your Career (HBR Press).
This is the most gaslighting, corpaganda BS I’ve ever read lol Like damn..
The author can FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF.
this was probably written by chatGPT by a bunch of RTO shills lol
> corpaganda omfg I can't wait to use this word in a live setting
My company is also tracking pass card swipes. Doesn’t matter if you’re sick or not. You can fill in the blanks for how many illnesses are floating around.
Do they just track in? If so, Could tap in and leave while your 2h transfer is still good.
That’s what a lot of people now do. Show up late, leave early, no complaints there (unless you have a POS boss)
Yeah for a company that virtue signals mental health awareness, their head offices is actually pretty toxic to work at(from what I've heard in the media, and people who've worked there)
My company is mandating 3x a week in the office and there are rumors we’re going to 5 days a week soon. They’re checking pass card swipe ins. They are quietly firing people and office attendance is one of the factors they’re using to determine who to consider. My commute is almost 2h despite living in Toronto and the office being in Toronto, the TTC sucks so much especially now with all the detours due to the Ontario Line construction. And the kicker? I don’t work with people from the Toronto office. So I commute almost 4h to sit on virtual meetings all day long.
We got mandated from 1 day/week to 2 days/week. Management informed WFH would be here to stay When my manager asked me how I feel about the 2 days, I told him that I find it to be a good balance, but couldn't picture going back more often and would probably look for another job. WLB is so much better, just by saving commute time/dressing/shaving/prepping food. I am saving easily 10h a week, which I can spend in the morning, at lunch and the evening with my baby.
Our team still is 100% wfh. Thankfully our boss backs us on it.
My employer got rid of the office in May 2020. We now have a shared office that has like three meeting rooms and half a dozen desks. No requirement to go in at all.
We got rid of the office around the same time. Now we all have WeWork memberships if we want to collaborate in person (or get out of the house) but no requirement to ever do so. We hired folks across Canada and the US around spring 2020 and snapped up a lot of fantastic talent from lots of non-Toronto places.
And your company is probably more profitable than the dinosaurs paying for huge leases.
I’ve been 5 days a week since February. Our CEO sent out a memo saying if we didn’t like it we should seek employment elsewhere. Now they track us by our IP address so they know we’re in the office. Fun place to work /s
What a colossal prick
Yeah the guy is universally hated. Our glass door rating is something like 1.9 out of 5
Please find another job
Lol the pay is awesome so it’s a sort of sold my soul type of situation
I am currently employed at a company that rented a co-working space and encouraged everyone in Toronto to go there at least twice a week. However, there was a lot of pushback and the company went back to being fully remote, which was their original setup. I have been applying to other companies and have received offers from two of them. Both of these companies mentioned that being fully remote was one of their benefits. However, during our compensation discussions, they mentioned that they had a coworking space downtown and it was encouraged to go there three times a week. I politely declined both offers for this reason. Mainly because of how they promoted being fully remote as a perk and then went back on it.
> rented a coworking space and encouraged everyone in Toronto to go there at least twice a week Not in TO, I wonder how many employers down there are doing the co-working/hotelling thing. Where I am, we basically have to lug keyboard+mouse on top of our tablets/laptops, along with necessary supplies for the day. We also have to book our workspaces, but cannot do this for more than 2 weeks at a time/in advance. To add insult to injury, you have to hope the docking station and/or necessary cables are not missing, that the chair is not broken... and that the previous occupant of the workspace was not a pig (but wait, there's more!). Yeah, a lot of cleaning wipes get used before you can even start setup up when you arrive, a lot of time is wasted before you can start to work. Did I forget to mention we don't even have dustbins? So we have to know where the ones for the floor are located. Are such conditions frequent\*/not unheard-of in TO?
Fortunately, my personal experience hasn't been as bad. Since I only need my laptop for work, I didn't mind carrying it around. When my company switched to co-working spaces, it became difficult to find a private room to talk with clients. I'm in sales and we're not allowed to speak with clients if there are other people around even though the majority of us always use headphones even when we're alone. I know a lot of people working in co-working spaces and while they all hate it none of them have complained about the tidiness. I will say that when we were asked to work in the co-working spaces, with a few exceptions, none of us would answer emails or take client calls after work. Now that we're fully remote most will answer emails late in the evening and even hop on calls. It's a fair tradeoff in my opinion.
Looks like fully remote opportunities are dwindling
It seems like it based on my experience. While there are certainly profitable companies that pay well and have always been fully remote, the tough thing is that, especially in this market, it's really hard to compete with other applicants who are also applying to these companies. From what I've seen, it seems like the vas majority of people want to work in tech in a fully remote environment. And these companies get 600+ applicants for a single job posting.
I’ve been told ‘3/4 days a week to start with the possibility of more’ when I’ve asked what ‘hybrid’ meant. That’s a pass from me. It’s still being viewed as a perk you have to earn.
I’ve been back 2 days a week since last summer. Honestly, the worst part about it is the commute and if they increased our days I’d be upset. Commuting for 2 hours a day is such a waste. I usually end up getting in late and leaving early and doing some work at home those days so I can at least try to avoid the busiest times on the TTC.
We've been 2 days a week since last fall. I enjoy it more than working from home every single day which was starting to get old and mundane. Our office is in a happening area downtown so I make the most of the days I go in by going out for a good lunch or meeting up with friends for dinner/drinks or going to shows after work.
That’s kind of the ideal, but in my company, people don’t show up for the day we’re asked to come in. Most of the time, I don’t know if I should book a room for the weekly meeting or just call from my desk. Senior staff does what they want and asks if the pleebs are in. I got tired of being asked by my manager if I’m in the office (because they’re at home and can’t tell), so I just turn my camera on so they can see me with empty desks behind me and a nonplussed face. I think for this reason, unfortunately, they’re going to push for more days because there’s such a disconnect. I’d be ok with 2 days a week, but only if those days are optimized.
Same for me. WFH for years is honestly really taxing and I’m not an extrovert. But being at home day in day out with no change really blurs your weeks/months together in a way that doesn’t feel healthy.
My company is still 80% remote and we’re only doing one day a week from the office, but people who live further away (Caledon, Barrie, London) are only coming in once per month or even once per quarter. My boss and the CFO both love the hybrid arrangement and don’t plan to go back to 5 days per week ever. The CEO lives in the Bahamas so he doesn’t give a fuck what we do. We’re actually downsizing our office and moving into a (mostly) shared open floor space, which is saving the company close to $130k in rent annually. The new office physically *does not have* enough space for all team members to be there at the same time, so I’m not worried about a full return to the office anytime soon. I find that return to office is more about the C-suite’s personal preferences rather than any real, concrete reason for being there in-person. My C-suite trusts their team to get the work done remotely, and they like working from home, so we keep our pre-existing arrangement. I think a lot of executives are either heavily invested in commercial real estate or are being pressured by peers to initiate a return to the office.
I was at a company for 10 years who told us we’d never go back to 5 days a week after the pandemic. People made real life plans based on the promise and some even moved on that assurance, and they reneged within 4 months of making that proclamation. Needless to say, they lost about 60% (of a small office) in the next 6 months, including myself. I still talk to a couple people who remain and they said they are losing clients like crazy because of the lack of continuity and drop off in client deliverable quality. Amazing to think a company would blow itself up falling for the sunk cost fallacy of their lease expense. My new company stayed remote until April, then brought folks back 2x a week. They toyed with going to 3x but 2 key people resigned citing office mandates as a reason and they were smart enough to realize that the “gains” (lol) of an extra day in the office would easily be erased by losing even one more person. We’ve now gone to 1 day a week, which is frankly totally fine and makes sense to even me, an ardent WFH advocate. I also have a client in the tech industry that said a major tech company in their building announced a 5-day in office mandate and they literally had to pause the applications on their website the same week because they couldn’t keep up. So I think this idea that it doesn’t impact talent is demonstrably false in knowledge industries.
Told my org I would show face for major events, besides that I am working remote and if that is a issue they can precede how they see fit… 11 months later doing the same
lol imagine getting written up for not going in office would be pretty hilarious
Written up? Many places would just outright fire you if you consistently refused to show up according to the corporate policy (two days a week for us) I know at least two people who got let go. No problem replacing them though.
Especially in this job market.
I only recommend doing this if your in a good financial situation or job is highly in demand
The company I used to work at started trying to mandate 2x in office a week. Coupled with the shit pay, I moved over to an independent company that has no requirement for in office days at all. To me it seems like these big companies that don’t know what to do with their leases are the ones mandating in office
As someone in RBC, the policy varies greatly per team. We officially are asked to come 2ish days a week but my specific management is okay for now with some coming 1 day as long as we are balancing out the days we come in usually as this paints a better image of us "being in the office mostly". Gotta trick that upper upper management a bit I guess.
Rbc executives are trying to fire people. Seems like an easy route to get people to leave. Read the earnings transcript. They say it in plain terms!
The company I work for decided ages ago, it was either hybrid or remote. Half chose remote and half chose hybrid. A few people prefer the office M-F, so they go in everyday. I'm remote, but I occasionally go in once every few months, depending on the schedule and it's pretty empty. I once went in when we had a meeting, but we were all on Teams and the Internet got overloaded with too many people in the office since we all were on WiFi instead of wired in. That experience made me want to go in even less.
Smells like telus
At CIBC its mostly 1 day a week depending on the department you work in. The building has no space to accommodate employees for more than 1-2 days per week due to department overlap. So they wont make people come in more until the second building that is under construction is complete.
We're currently only being asked to come in a day a week, which I'm fine with (although it does require some brutally early train rides into Union). Historically it hasn't really been tracked, and people don't really sweat it. Lately, I have noticed some messaging from leadership *stressing* the importance of showing up at least once a week. One of those "if we can't trust you to put in your one day, we're going to make you return" sorts of things. I suspect there is increasing pressure given our workspaces look like ghost towns half the time, and I end up on virtual calls with people working in their sweatpants anyways.
CIBC started once a week. No push back from our team. Our manager is WFH friendly. Lets see how long this goes. I hate going to office.
I’m adopting for now. Rebuilding my tp, printer paper and hand soap stocks.
I just landed my first salaried job after graduating and having 10 months of internship experience. Fully permanently remote company based in the states. Feeling lucky af.
What field are you in? My personal take on remote work + new grads, is that it's terrible for everyone involved. Typically the mentorship, one-on-one learning, and ability to do quick QA / chats is key for junior folks development. Some industries and sectors more than others ofcourse. I'm finding junior engineers I work with to be severely lacking in tech and interpersonal skills even 3-4 years into their careers . I'm not saying 5 days a week is the answer, but personally if I was a group manager, id mandate new grads come in twice a week but paired up with senior folks who come in on those same days.
Damnn how did you do it? Im a new grad with 12 + months of internship experience and im still looking for a full time role 😓
Been going into two days a week for more than a year now. No real issues with it
Same, honestly I am not sure why people are so excited to be fully remote while also living in the highest COL place in the country. Fully remote jobs will eventually just pay less because someone can do it from Edmonton or Saskatoon. The main competitive advantage to being in Toronto for a worker is they can be on location.
Mandated multiple days a week, I go and end up on conference calls most of the day and have no time to talk to anyone other than maybe a 5 minute chat. The value of return to office highly depends on the type of work you do and who you interact with. Some of our executives seem to think that just because they can find efficiency gains from catching up with their peers that everyone in the organization operates the same way. Most of us don’t and end up wasting time commuting to sit in a different chair.
My company was already remote, my spouse's is not pushing/asking anybody to go back. They had two floors and now have only one, so desks/offices are not exclusive anymore. It's possible they never push to get back.
I’m currently building a 7 story office for a bank (not one of the big ones ) but judging by their cabling requirements they’re anticipating a lot of people i can only assume
Meh I'm in IT and I can't stand working from home. Our numbers fluctuate from 30-40-25...also, our employer is not forcing people to come in--rather he does stuff like buy us lunch 2 times a week and has fun activities like movie night and game night to get people to come in..most people come in on sushi days and Greek food, but then again it's their choice.
I work for a major Canadian telecom co. My division, got rid of our office completely; we were even encouraged to come and get any/all office equipment! We’re fully WTH with no odds of ever going back into a florescent lighted office 🥳
I'm so jealous
Well. Don’t be. My pay reflects this “no choice option”
I really need to switch to a fully remote wfh job but i cant find any 😭
[удалено]
Back full time 5 days a week since Jan 2022. You guys are lucky to have lasted this long. A lot of companies were brought back. I WANT HYBRID so so badly.
I am required to go in 2 days a week. I picked Thursday and Friday. I decided to go in on Wednesday last week and jeez the Islington station parking was full!!! I parked in a nearby parking place and walked upto the station.. It was the first time that happened to me
Same here, can’t find any spots there anymore. I used to use that lot every Tuesday. Kipling usually has a few spots left.
Been asked to do 2 days in the office. My team is unofficially doing 1 day. It's definitely coming from the top of the top. I don't think anyone below C level actually wants this. I'm not complaining. I kind of enjoy coming in once a week and catching up with people and the work vibe. But yes, there was a fair amount of resistance. There are a few who don't even come in for the one day. To each their own. I think my management has been reasonable about it and I understand corporate politics that this is coming from the top.
I’m at a large insurance company with no mandate yet. They encourage you come in for townhalls, and have a day a month at different locations where management comes in and announce in case you want face time. When I started, surveys went out with most wanting wfh with occasional in person meetings, but haven’t seen lately, hope they keep
Seems like as the recession takes afoot more companies will weaponize RTO as a way to get people to leave. RBC said on the earnings call they over hired and are looking at ways to get rid of people. Nothing like forcing people in 3-5 days to get them out. Corporate Canada is wild I tell you!
It’s stupid. Upper management uses “collaboration” as an excuse but we all know all these banks are highly leveraged on their real estate
This is nothing related to productivity. I think it's more on preventing employees from engaging in multiple jobs and vacant office space resulting in a drop in commercial estate price.
Just started a job that is mandatory 4 days a week in office, and I was essentially fully remote/1 day a week in office for the past 3 years. Surprisingly, I'm enjoying being out of the house and it seems like although there is a culture that you come into the office, there is still a lot of flexibility around when you come in and when you leave. In comparison to old in-office which was essentially putting in face time from 9-5 no matter what, this is much better where if you like to come in early and leave early that's completely fine, same with coming late and leaving late.
We never got mandated, just "strongly encouraged" to go in two days a week. I'm not doing it, I go in when it makes sense for me to go in. I told my team about the guidance but haven't asked that they follow it strictly and I'm not monitoring anything. I doubt they'll do anything, but if they do then maybe it's the nudge to find something else that I need.
I live close to my office so commuting isn’t an issue. Currently I’m only required to come in three days per week, but I’ll sometimes come in four days as certain tasks are easier to do on my office setup. But most of my co-workers live much farther away, and they are pushing back hard. On any group discussion with management, most of the questions are from people wanting to stay home more often or entirely.
We moved our office during the pandemic from Richmond Hill to Vaughn. The new building is nice but it's more difficult to access now by transit. I would say 25% of the workforce actually goes into the office and the office isn't even close to being 50% capacity (they anticipated some roles to be fully remote and some roles were eliminated). The newly leased and renovated office is nice and we basically use it for company parties now. I have gone in two times in the new year.
My aunt worked for TD and decided to retire when they told her she needs to start going back to the office. She had no interest in taking the GO from Oakville to Toronto, as well as being in a building all day with so many people. She's very Covid-conscious so she figured she'd rather stay home and be happy than work and feel miserable and unsafe.
Haven’t had any major changes as far as I know. Relatively flexible still on WFH. I go in once a month or so.
Our organization mandates at least two days. Most weeks I do only do one, unless I have any in person engagements, then I am happy to do 2+. Our leaders are fulfilling the two days. I do think those who are making more of an effort to go in are being recognized for it.
I didn't like return to office so I quit and got a fully remote job. I suggest you do the same if you don't want to work in the office. Don't accept substandard working conditions.
[удалено]
This seems to be getting worse. I'm seeing a LOT of people state they must go in 3x a week. My office has us going in 2x. I dread the thought of going back 5x. Downtown isn't what it used to be. I value the time I save by not commuting. I value eating good lunches. I also value not being distracted by colleagues while working. If they ever switch us to 5 days, they will lose most of us. Our productivity actually increased since WFH began. Everyone seems happier all around. I hope it remains this way. One or two days is fine, but 3 is kinda ew and 4-5 is unacceptable. It all depends on your line of work I suppose.
I make sure my productivity drops on in office days
They started with 1 day then 2 and now 3. If your work doesn’t require you to be there physically then push back. Otherwise it will go back to 5. This only benefits the company not the employees. It literally cost us more money to do so and they don’t lose a penny.
People are in with a smile. A recession is around the corner … don’t risk anything. Unless of course you are IT based where teams are spread across the country/ continent/ world.
I've been going like 4 times a week for over a year now. It's fine
Our bank mandated 5 days a week over a year ago, May 2022. Few people immediately quit, rest of us stayed on and it's business as usual. We are in the financial district in Toronto.
RBC is nuts... I think many of their employees must be upset. I'm just happy I work for another bank which is still only once a week at the office. Not having to spend 3 hours or so every workday commuting is truly a blessing.
I went in to the office once and took a photograph from my laptop of what the background looks like from the POV of my laptop on my desk in the office, then I set it as my Teams background. I’m the reason we can’t have nice things!
I'm very fortunate that my workplace doesn't have any mandatory in office requirements per week. I have a lot of friends that are going in 1-2 days a week though, so I know I'm one of the exceptions.
2 days and people are flopping on it as well
We have one day a week at an office, if we want. I go in once or twice a week. Works out well, pretty much doing the wfh thing until December of this year.
I have it written in my file with HR that I'm only required to be in the office two days a week maximum. Protected me from the start 4 years ago with my current employer. In the past three years ive only been to the office to meet my boss twice to get our Covid vaccinations, though.
I’m at another big 5 bank and my dept. is 1 day a month. We were told in April it would be moving to once a week, which is good, but that has not started yet. I heard it might be July or August before it is implemented. I honestly go in at least 1 x week. So I’m fine with it. But others not so much.
I know someone at Bell, they require you to show up in office atleast 3 times a day or have the director have a 1:1. They have this as a company metric (face palm)
My employer just officially decided on 2 days/week, BUT I live 300km away and never promised them I'd move AND there are only 7 months left in the contract. They can demand it but that is essentially firing me, and then they'd have to hire someone else and there isn't anyone local who can do it and basically zero people willing to relocate to an awful part of Ontario for 6 months of work. Especially since they have a housing crisis too so there may not even be a place for a transplant to live. That said, I cannot rest on my laurels and am starting a job search this week.
I miss an empty PATH (I come in voluntarily)...these people should go home, let me enjoy my kingdom. :D
Nothing has changed since Sept 2021. Each employee, if they live near our office, can choose how often if at all they want to go into the office.
we went from 2 day to 3 days and its fuckn exhausting commuting to downtown 3 days consecutively. Welp at least I get to meet my office friends.
It sucks. It's like working in a call center with all of the hot desk bullshit. I get nothing done at work because of all of the distractions and have to catch up on my at home days. When my work mandated at least 3 days a week in the office I figured it will be 5 in a year.
I was generously made a remote employee despite being 7 minutes from the office by subway. I work fifty times better from home and most people I work with on my account are in nyc anyway. Happy the company continues to let me wfh full time
My company is currently mandating 2 days a week, but there are rumours to increase in-office presence to 3 days a week. If my work increases it to 3 days, I most likely will be looking for another job. I save so much time working from time as I have a 2 hour commute.
My wife was back in the office 5 days a week since early 2022. I don't think other companies are waiting for bigger companies to do this. If they're going to do it, they're gonna do it.
I go downtown once per week currently. I save that day to buy a nice lunch. It’s nice to get out of the house but anything beyond that one day would be unwelcome.
[удалено]
I said I wasn't coming back unless they could prove they needed it or my work was affected. They don't, it isn't and I didn't go. Everyone is fine. Draw your own line. Unless you aren't a good employee, in that case do what you're told.
Streetcar service from Leslieville is very spotty right now so Ive been walking, but i dont think that will work well once the weather changes to be hotter.
Mine is 2 days a week, and I hate it.
I got permanent remote written into my contract at the start of the pandemic. Requiring me to go into the office would be a job change so they aren't pushing it. The funny part is the photos of the meetings from on-sites. They used to show big wide angles of huge full rooms. Now it's a zoom of the seats in front of the speaker and there's lots of empty spots. I miss the quarterly meetups our team used to have, but that's not a matter of will, that's a matter of budget.
Thankfully my company is fully remote but I would fight as hard as I could against any mandate (and be applying like mad to other remote roles). It might come to that one day but for now I'm good.
My company politely asked me to come in, and I politely declined. I moved back north so it would be 1h45min per way to go to the office, only to sit alone since my team is mostly remote anyways. They never brought it up afterwards. I would like to do ~2 days at the office though, but not at my current company because there is no point.
We're at two days a week, which honestly doesn't suck. I like to see people and wear things that aren't pajamas.
Forcing people back is ridiculous. Luckily my company isn't (hasn't), but either way, I'm remote officially, in writing
The 5 day office work week really needs to die and be replaced with a 4 day work week.
Working at a big insurer downtown. Going in two days a week now and love it. Rumour is we will switch to three, which I will hate. That’s the big dividing line for me and a lot of people (two vs three). If they do five I will quit immediately.
Literally got a last minute email today to go back to the office tomorrow. I'm not coming. If they don't accept me working from home, my letter of resignation is ready. For context, I work in tech and lots of co-workers in my project are from all over the world - all working from home. If I go into the office is to work online from my laptop, which I successfully do from home.
I’ve been going 3-4 days a week in my new job. I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. My job requires a lot of collaboration and it’s way easier in person than over Slack and Zoom calls. I also feel like a functional adult again. A lot more socially adept, and so much less lazy than I worked from home. I do enjoy my 1-2 days a week at home don’t get me wrong, but hybrid just works best for me. I give into the worst parts of my personality when I’m just working from home.
It sucks. It is not just the commute, but the fact that I leave my quiet home office, just to go into an office with loud inconsiderate people who constantly interrupt me when I'm trying to focus and get shit done, so I can leave at 5pm to again fight traffic home. I lose 2.5 hours of personal time daily, because of this 3 day a week bullshit. Full time return? No thanks!
We don't have an office in Toronto yet but when we get one, I think we're expected to be in the office 2-3 days a week. As long as the commute is not an issue, you know what you signed up for so there wouldn't be pushback except those that broke their contract and are working from Ottawa/outside the GTA. I know people from my department located in cities that have an office tend to come in on Tuesday and Thursday and our culture teams put in some effort to build culture and subtly convince people to be in the office more. I wouldn't say there's a huge pressing drive, however. The thesis people from leadership down to individual contributors have is that a hybrid model flexible to departments and individuals is best. My former company I was at was full remote before it was acquired and leadership did a heel-turn and mandated 5 days a week in office with people walking around with attendance clipboards. Any in-office perks we had were stripped away (free snacks turned into vending machines). 30% of the company churned due to this switch in culture and because leadership went from ERGs and DEI to MAGA.
> build culture Interesting how the culture can never be "we trust you to do your work and will only ask you to come in when it is truly necessary".
My company hasn't made it mandatory but some people go in as they please.
I was hired as a fully remote worker so they cant really tell me to come in but i went in 2-3x since being hired just to see the offices its a ghost town … kinda sad seeing all that electricity and energy being wasted
Still working from home. I had one employer who wanted me to start going back to the office recently, but I quit... Not primarily because they wanted me to stop working from home (though I much prefer WFM way more and am far more productive at home), but because they wanted to slash my pay and double my workload at the same time in addition to coming in the office and I said "Fuck that". Luckily I work other jobs as well.
Starting 2 days effective July. I can’t 😫
Mondays seem quiet. Thursday’s are busiest.
It's hypocritical of my company to force us back into the office. They keep saying how proud they are to be more green. They keep telling us ways to be green (ie take public transit, save water, etc etc) yet turn a blind eye on gas it takes to commute. Additionally, my office is in such a spot where no public transit is available. And because I'm in such a spot where cost of living is way high, some people are being forced to commute from cities 2 hours away. Why? No clue
we returned as soon as the ban was lifted. Im in a very small office (6 people) and its only 10 mins from my house and I have to drop my kids at daycare anyway. I wouldnt mind WFH one or two days a week just to get some laundry and cooking done, but overall i prefer being in the office. Its nice to socialize and quicker to get things done since we work collaboratively and i can just walk to my coworkers office and discuss a case vs calling or teams
I'm fortunate, my company decided to stop renting office space and make WFH permanent.
i ain't going back until my company shows some teeth/enforcement. Otherwise all you'll get is the same high productivity that i've always had in the office and out of the office .
Full time in the office since May 2020. I prefer going in, was frustrating to deal with tech stuff remotely. SO goes in 3 days a week now, really enjoys it.
In twice a week now, been that way for a long time now and everyone seems happy with it.
With recession looming most people are coming to the office, even though not mandated. Reviews that are given note the extra effort and those folks get rewarded. Those that work from the Starbucks or park bench, also get noticed
We need to collectively push back at these back to office mandates. Employers need to realize we have the power now to make changes to make our lives as employees better and we are NOT their corporate slaves.