Adding an additional day in the office is not the way to retain employees. A hybrid schedule offers employees a positive work life balance. The CEO is completely out of touch with employees’ wants and needs. To require an additional day in office completely neglects and ignores so many things, while only giving employees a 3% annual raise, which if we’re being honest, doesn’t even come close to matching ever-rising inflation and cost of living. Here’s a non-comprehensive list of additional expenses I will incur, that I’m sure many of my fellow employees can relate to:
-Additional commuting costs including an extra day of gas, plus the additional wear and tear of driving extra mileage per week.
-Additional childcare cost for parents, including aftercare, due to the additional commute time per day.
-Additional food costs, whether due to an extra day of having to purchase lunch, or the extra food required to pack an additional lunch per week.
-Additional self care costs, such as the extra outfits and makeup worn per week.
We live in a time where most households, especially those with children, require two incomes. The CEO is making a decision that would have made sense 30+ years ago, when one adult was financially able to stay home and take care of household management and the other adult worked full time.
Work life balance is essential in today’s climate. With the additional commuting time, most employees are losing an additional 30+ minutes of their personal time, which they are not getting paid for. The additional commuting time also takes a toll on post work activities, that have to either be rescheduled to later in the evening or on the very precious and too-short weekend. In addition, this reduces the amount of time employees are able to spend at home with loved ones, especially children.
Employees are often more productive working from home because of the lack of distractions. The reason given for the additional day is to be more collaborative. The fact of the matter is that this simply isn’t true. Because of the nature of having employees spread out all over the country, video meetings are essential. We are currently in the office Tuesday through Thursday, and we often have video meetings on Mondays and Fridays anyway, even though we could have “collaborated” while in the office. In office collaboration isn’t happening currently, and adding an additional day will not change that.
It is a completely out of touch decision to expect employees to manage the additional strain on their wallet, household management, and mental health. This makes me strongly consider looking for other opportunities at companies that care about the morale and well being of their employees, rather than a company that cares more about its bottom line. Your people are your most important asset, and it saddens me that GAF clearly doesn’t believe that is the case.
