science

No shit.

Not that shocking. Hell, there are millions of Americans who would kill just to work indoors. Office work is the envy of every farm and trade worker with aching feet and knees and various injuries they have to nurse while they labor. Working at home??? It’s absolute luxury.

The very fact that it is something that the workers want

Is WHY Employers want to halt it.

Too many Employers believe that anything the workers want is necessarily bad for Businesses ... BECAUSE the workers want it

Just gaining back all the commute time everyday is such a huge bonus for me. Nothing at an office can compare to that alone. And I get to add in a ton of other nice bonuses from being at home.

Working from home has been the default for the last few millenia. Who would have thought that it could make people happier?

I both agree and disagree with the conclusions in the title....

I agree that for many people, they're happier, and likely more productive, working from home.

I would also agree that for many different people, working from an office makes them happier/more productive.

It entirely depends on the job, who you are, and the work culture. Some places are toxic and working from home to get away from it is helpful for job satisfaction. I've known people who simply focus better when they're at the office since they have a lot of distractions at home. I know for me, the opposite is true. at home, I'm in control and can limit exposure to distractions, and I can be more productive, more comfortable and overall less unhappy with my job.

IMO, this discussion is less about what companies want, whether work from home or hybrid, or in office .... The main conclusion that we should be driving home is that different people need different environments to do their best work, and be happiest with their particular job. To put it simply: workers need to be able to choose.

Until we're at the stage where employers care less about how, and where you do the work, and they care more about the work getting done.... We're going to keep going back and forth on this.

I like to work from home. That's me.

I know people who prefer to work from an office. There's plenty of people who feel they work best from the office.

There's plenty of people that need to mix between home and office work.

Bluntly: as long as you can do the work from where you're working, and how you're working, the rest should be flexible. We're (presumably) adults and professionals. If we're given work and we're being paid to do the work, then we will do the work. We don't need to be constantly supervised by middle management like toddlers.

It's also nice eating out of your own fridge, using your own toilet, and everything else.

I propose that the mods should take this post down, or at least point to the original post, that cmu.fr has obviously plagiarized.

Here is what seems to be the original post: https://indiandefencereview.com/theyve-observed-teleworking-for-four-years-and-reached-one-clear-conclusion-working-from-home-makes-us-happier/

The big difference is that the original article actually points to the study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35379616/ where as the cmu.fr plagiarized version makes no reference whatsoever to the study. Just vague slop about "scientists".

That said, I think that even the original article miscaracterizes the paper. Here is the paper abstract:

Objectives: To investigate the impacts, on mental and physical health, of a mandatory shift to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design: Cross sectional, online survey.

Setting: Online survey was conducted from September 2020 to November 2020 in the general population.

Participants: Australian residents working from home for at least 2 days a week at some time in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Main outcome measures: Demographics, caring responsibilities, working from home arrangements, work-related technology, work-family interface, psychosocial and physical working conditions, and reported stress and musculoskeletal pain.

Results: 924 Australians responded to the online questionnaire. Respondents were mostly women (75.5%) based in Victoria (83.7%) and employed in the education and training and healthcare sectors. Approximately 70% of respondents worked five or more days from home, with only 60% having a dedicated workstation in an uninterrupted space. Over 70% of all respondents reported experiencing musculoskeletal pain or discomfort. Gendered differences were observed; men reported higher levels of family to work conflict (3.16±1.52 to 2.94±1.59, p=0.031), and lower levels of recognition for their work (3.75±1.03 to 3.96±1.06, p=0.004), compared with women. For women, stress (2.94±0.92 to 2.66±0.88, p<0.001) and neck/shoulder pain (4.50±2.90 to 3.51±2.84, p<0.001) were higher than men and they also reported more concerns about their job security than men (3.01±1.33 to 2.78±1.40, p=0.043).

Conclusions: Preliminary evidence from the current study suggests that working from home may impact employees' physical and mental health, and that this impact is likely to be gendered. Although further analysis is required, these data provide insights into further research opportunities needed to assist employers in optimising working from home conditions and reduce the potential negative physical and mental health impacts on their employees.

Keywords: COVID-19; mental health; risk management.

So, long story short: this article is slop, copied from another piece of slop that mischaracterized a study. Overall: meh.

Too bad that happiness is banned in the USA..

We've had this capacity for several decades now, and it seems ridiculous that our culture has not fully embraced it with open arms. If that's not a sign that "we the people" aren't running the show, I don't know what is. Freedom my ass.

Work, and society in general, isn't meant to make us happier.

Of course it does!
When I get a complaint email I can yell at Myles to go fuck himself with a toilet brush, all whole sitting in my favourite chair and Myles will still wish me a good evening at the end of the work day.
What's not to like?

A hard truth is that if you see an executive pushing return to office, you know one of two things about them. One of the following is true.

1. They are terrible at finance and don't understand the sunk-cost fallacy. They have to keep using that building they bought; they've spent so much on it and simply can't bring themselves to sell it.

2. They're a sexual molester. They're someone that uses the power of their position to coerce sex out of their employees. Fucking their employees is their primary motivation for not retiring early right now. You can't coerce your secretary to give you a blowjob over Zoom.

That's really it. They're either bad at business or they're a sexual predator. If you see an executive pushing return to office, be sure to ask them which one of these they are. Because they're definitely one or the other.