Honestly, a much much higher salary. There are lots of things I'm going to have to deal with if I were to go back to the office; namely heavy traffic, transportation expenses, added stress, clothes (I mean, I'd have to use office-appropriate clothes whereas nowadays I have to be presentable only when I have meetings), food, waking up and preparing earlier than usual (sometimes up to 3 hours earlier!) and getting home late which gives me less free time, etc.

They're going to have to offer a really lucrative salary for me to even consider returning to the office.

Nothing. Quality of life of working from home cannot be replicated. Or the office would have to be in my street, which is pretty unrealistic

Absolutely nothing. No amount of money or threats or “perks”. I work in software and my entire career has been built on flexible, mostly-remote work; particularly creating & leading remote, geographically distributed teams. I get the best talent no matter where they are, and use tools like Slack to work seamlessly in real-time and asynchronously across many disparate time zones. This wasn’t some new thing for me when COVID hit, this is how I’ve operated for more than 20 years.

I don’t mind going places for specific purposes: visiting clients, classified/sensitive discussions that can’t be transmitted, on-site work (like installations, research, etc), or team-building events like lunches, dinners, etc… but under no circumstances will I waste my time commuting to some specific ”office” daily just because. I am an efficiency expert and I will not tolerate having my time or my teams time wasted by incompetent, out-of-touch multi-millionaires that don’t realize the 80s ended 30 years ago.

Absolutely nothing. I don’t think even money could do it for me at this point. Aside from all the obvious reasons to hate commuting and then sitting for 8 hours doing maybe 2 hours of work, I have never been healthier.

I have chronic migraines. Well, I used to(?). I haven’t had a single bad migraine in years. Yeah, I’ve still had a couple in the last few years, but they didn’t put functioning at a complete standstill. I wasn’t stuck in bed, hoping for death. The lack of artificial light is a big deal. The not having to stress myself out by commuting, then being stuck there is also another

On top of that, I eat 1000% better, easier. I can exercise instead of commuting. There’s literally no benefit to working in an office for me, but it has a metric fuckton of drawbacks.

A couple of things:

• commute time counts as work time
• no open plan landscape office
• no 'clean desk' policy but the ability to personalise your workplace
• dishwasher and general kitchen stuff not being a 'shared responsibility' but someone's job.
• office being in a nice neighborhood with fun things to do after work or during lunch

My employer spent the past ~10 years de-personalising our offices, and now they wonder why people don't like to hang out in their sterile 'clean' building.

32 hr work week, a dedicated office with a door and all my Mac peripherals, a big pay increase, and benefits to cover child care.

The office being within a 30 second walk of my home

Free or affordable, clean, safe public transit that takes me no more than 20 minutes from the time I set foot out my front door to setting foot in the office, and a team/company that doesn't care if I decide to work the day remotely for any reason whatsoever. I also like the other guy's comment about the workplace being a nice, inviting place to be since my cube is barren and probably 20+ years old.

Also the rest of y'all need to stay home when you get sick instead of bringing that shit into the office.

As a minimum? Pay me for the commute. I'm only doing it because of management so they should compensate me.

Compensation for the time and cost of commuting back and forth, paid meal, free coffee and snacks, and additional sick days from using public transport and ultimately catching more sicknesses.

And even then, it doesn't give me back the extra time I can spend with my kids.

A valid reason for a start.

Paid commute (time and expenses) and free lunch.

• 50% raise
• Private 12x15 office
• Free pot gummies (for Fridays, of course;)
• Free transportation to/from office
• Every day is Bring Your Dogs To Work Day

An immense raise, free mass transit to the office and a free hot lunch every day would be the beginning of negotiations

62% more pay

Paid commute and a separate room.

Double my salary and we'll talk. Include my travel time in my working hours or I'll do it anyway.

But also I took a fully remote position to not have to deal with the return to office stuff so realistically nothing would get me back to an office.

Money

Nice try, Susan from HR!

No. I went remote 11 years ago. I have no intention of going back to an office ever again.

They'd have to pay for quite a few things...

• Housing near the office (I'm literally in another country lol)
• Uber rides to/from
• Food at the office

If my whole team was based out of the same office and we coordinated the days we were there to have in person meetings. I don't see any reason to be 100% in the office, though 1-2 days a week in this scenario would be nice.

My team is spread out all over the place, so it makes no sense to go to the office just to be on WebEx the whole time anyways.

If the commute was considered part of working hours, and i am able to commute outside of rush hours for a clear benefit in productivity.
For example: start work at 9, commute to work at 10, be at the office for useful meetings or other collaborative work, return home at 2, and finish up work for the day.

3x base salary at least. No-thought commute, so maybe provide transportation for me. I currently live what is about 1.5hrs away each way now and there isn't a public transportation option.

Commute time should count towards my "8 hour work day". No distracting desk drive bys. Provided breakfast and lunch or an optional lunch stipend or whatever to cover if I go somewhere near the office.

Not sounding great for the company? It isn't meant to. It would be nearly impossible to get me to go back to the office, as it should be.

I'm not being unreasonable. I am at least twice as productive since working from home and even simple internal reports can prove that. I'm also 2-3x happier and less stressed, nothing can really replace that.

A shit-tonne more money. Like, more than the extra time spent travelling to and from work worth of salary.

Include my commute time in my 7 hours of work a day. I’m not driving out of my own love of it, I’m driving because you’re requiring me to be in the office so it should count as time on your clock, not mine.

Also pay for my parking at work, and my petrol to get there and back.

An office in my city and within 10-15 minutes walking distance.

Short answer: Nothing

Long answer: Actually, nothing

Before the pandemic, I was already remote working because all I did was connect my computer to servers in a warehouse 20 kilometers away from the office I had to be at.

Now, every person in my department is literally hundreds of kilometers away from each other, and we MUST go to each office to do the same things we could do staying at home. I lose 3 hours daily (waking up early, preparing meals, going to the office, and returning...) because of this nonsense.

Also, the building I have to go to doesn't belong to my employer. The contract ends this year and, instead of sending us home again, my employer has rented another building that's FARTHER than the current one. We're pretty sure this is just money laundering or the building belongs to a friend.

People are leaving for remote jobs, and our bosses are still wondering why.

Nothing. I would need to be compensated for my commute and honestly I would need a driver so I could work on the commute. And the salary I would need to justify working in an office I'm just not worth.

So any company willing to meet me here clearly has bad management so I don't want to work for them anyway.

Time. Can't spend 3 hours a day commuting to work.

A few things that would help:

A 4 day work week with both ends of the day brought in to maybe 10-4 (sorry didnt mean 10-3). Things like going to the bank require me to either run during my lunch break or do it on a day off. 4x10-4 means i have a day and edges of days to do tasks i can't do on the weekend.

Unlimited PTO. If my tasks are done and I'm paid a salary there is no reason i need to sit around doing nothing. If more work is expected then I'd expect more compensation.

And lastly mandatory cost of living connected to inflation every year. My last job started during the pandemic. In 2 years the effective inflation rate was 15% and yet i was only given 3% over that time while getting good marks on my reviews. That means in that time i was paid a crazy amount less my last day than my first. I dont care about the actual number of dollars I'm paid but I'd like to buy the same number of eggs mext year as this year if I'm expected to do the same amount of work. This shouldn't be thought of as a bonus, but rather keeping my level of compensation matched woth my level of expectations for my job.

Teleporter. (I hate commutes.)

To bring another opinion to all the other comments, each week I'm trying to go into the office more often than I already do (2-3/5 times per week currently) which I feel is not much, but after reading some comments, you guys must think I'm a maniac already lol.

Now why would someone do that? First, I got a new job like half a year ago and I absolutely love it. First of all, my current commute time is around 25 minutes, door to door, in clean public transportation. Second, we got free water, Softdrinks, Coffee, Snacks, even fruits and cereal in the office. So no matter what I need to energize, it's there. At home, I usually don't. Or I do, but still, it's better to have 'free' you know?

Also, I love my colleagues. They're very young on average, incredibly skilled and highly intelligent. Also from many different countries. It's always fun talking to them and getting different insights on all kinds of things. We also usually take smaller breaks to play table tennis or table football.

Home office is great too, for days I really need to focus or have a lot of meetings. Or have private appointments, deliveries, or whatever. I can also take Homeoffice whenever I want and no one cares at all.

But still, it gets boring and lonely. Being in the office is great for my social factor and currently feels more like going to see friends, rather than working.

• More money
• A very short commute (like 10-15 minutes walking max)
• A shorter working day, like 6 hours.

Nothing. I refuse to go back.

I moved during the pandemic when we were all remote. But let's pretend I went back to the office near where I used to live.

I would expect it to be an inviting, colorful environment. Put effort into decorating . Give me an office with windows, and a door. Not a gray cube and off-white walls that feels like I'm going to die in it. Other incentives like a guaranteed parking spot would be fantastic. Maybe provide lunch. I think Google at least used to provide a great office environment.

I would also want more money because transportation is very expensive now. And it takes time. That's less time with my kids and to handle chores properly. Often cost saving chores.

They are offering me a ~40% raise to be in a 50/50 system and I'm considering taking it so... Apparently, that.

Literally nothing. If my remote request is rejected, I'm quitting with nothing else lined up. If I can't find remote work, I'll retire.

1. Reliable, fast and comfortable public transport.
2. Private room or at least a semi private room so that I can get work done without disturbances.
3. Increased salary to compensate for my lost time due to commuting.

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.

A gun held to my head?