Viral LinkedIn post exposes return to work frustrations

Despite employers’ hopes that employees will want to return to the workplace following months at home, staff still want to maintain this perk and continue remote work.

This comes even as the Covid vaccine process ramps up throughout the UK and the PM’s plans to ease restrictions later this month.

Employees at tech giant Apple have recently echoed these feelings, as staff wrote a letter to the business imploring CEO Tim Cook to change his mind over the company’s hybrid work model, which will see employees come in three times a week from September.

Now a viral LinkedIn post which criticises employers for asking staff to return to work has struck a cord with many users of the professional site.

Lauren Pope, content marketing manager at Oracle, shared that “fully remote work is being treated like a recruiting perk or bonus”.

She added: “How are you going to tell your employees they need to “prove” they’ve “earned” the “privilege” of remote work when they kept your business afloat from their dining room table for 18 months?”

Pope also explained that it was “interesting (stupid) how WFH was considered a “vital necessity” to keep companies afloat last year”.

The post, which has since garnered over 30,000 likes and over a thousand comments has received mixed responses from users, with some criticising Pope for stating that employees kept businesses afloat.

For example, Natalie Austin, HER marketing manager at Remarkable Health, wrote that Pope’s statement was “entitled”, adding: “You can believe you kept their business afloat, but they also kept your household afloat by keeping you employed during a time when many businesses screeched to a halt.

“If an organisation prefers the collaboration that an in-office setting offers, they have a right to require employees to be at work when it’s ‘safe’.”

In contrast, Stefan Boehmer, executive vice president (VP) & chief financial officer (CFO) at Siemens Logistics, stated “a lot of employees can work from home. They know their job, they know the colleagues and they are good at it,” suggesting therefore why shouldn’t remote working continue.

Elsewhere, Elliott Duda, director of global fulfillment at Transearch, wrote: “I 100% agree with this statement.” However, he also pointed out that there is a percentage of people that do feel more effective being in an office, demonstrating the other side of the coin.

Whether or not remote work will stick in the near future remains to be seen. But with businesses such as Deloitte, Facebook and Twitter all informing staff that they can work from home indefinitely, this could soon become part of the norm as employees return to work this year.