Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Five years after the pandemic, the remote work wars are still raging. Hi there, everyone. It's Jeff, and this is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with stories about current events and trending topics. You can and should spend some time studying English in the traditional way.
but it also really helps to get real-world, real-life stories written by a real person. Now, I've had people ask me if this is all artificial intelligence. And no way! It's real. It's real, authentic English, but we do it in a way that's accessible for English learners like you.
The speed is a little slower, and I describe the stories in a way that's easy for learners to understand. And this helps you see how English works in the real world. You learn new vocabulary and new ways of expressing your ideas. That's all part of the deal here at Plain English.
Well, this is episode number 754, and today's episode is about remote work. If you're an office worker, I have a question for you. How many days do you go into an office in a typical week?
For many of you, that number is less than five. But now a lot of companies are putting their collective foot down on remote work, insisting on full-time work in the office. So yes, five years after the pandemic, we are still talking about how many days people have to go into an office.
Just incredible. That's today's story. You can get all the episode resources, the transcript, the translations, the quiz, the exercises, the discussion area, all that you can find at plainenglish.com slash 754. That's thanks to JR, the producer, plainenglish.com slash 754.
Before we start today's story, I'd just like to remind you that the podcast is just one part of how we can help you upgrade your English skills. At plainenglish.com, you can make faster progress with active learning strategies. You can take quizzes, do activities, listen to the fast version of the audio, and learn
Watch video workshops, practice what you learn, and even join a live call with JR and me. It's all about helping you build your skills to become a better, more confident English speaker. Sound good? Go to plainenglish.com to start your free 14-day trial today. Now, let's jump into today's story.
Five years ago this month, companies around the world sent their people home. Employees who worked at a computer took their laptops home and began a great work-at-home experiment.
If you worked in technology, management, advertising, public relations, finance, sales, or like me at the time, consulting, then you stopped going into an office and started doing all of your work in your living room or a spare bedroom.
This set off a scramble to redesign working life for a remote work world. Employees carved out workspace in their homes and redesigned their personal routines. Companies invested in remote working software like Zoom, Teams, and Slack.
But the question was always going to be, what would happen after the pandemic passed? Some people upped sticks and moved to large houses in remote areas, convinced they would never need to report to an office again. Others got stir-crazy at home and yearned for the days of going into an office.
By early 2022, most government restrictions on movement and gathering in public had been relaxed, but the struggle over remote work was just beginning.
Employees had gotten used to the flexibility and freedom of remote work. They saved time and money on commuting, and they could better incorporate childcare, household chores, and healthy eating into their daily routines.
But company bosses worried that remote workers would slack off, or at minimum, that they wouldn't be as productive or creative working separately rather than together. Well now, five years after the pandemic started,
And three years after it was safe to work in offices again, the question still has not been resolved. Many companies have a hybrid arrangement where employees have the flexibility to work remotely at least some of the time. But often this masks inequality within the workforce.
Most hybrid offices have a few people who almost never come into the office, while others are in every day. As a rule, company bosses want less remote work, and now they are starting to push for less remote work. To get it, they are using a mixture of carrots and sticks.
Carrots being rewards, sticks being punishment. Let's start with the sticks, or the punishments. Jamie Dimon is the boss of JPMorgan Chase, a global bank. He has long been a skeptic of remote work, and now his patience is running out.
At the beginning of 2025, the bank announced the end of remote work. Employees would be expected in the office five days a week. Hundreds of people signed a petition against the move. In an employee town hall, the bank's boss said he didn't care how many people signed that petition.
The comments area of the webinar had to be turned off. In late 2024, Amazon said the same thing. Starting at the beginning of 2025, hundreds of thousands of employees would have to be back at their desks five days per week.
WPP, the UK-based advertiser, started enforcing a four-day-per-week mandate. Do you know the website WebMD? WebMD's parent company produced a video scolding staff who didn't come into the office. The smiling CEO ended the video by saying, We aren't asking or negotiating.
Dell, AT&T, and even the American federal government are all enforcing a five-day-per-week in-the-office model. How are they enforcing the new rules? Some companies are starting to use information like badge swipes, desk reservations, and other data to monitor office attendance.
And even companies that don't prohibit remote work are using office attendance as a performance metric. New software firms are popping up to help companies track office attendance and integrate it into HR conversations and performance management.
One accounting firm in the UK is emailing staff and their bosses a summary of their working locations each month. The not-so-subtle message is that more days in the office is better. Many people interpret these moves as a way of reducing or changing the workforce without announcing layoffs.
The employees that don't want to come into the office can quit, and managers have another ready-made excuse to fire employees they don't like. Oh, you weren't in the office five days per week last month? That's against policy. See you later. But this approach can annoy even the star performers who do go into the office most of the time.
As one commentator put it, nothing says I don't trust you like a mandate with badge swipes monitoring your every move. But not every company is resorting to mandates. Some are trying to make the office a more attractive place to go.
Many are renovating and repurposing office space with more natural light and more comfortable workstations. Some are offering free meals and stipends for things like transportation, household services, and pet care. Is there an end in sight to the remote work battles?
Despite the headlines, most employers are settling on a compromise.
A little more remote work than bosses want, and a little less than employees want. One to two days of remote work lets employees have some flexibility in their personal lives, and remote work is now a bargaining chip in job negotiations. A talented employee who might have the option to work at Amazon
might accept a pay cut to go somewhere else with a more flexible policy on hybrid work. This is unbelievable. I remember in mid-April 2020, I was on a Teams call with some of my colleagues at the firm I worked for, and we were taking bets on when we'd be back into the office full-time.
And one person said the end of the year, the end of 2020, and everyone laughed. That was so ridiculous, we all thought. Surely this whole remote work thing was just another month or two.
I will mention that the perspective I shared in this story is very much of the English-speaking world. I would say the main message is applicable to the US, Canada, and UK, but I read a study from JLL, a big office landlord, that talked about remote work in Latin America, and it found that the number of workers doing full remote work is
is not much higher now than before the pandemic. But the percentage of hybrid work, a few days in the office, a few days at home, the percentage of hybrid work went from 26% to 72%. So hybrid work is catching on in Latin America too, at least in the types of jobs where it's possible.
You know, someone told me the pandemic would destroy plain English. You heard that right. The person said that everyone listens in the car on their way to work. And if nobody goes to an office anymore, there's no time or place to listen to plain English. Well,
I knew better than to give up on all of you. You should see the notes I get. People telling me when and where they listen, on walks, in the kitchen, at night before going to sleep, in the office, at home, everywhere.
And listen, we've got new episodes twice a week. That's perfect for a hybrid work, right? All right. Well, this was episode number 754. And so you can find the full transcript and episode resources at plainenglish.com slash 754. Coming up on Thursday, the fires that affected so much of Los Angeles, California.
We'll talk about why the area is so susceptible to fires and what LA is doing to rebuild after this year's devastating wildfire season. That's going to be Thursday and next Monday. So we will see you right back here in just a couple of days.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. The version you listen to goes a little slower than native speed to help you understand better. But if you can easily understand this podcast, then you might benefit from the fast version of our stories and expressions. You see, every week we create two separate versions of the audio.
There's the slow version you just heard, and there's the full-speed version. The full-speed version sounds just as if I were talking to a native English speaker. Many plain English listeners use both the fast and slow audio to improve their listening.
And before you ask, no, there's no artificial intelligence and no computer manipulation of the audio. I personally record two separate versions of all our lessons so you can hear the most authentic possible English at the speed that's right for you.
So if you're ready to take the next step with your listening, go to plainenglish.com and sign up for a free 14-day trial. As soon as you do that, you'll unlock the fast version of our episodes. You can even listen on a podcast app. Go to plainenglish.com and sign up for a free trial today.