Since lockdown ended, employees have been encouraged to return to face-to-face by their employers, who are not stingy with the argument – we should return to the office for creativity, innovation and most importantly, to build meaning. Companies are missing the simplest thing: the office, that place with a pantry that emptied when school started, has since the end of abundance become a place that offers electricity and heating at 19 degrees at will. It’s no longer a stash of paperclips and repositionable notepads that office life provides access to, but the ability to take your coat off to work, the ability to pee for free, even wash your hands with hot water.
In the UK, where energy bills have risen 45% in a year, the founders of coworking spaces Spaces and Deskpass have previously said they expect rising demand from those who don’t pay, rather than having their employer pay for the exploding costs of heating the Apartment where they teleworked.
Instead of trying to pretend they’re helping to change the world, the big companies that have trouble flirting with young graduates will end up highlighting the temperature of the corridors. The office will be the place where there is still mustard in the canteen. We use the kilowatt hours in the office like bars of soap in a hotel, without a guilty conscience. In companies with stricter overhead departments, the face-to-face meeting, this art forgotten in the Covid years, will allow group warm-ups. We will no longer try to reduce the number of participants at the table, anyone passing in the corridor will do it. The more we are, the warmer it gets for us.
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How do we recognize them?
When they work in the flexible office, they arrive at the office a little earlier to settle down near the south-facing windows. They walk past the “Eco Gestures” posters hanging in the hallways before printing out the registration forms for the children’s sports activities on a more reliable printer than at home. On Olivier Véran’s advice to cut the WiFi before heading out for the weekend, they added another: charge your phone at work.
how they talk
“I shower and charge my smartphone at the gym. » « I will have breakfast in the office. “I’ll only be home to sleep.” » « This summer I gladly went to work to cool down, this winter it will be for the heating. “It will also depend on the price of gas. »
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