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Comment by dpflan | Hacker News Reader

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dpflan

> "Since the RTO, a lot of my colleagues have started working at 9 am and log out at 5pm pronto"

In office workers have more defined working schedules? Is that what this means? That seems healthy for the worker.

-- UPDATE --

Must consider the commute factor for time-demand on employee.

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i agree with the sentiment of your comment, but the pervasive RTO narrative from c-levels is not about restoring their employees' collective, holistic health. rather, it's couched in a narrative of productivity and community, the former being what i believe was being countered in the comment.

there's also the push/pull of the health benefits and disadvantages of commutes and other external factors that go into office-based dynamics. additionally, as i've mentioned in another comment on a similar thread, RTO mandates are not accompanied by corporate commitments to restore the cultures and environments that were present in the pre-remote migration which only intensifies the skepticism and recalcitrance of the workers.

edit: changed "ramps up" to "intensifies"

Employees working exactly 9 to 5 is absolutely the opposite of what employers doing RTOs for "productivity" want. They want them putting in unpaid overtime and are suspicious that they aren't when they're at home because they can't see them.

In a healthy work environment where there's high morale and trust, the exact work hours are going to be off somewhat on a day to day basis in either direction based on logical stopping points. In a toxic environment, workers will pretend to work towards the end of the day then go home exactly when the clock hits 5. Once they can, workers in such an environment will probably leave.

In a vacuum, yes. In practice, a ton of people I know spent all that extra time commuting which is probably worse for most people than putting some extra work in.

To me it says that working in an office+commute is much more draining than working at home. So much so that they work only the required amount. When they worked at home, they worked more because it was more enjoyable.

Flexibility has both costs and benefits, for both employers and workers. Being able to switch off and on work throughout the day is a significant benefit for many people, and many people experience having a less well-defined schedule as a significant cost. For some people the benefit will outweigh the cost and for others the opposite will be true. (And I'm sure for lots of people, they will think the benefits outweigh the costs, while actually working in an unhealthy detrimental way.)

But one size doesn't fit all. I'm honestly sympathetic to management of companies figuring out how to balance what's best for individuals with what's best for teams and organizations as a whole.

But I strongly believe that the most successful companies coming out of this period will be those who take this problem seriously, rather than those who pine for the old days and "solve" it with a one-size-fits-all edict from the top.

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