I'm not here to put you down, but 40 hour work weeks aren't likely to change and the simple reason is just... It can't.
If you reduce the hours, you'll get paid less and they'll hire on a second person to handle the other hours. So now you double the hired force, sure, but they're also going to end up being paid substantially lower wages.
As for return to office on the government side, it is 100% a bypass against their efforts to stop them from firing a large number of people. That is the primary focus.
From a private company point of view, it is useful for several reasons:
Testing loyalty / investment of your employees.
Simplifies security.
It ensures that they're not just furnishing your home with furniture.
For point #3, we saw a good number of people crying that they had to return the standing desks to the company who paid for it. In normal office work, that desk could be reused. In remote work, that desk is now difficult to ship back.
I don't see anything wrong with that either. The company is paying for the desk, it is their property and not yours.
There are other reasons too, but these are pretty important ones to smaller companies.
I'm not here to put you down, but 40 hour work weeks aren't likely to change and the simple reason is just... It can't.
If you reduce the hours, you'll get paid less and they'll hire on a second person to handle the other hours. So now you double the hired force, sure, but they're also going to end up being paid substantially lower wages.
As for return to office on the government side, it is 100% a bypass against their efforts to stop them from firing a large number of people. That is the primary focus.
From a private company point of view, it is useful for several reasons:
Testing loyalty / investment of your employees.
Simplifies security.
It ensures that they're not just furnishing your home with furniture.
For point #3, we saw a good number of people crying that they had to return the standing desks to the company who paid for it. In normal office work, that desk could be reused. In remote work, that desk is now difficult to ship back.
I don't see anything wrong with that either. The company is paying for the desk, it is their property and not yours.
There are other reasons too, but these are pretty important ones to smaller companies.