> Do employees hold firm on these demands or just return to the office grumbling?

My career long experience has been that with any major hits to quality of life at a company: not every employee follows through, only the good ones.

While the switch to WFH might be a new issue, there have been continually waves of quality of life changes at companies durning different stages of growth. An obvious one is direct cuts to benefits, but others include rapid decrease in perks offered, change in vacation policy, change of office location etc.

In my experience good employees are quick to change whenever the signal from employers changes from "we respect you are want to reward you" to "we obviously don't care, or can't afford to care".

This happens all the time in startups that lose their trajectory. Snacks disappear, flexible work hours become more rigid, bonuses shrink etc.

So long as there are competitors out there who still offer these perks, good employees will leave often within a few months of the change. This causes a cascading effect where there are less good people on the team, so more and more people leave. Even if you don't care about perks, you care about good team mates.

I have seen multiple companies where after a major shock like this nearly all of the best and brightest are gone within a 6 month window.

What's funny about WFH is that the people that like it, like it so much they'll take a lower total comp to WFH. In the case of all the other perks I mentioned, a company has to pay more to keep them (and top talent). Sometimes it's just not possible to do this. With the return to office you're effectively spending money in drive out your top talent.

I'm sure plenty of companies will still do it, but I also suspect many companies that are looking for an edge will get an easy win by remaining remote friendly.

This is something that has come up within our company (we are still waiting on official guidance). I love WFH, for all the reasons you've read in other posts.

If we have to return, I won't quit. That's reckless, imho. But my resume will be updated and I will be open to remote positions. Many of my colleagues feel the same way.

> If we have to return, I won't quit. That's reckless, imho. But my resume will be updated and I will be open to remote positions. Many of my colleagues feel the same way.

This is what I assumed it would mean. Not that people would spontaneously quit, but that there would be some 30% of the workforce looking to be out the door.

The reason I wanted to be clear about that is I have heard stories about people quitting on the spot.

I believe the delay in my company releasing their plan for return to office has a lot to do with IT. We are having issues with finding enough folks as is. I couldn't imagine what it would be like if 30% put their notice in.

I would assume that number would be substantially higher for at least IT department type workers.

Studies are showing closer to 55% than 30%

>>Do employees hold firm on these demands or just return to the office grumbling?

Many such employees from this vocal minority will be cajoled back by employers allowing 1 WFH day. Perhaps more senior employees will be offered 2 WFH days, which to be fair would cut long commutes down by 40% per week.

In most such scenarios it seems companies will still require enough capacity for "peak" usage and instead of sharply reducing footprints will perhaps only delay their office expansion plans as they grow their staff.

One issue that isn't addressed by hybrid work models is the cost of living, availability of space, and neighborhood character. Those seeking a more suburban life or rural life can make that happen with fully-remote jobs, and in doing so, they can also find cheaper houses, get more land, and have a community that is different from what an urban location offers. But if you still have to to the office a few times a week, then that means you need to live within a commute distance - which limits the kind of lifestyles employees can have.

When it was announced that we were downsizing our offices and everyone was given the option to WFH if they wanted. One of my coworkers has been building his retirement home in a remote part of Maine. He immediately began looking for reliable remote high speed internet options to accelerate his timeline.

Being able to move into his retirement home early would dramatically reduce his cost of living because he would sell his current home and actually hasten his retirement by a number of years.

I don't know. I know a VP Engineering who negotiated a 2 week office / 2 week remote WfH arrangement at his homestead in Oregon. I think people can negotiate if they have the leverage to do so, be it collective action with many "lowly" employees or individual, high-status employees.