As a small business owner: nothing. My employees have been extremely productive being able to work from home. We already drive more than the average job. Driving to the office just watses time and money for everyone. We use our office now for storage more than anything else.

My commute was, at best, 30 minutes each way driving myself. Public transportation would easily double that time and could easily be even worse.

Compensate me for that time at my full rate of pay or higher plus IRS mileage and I will START thinking about it.

My work environment also matters. Open floor plans suck ass and kill productivity. Pony up the money and give everyone offices with doors that close. My productivity at home is much higher because I am not sitting on a busy aisle across from a noisy meeting room.

I do miss being around people, I feel more isolated doing wfh. But the tradeoffs are pretty dismal against going back to the office.

This is a question about my past. What made me go back to the office was having not one but two little kids at home. The office is a much more quiet space.

The commute does not bother me much, it’s 12 minutes by bike, half the trip trough forest.

Enough money that I can retire in six months. So idk, like, call it a cool $4M/yr and I'm yours in office for 6 months. Otherwise I guess MAYBE my same salary at somewhere walking distance where I only have to work 3 or 4 days a week at 8 hour days.

My mental health is just so much better working from home. The upside would have to be enough to balance that and realistically nobody is actually going to do that.

Everyday, a blowjob, a nice glass of whisky, and a good cigar. A nice desk, made with oak or something.

Also shit tons of money.

And the ability to show up at 10 and leave at 3.

Still interested?

As everyone else is saying it'd take a significant bump in pay that not only offsets my incurred daily commute expenses but also gives me a meaningful weekly take home increase.

Plus I work better by myself at home where I can control my daily interruptions vs having to put up with annoying coworkers in-person who could just walk into my office whenever they wanted so I feel like going back to an office would impact the quality of my produced work.

What would get me into the office? Physical force.

• 200k min salary (I'm currently paid 5 figures)
• 4 hour workdays
• 4 day workweek

And this is the single most important piece

let me go home when I'm done with my work

More money. I’d do anything for the right price.

1. Commute as part of working hours.
2. Reliable public transit, with the monthly pass paid by work.
3. Salary increase of at least 15%.

I feel all of these are relatively realistic and achievable by my workplace except for reliable public transit which is out of their hands. Thankfully they're still remote first though there have been a few indications that this might change.

If it was very close, like under 10min bicycling, and if I had my own office room like the director/CEO has. I hate open plan offices with a passion.

Seizing the means of production

They're going to have to buy me a car and pay for gas and parking before I'll take a job where I'm full time in the office

I don't have a car, so if I have to go 'back to the office', I will have to use the bus, wake up earlier, and commuting (even with my current employer being 15' away by bus) is still 30 minutes out of my day that I don't want to spend. When I am at home, I can just stand up, play some piano to relax, or have a short shower. Things that help me calm a little bit that I can't do at an office. I also have a better setup than the setup at the company's office, so why bother.

To be honest, as long as companies open remote positions, I don't think I want to go back to any office whatsoever.

Absolutely nothing

Double my salary, then we'll talk.

I'll have to go with "a shitload more money." An extra 1.5 hours added to the workday in commute, less time with family, less healthy lunches, less freedom, etc. means it would take a large monetary incentive for it to even be a possibility. Twice my current salary, at least.

Desperation or buckets of money.

I'm employed now, and actually pretty happy with my job. It would take a lot of money to get me to work in an office again.

But realistically, a couple months of unemployment would be more than enough to make me jump at any office job that would allow me to live comfortably.

I cherish my job a lot more (when before I was happy to switch every year). If companies want to retain good employees they’re going to have to adapt to the changes in the market.

Edit: guess I didn’t really answer, I agree with teleporter guy and private office guy. It’s ridiculous to ask people to return to a shared office.

Make it optional for starters, followed by compensation for gas for anyone coming in.

Systems Engineer/.Net Developer here. Currently have a super flexible hybrid setup. I work from the office 2-3 days a week. My commute is about 15 minutes when I decide to go to the office.

I like seeing my coworkers, using the awesome conference rooms, free snacks and coffee. Change of scene keeps me focused and motivated.

My main motivation for working where I do is that nobody gives a shit what I'm doing or where I'm working from day to day. We're all professionals working to deliver our projects on time. How we deliver is up to us.

If my boss told me I had to start coming to the office every day at some set time, I'd immediately start searching for a new job.

Some things that would make me consider it:

• Free high quality lunches every day
• Transportation compensation in the form of both work time (if the office is poorly located) and monetary compensation for transportation expenses
• Management improvement plan with actions they're taking/implementing to reduce the time they're wasting of laborers on a day-to-day basis
• Alteration of the company structure to force a large percentage (simple majority) of ownership to workers to push back against reactionary and profit-driven anti-labor whims of shareholders
• Services/compensation that complete tasks that previously I could do during downtime at home
• Yearly inflation-pegged CoL raises that apply to every laborer in the company before salary raises are made
• Massive investment in in-office employee training programs in the form of role-based training that is chosen by laborers in that particular role/function

If every single one of these things were implemented I would then still probably leave the place for another WFH job if we didn't use our new ownership powers to revert back to WFH immediately.

mmmmm i think all my boss would have to do is get on their hands and knees and suck me off to completion in front of god and everyone

that'd get me back in the office for at least 20 minutes or so

If I had to just bring it the one big thing it would be If my commuting time counted as work time - so I could be home the same time when I’d be normally finishing if I was working from home.

If that was the case I wouldn’t exactly like having to go back to the office, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world

It’s totally unrealistic, work doesn’t owe this to me, I moved over an hour away knowing there would be this commute…. But that was before I had a kid and covid started us working from home

Now my priorities are different - I want to be there in the morning and help them wake and get ready for the day. I want to be home when they finish nursery for our evening and bed time routine. That time is absolutely precious and I could never get it back if I missed out.

There’s a million other things that make working from home great that has absolutely nothing to do with being a parent. But for me that there is worth so much I’d find it hard to imagine a salary big enough that would convince me to give that time time up.

Oh, I immediately went back. I don't do well at home, I need to be at the office. Otherwise I'll just nap all day. Also, I like seeing people, I need that daily socialization with co workers in person.

Honestly, I don't anything can be appealing enough. If I get desperate, then I would go back, but not really willingly.

My home office is great, I don't need to commute, i can cook and eat proper meals and generally enjoy my workday more.

Double my pay and cut my hours by 50%

A complete disregard of my health and safety

Oh wait, that already happened years ago

500k salary

Quadruple my pay and keep everything else (responsibilities, flex hours, unlimited PTO, etc.) the same.

Fewer total days working for the same salary.

If they said: you can work 5 days/week from home or 3 days/week from the office, I'd pick the office.

Triple my salary would be my minimum requirement to offset the additional freedom and lack of commute that I’d have to give up. I’d be spending less time with my family and I won’t give that up for anything less than triple my current pay.

I sometimes have to. Not because someone tells me to, but because my physical presence is actually needed.

Sometimes I have to fly in from my middle-of-nowhere home office because whatever system I was troubleshooting wasn't fixable via VPN. And said system can be anywhere in the world, so it doesn't really matter where I live.

So returning to an office based work location? Yeah, that ain't happening..

Collusion among employers.

Actually fostering collaboration.