Working Well: Returning to the office can disrupt life. Here are some tips to navigate the changes

[December 27, 2024]  By CATHY BUSSEWITZ

NEW YORK (AP) — Jason LaCroix felt privileged to work from home, especially as a father to two young children. He needed flexibility when his son, then 6, suffered a brain injury and spent 35 days in intensive care.

LaCroix, a senior systems engineer based in Atlanta, took time off and then worked from home while managing his son's care and appointments. But LaCroix was laid off last February from that job, where he'd been working remotely for five years. His new role requires him to spend four days a week in a company office and commute for three hours a day.

“I want to be around for my kids,” LaCroix, 44, said. “It’s very important for me to be around for my son, because we almost lost him.”

Heading into 2025, thousands of workers face an unsettling reality: after years of working from the comfort of home, they must return to the office full-time for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic or look for new work.

Employees at Amazon, AT&T and other companies have been called back to the office five days per week. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to fire federal workers who don't show up to do their jobs in-person.

“People always want to have flexibility,” said Mark Ma, a University of Pittsburgh associate professor of business administration. “I have never heard anyone telling me that I thank my job because it’s so rigid in its schedule.”

Ma researched what happened when technology and finance companies in the S&P 500 stopped allowing employees to work remotely in recent years. He found the companies experienced high turnover rates after implementing return-to-office mandates, especially among female employees — who often have childcare responsibilities — and senior-level executives.

“Over the years, people have adjusted their lives. They’ve figured out, ‘Oh wow, I can pick my kids up for school. Wow. I can caretake for my aging parents while I am still working,'" said Shavon Terrell-Camper, a therapist and mental wellness coach. “Once you have tasted work-from-home ... it’s difficult to see your life going back to something that could’ve been unsustainable from the beginning.”

Workers and experts have advice to share about how to navigate the changes when an employer calls you back to the office.

Seek flexibility
Employers can compromise if their goal is to increase how much time staff members spend together. Ma suggests an “employee-choice” approach which gives teams the authority to decide how many days they will work in the office as a group.

If that's not an option, employees also can ask to adjust their hours. LaCroix leaves home at 5 a.m. and works in the office until 2 p.m. to reduce time in traffic and allow him to be home when his kids get off the bus after school. His employer requires eight hours in the workplace but is flexible on which hours.

“A lot of people are pushing back, and they are trying to work out scenarios to see what type of flexibility does exist within the mandate,” Terrell-Camper said.

Some are coming up with work-arounds that aren't endorsed by upper management. “Coffee badging” is a technique that involves heading to the office, swiping a company ID, having a coffee and leaving to work from home. Desperate to hold onto valuable employees, supervisors have tried a “hushed hybrid” approach, where they take their subordinates’ ID badges and swipe them “in” and “out” to make it appear they’ve been in the office, Ma said.

AP Illustration / Annie Ng

It's best to have an honest conversation with a manager about any personal needs and to “ask for forgiveness ahead of time, because your family is the most important thing,” said Amy Dufrane, CEO of the Human Resource Certification Institute. Many companies have employee assistance programs that do more than most people realize, such as directing employees to resources that can help them care for parents or children, she said.

Say what you need
Medical conditions can make it especially challenging to work on-site. Kyle Ankney, a public relations strategist based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has cerebral palsy and needs a nurse to help him change a catheter three times a day. His health insurance will only send a nurse to one location, so working in an office isn't an option.

“If that weren’t an issue, I could find my way into the office,” he said.

Ankney, who ran his own PR firm for years, was seeking director-level roles, but a recruiter told him he should consider less-senior roles because of his need to work remotely. Instead, he applied to director-level jobs that were advertised as on-site or hybrid, and then reached out to explain his circumstances and ask if the hiring companies were open to him working from home.

“While I would never normally, especially in a career setting, lead with, ‘I have cerebral palsy and I’m in a wheelchair,’ I’m finding that I'm almost having to make myself vulnerable in that way just to see if the opportunity is even there for me,” Ankney said.

Weigh your options
Landing a fully remote job can be competitive. “There are going to be many people that don’t have the luxury just to leave" their current jobs if they're required to return to the office, "especially in a volatile market such as we’re in right now,” Terrell-Camper said.

Attorney Holly Keerikatte was recently working on-site five days a week at a hospital, commuting about three hours a day and looking for a role that allowed more time with her family. She received two job offers. One was fully remote. The other paid 50% more but required a long commute. She recalled reading the phrase, “The only people who remember you worked late are your children.” She chose the remote job.

“My primary driver is what’s best for my family,” Keerikatte said. “My advice is to be up-front and transparent about what you want, what you’re looking for and why."

Find bright spots
When faced with the inevitability of returning to an office, look for the positives. Friendships can blossom as colleagues take coffee breaks together or sample new lunch spots. In-person conversations can spark ideas that wouldn’t surface at home.

Employers can ease the transition by organizing activities that create camaraderie. For example, managers can put together a series of talks about the transition and have groups share what works for them, Dufrane said.

Face-to-face contact allows people to better understand what colleagues are thinking and doing, which helps prevent resentment and can provide helpful feedback.

Video director Deborah Ann DeSnoo, who owns Plug-In Inc., a video production company in Chofu, Japan, says she has worked in many countries where the film industry was male-dominated and female directors like her were uncommon. She makes a point to connect with colleagues in person, giving her a chance to bond.

“You can read the air in a different way, and you find a solution,” DeSnoo said. “When you’re on a Zoom and they ignore you, there’s nothing you can do.”

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