For reasons I won't get into, after the pandemic our local office ended up with desks for 75% or so of the employees. So if you wanted to come in, you reserved a desk, if you wanted to stay at home, that was fine.
Then the diktat came down from corporate headquarters: Everyone must be back in the office, unless their contract specifically said remote work. Pitchforks! Loads of objection from all the people who had gotten used to working from home and quite liked it. And of course there was the problem that we didn't actually have space for everyone.
Then an opportunity came up to get rid of our sub-lease on the current property, which could potentially simplify the process of getting a newer, larger office that could accommodate everyone; so word went out that everyone was going to go back to WFH for a period of time. Pitchforks again! This time from all the people who didn't enjoy WFH for all the reasons you mentioned.
In the end corporate has had to be satisfied with people coming in at least one day a week; and we're squeezing more people into the current office while still looking for another office to move into. But it's interesting to see the dynamics you mentioned -- lots of people prefer to WFH, lots of people definitely don't.
FWIW I've never had much trouble "turning off" work, even when I was using the same computer for work and personal things. Now that I've got a corporate laptop, it's even easier -- unplug it from the external monitor, close the lid, and forget about it until it's time to open it again, be that overnight or over the weekend or over the holidays.
Amen to that.
That's why the key is NOT FORCING RTO. If you want go to the office because reasons, do it. If you prefer WFH because reasons, do it.
You are either a goal-oriented workplace, where this would be natural, or you are a classical "show me you are committed to work by being there many hours" place, where then it's just WFO.
I found WFH forced a level of personal growth and adaptation for me to handle this, but its growth that I would have definitely benefited from before.
Previously while working in an office, I couldn't disconnect even when not home(on call, often called in while not on call to help). I ended up getting my own phone again to be able to leave work at home and go out to be able to disconnect, but mentally I never really did.
Now I work from home and that additional always on pressure was amplified that much more, and made me face the fact I had horrible life balance mentally and needed to learn to properly disconnect and compartmentalize.
Learning and practicing that has helped me in a lot of cases outside of work, and continues to help me with work. I can easily walk away from work and not think about it for hours/days even without guilt or significant struggles, something I couldn't do the decade before while working in an office.
So for those that struggle to disconnect with WFH, I can empathize but strongly suggest through whichever means they prefer (self directed, therapy or otherwise) they take the opportunity to practice and learn disconnecting more. Even if ultimately one prefers the office learning to disconnect is, at least in my experience, a very healthy skill to build.
Then the diktat came down from corporate headquarters: Everyone must be back in the office, unless their contract specifically said remote work. Pitchforks! Loads of objection from all the people who had gotten used to working from home and quite liked it. And of course there was the problem that we didn't actually have space for everyone.
Then an opportunity came up to get rid of our sub-lease on the current property, which could potentially simplify the process of getting a newer, larger office that could accommodate everyone; so word went out that everyone was going to go back to WFH for a period of time. Pitchforks again! This time from all the people who didn't enjoy WFH for all the reasons you mentioned.
In the end corporate has had to be satisfied with people coming in at least one day a week; and we're squeezing more people into the current office while still looking for another office to move into. But it's interesting to see the dynamics you mentioned -- lots of people prefer to WFH, lots of people definitely don't.
FWIW I've never had much trouble "turning off" work, even when I was using the same computer for work and personal things. Now that I've got a corporate laptop, it's even easier -- unplug it from the external monitor, close the lid, and forget about it until it's time to open it again, be that overnight or over the weekend or over the holidays.