Last Tuesday (1st), it rained non-stop in London. There was a strike on the subway. The buses were full. The news about Ukraine was disturbing.
All of this served as a dismal backdrop to a day that some companies, mine included, were hoping to make special.
It was March 1st, the day we were all supposed to get back to the office after nearly two years of mostly remote work. Serious attempts to lure us back had been made, starting with the company cafeteria.
“How much do I owe?” I asked as I ordered coffee in the morning. “Nothing”, they replied. Had I not read the email?
It seems that the week before, when I was on leave, the announcement came that food and drink would be free in the cafeteria in March and April to help workers reconnect to the office.
Slightly shocked, I saw my colleagues stacking pancakes and other free breakfast dishes on their plates.
At lunchtime, I joined them, chowing down on a large, free chicken fillet sandwich and drinking another equally free coffee; then I hesitated for a while, wondering if I should take advantage of the pie offered for dessert – also at zero cost.
Other gifts and activities had been arranged. A movie club, with free popcorn. Welcome drinks for new hires. What surprised me the most was the offer of free massages.
Based on what I’ve read, that puts the Financial Times high, alongside companies like Goldman Sachs, which offered free breakfasts, lunches and ice cream to its staff last year in an attempt to lure employees back to work. their work desks.
This month, free donuts, non-alcoholic cocktails and meditation classes were offered at the offices of Bank of Queensland, Australia, and other bank workers were offered free coffee and lunches delivered to their desks.
All these developments are great, but I’m not sure they’ll work. As delicious as the free food is, she must face a formidable rival in the battle to get workers back to the office: the commute from home to work.
The main reason remote workers across the globe say they fear returning to the office is the time, cost and discomfort they face getting to their desks each day.
In the United States, a remarkable 74% of workers surveyed responded that the commute to the office is what bothers them most when returning to work, according to consultancy Korn Ferry. This is not surprising considering that the average commute from home to work rose to a peak of 28 minutes in 2019, according to the US Census Bureau, up from 25 minutes in 2006.
It is also not surprising that another survey by academic researchers last month showed that US workers believe that the main benefit of working from home is not having to face the journey from there to work, and that this advantage outweighs than the additional time with family, more flexible schedules and the reduction in the time needed to prepare for work.
Research shows that commuting to work is even more hated in the UK, which has some of the highest rail fares in Europe, if you have to buy a ticket on the day of travel.
In my case, the journey to the office last week was remarkably pleasant. A kind bus driver let me board without paying after I tried to use a pass that didn’t work at the turnstile. I managed to get a seat, even though the bus was packed with passengers because of the subway strike. Best of all, I sat behind a woman who took just a little longer than me to give up on solving Wordle’s challenge that morning.
Unfortunately, many of the passengers had much worse experiences. Some were unable to board, because only crowded buses passed, and had to walk for miles in the drizzle. Others gave up and returned home.
The subway strike caused much, but not all, of the problem. It started at the same time that the biggest price hikes for train tickets in nine years took effect in England and Wales.
For some of my colleagues this means a daily cost of £28 (£20 off rush hour) for rail travel on more crowded trains than was the case before Covid.
They might have been content to pay the price without much fuss before the pandemic, but now, after two years of working without having to go to the office, the cost hurts more.
I don’t know how many free donuts it will take to ease that pain.
Translation by Paulo Migliacci
I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
