And it wouldn’t be post-Labor day without coverage of the push back into the office, with many firms having set this week as yet another deadline to return to in-office working.
Basking.io has data on what’s been happening – it’s once-a-week visits. Workers showing up in person for just one day a week accounted for half of the office visitors globally in the second quarter of 2022, up from 44% the previous quarter. Two- and three-day visits accounted for about 35% of the total share, while four- and five-day visits made up about 15% (down from 21.5% in Q1).
The Washington Post with two parallel stories. The first is about those companies trying to force people back into the office, with occupancy levels hovering around 44 percent of pre-pandemic levels. The second article is on companies that intentionally build culture while remote, and many have done so long before the pandemic. The article is a good read – and focuses on the intentional choices made by leaders to create culture.
Because of this, Almost nine in 10 technologists in a recent survey agree that the very essence of their roles has changed over the past few years. But the journey has been exhausting, they admit. That from Cisco AppDynamics, who also found that At least 87% believe that, as technologists, they now need to “constantly reinvent themselves to stay relevant. More than half (56%) admit they feel “disillusioned and burnt out,” and more than three quarters say they still feel “under pressure to deliver innovation more quickly.”
Why do we care?
I like the second Post article because it involves specific examples – good reading if you’re looking for ideas; the key theme is intentionality here. Intentional reasons to come into the office and deliberate planning to build culture. You had better be calculated, too – this job isn’t getting any easier, and technologists are under a lot of pressure. The bonus episode from the weekend dives into one of the intentional ways to address this. That’s no accident.