Work from office- Too early or Brave?

So the recent development is here, my office decided to open workplace for all the department thinking it will shoot up the productivity as working from home wasn’t doing good in terms of sales. Ever since I received the email I wonder what would have been the thought behind. Of course one option was to directly ask this question but since I am inclined towards my own perspective sometimes it is satisfying to draw my own story around.

I brought this up here, so that I could give you all a bubble for thoughts to stay in for a while. I do not intend to claim whatever is written here is true however a possibility for sure.

As a child I loved pretend playing as a CEO of a company and behave as I have own office and people to work with. I enjoyed the kind of power and freedom it gave in that play. Well I did the same this time, I was trying to wear shoes of the organization and employees to bring some reality to this inquiry.

Let me first begin by sharing my empathetic story line as an employee. 2020 took a great deal for me to adapt to the work from home set up. I made good personal expense setting up a home office. Since my work involved being on video and my voice I got some lights and microphone to lift up the quality. Apart from that my husband and I worked as partners for household responsibilities and also give each other productive space to work. Our work timings differ and so we ended up talking over lunch.

(Dinner timings were also different). Well this did work for couple months but eventually it was frustrating.

No sooner it was time that we finally got adapted to the new lifestyle. There was more to this, it was a blessing to work from anywhere as far as the promises were delivered hence we did go home and stay with parents and my sister. And it used to be a scene where all of us had our work rooms and corners and we met for food or catch up on lobby sort of meet. But Sundays were the best. We ended up planning so much more with the work from home lifestyle.

In December 2020, our parents asked us if we were ok to travel to home for 2weeks in April and happy us, we said ofcourse it should not be a problem since we are working from home so we could travel on a Sunday and work weekdays. The time was closer that soon I received office email saying we need to join office regularly from 1st April 2021. It was funny, my husband works in big MNC and they have officially declared this year too as no office year.

This made me frustrated and thinking why would my organization to this when the covid cases are shooting up and too risky to use cab and office where you would never know who is coming from where. I did try to speak but it seemed to be a DECISION.

Well I realised how Indian organization deal with the culture where we still have the people with following mentality that you discover from the below casual comments:-

1. Oh so you are leaving early from work today?

2. Working from home seems to managers as if employees are at the malls. Well some may have done that but the insecurity of leaders reflects when they make same rules for all irrespective of unique departments.

Like sales we do get their productivity is high when they are less distracted they pick more calls. But what about designers and content developers?

I mean they need their own space; Imagine a hall full of sales call and chit chat , in one corner someone trying to hit head over new curriculum or idea or content. It’s a disaster.

3. I see many co-workers compare the hours of work they put in with others or quantity of work. They simply do not get it that some folks require to get numbers and some are paid for being experts that comes from the years of experience working on fields. And that is frustrating, I guess more than bosses people keep proving to colleagues to stay away from being questioned.

4. x: why don’t you work from home, I see you getting troubled. y- sure. then also x to z, look y is working from home when we have to come to office. Also x kind of people are the ones who are floating to seek attention in self-pity. And more reason for managers to make same rules for all as they do not want to be questioned about the same. Ugh!!! it is certainly difficult to be a leader.

So leaders who thought going to office will increase the productivity has actually done wrong for some department or different mature of work.

This shows their is certainly lack of trust and some integrity issues. However I still feel that one rule cannot work for all. Like being in education we always believe that we need to look at children as individuals and each one has their own way to learn and so using different methodology. I guess we need such approach in organisation so that productivity and quality of work is not affected by individual’s view and fear

It was a nightmare to adjust working from home and it is a nightmare to readjust going to office with the risk.

My mom said your office will have someone to replace you but we would not have anyone to replace you with of something happens.

Although I chose to stay calm, go with the flow and manifest the lifestyle I want. It is much better than gossiping or cribbing around with people who are just talking and commenting in head. I am sure the company needs that space.

What do you think? And what’s your opinion?

– Shruti Nagar Dave