Office or Home?

For most of the pandemic, Daniel’s company let everyone work from home. When that ended, the managers said that employees had to be in the office three days a week. Daniel worked better in silence, and he was not happy. He thought the company should ask its staff what they preferred.

On the first day, he remembered his laptop, but he forgot to book a desk. He tried working in the cafeteria, but it was too noisy. Then he tried headphones, but they only gave him a headache. After two weeks, he began working from the library on his free days.

The company’s survey seemed to confirm his worries. Most employees were less productive in the open-plan office, although the managers said that the numbers did not tell the whole story. Meanwhile, the HR director suggested that everyone should come in on Tuesdays so that teams could meet.

Daniel proposed a compromise. If each team chose its own schedule, he said, people could work from home on two days. Everybody would still come to important meetings in person. The managers wanted fixed rules, but he preferred a flexible system in case someone needed to look after a child.

At first, the director said no, but then she agreed to a three-month trial. The results were encouraging, so the company adopted the plan for good. Daniel no longer worked from the library. He only regretted that he had not spoken earlier: he had thought that nobody would listen, and he had been wrong.