Yeah what we don't talk about is the impact of commuting and offices on the environment. To these CEOs we will never be in an environmental crisis they have the wealth to shelter themselves from the bad effects of global warming so they're eager to return to "business as usual."
If it actually was beneficial for productivity and innovation if everyone worked from home, why would they want to cripple themselves? Especially considering they could get rid of the office cost. At least tobacco companies had a clear incentive to lie.
Managers have the most fun at the office, as they are having meetings in separated rooms, while programmers need to be able to write and debug code in a room stuffed with 50 other people talking around them (because ,,walls are taking too much expensive real estate away''). At least that's how it was the situation at Google when I decided to leave.
Jobs that must be on-site (medical, manufacturing, etc.).
Going fully remote results in:
- Profit on real estate
- No/less expenses on utilities
- No expenses on relocation packages
- No expenses on custodial staff
- No/reduced expenses on office furniture
I mean, from a cost perspective, fully remote is clearly a big boon for a company. Either Microsoft is truly seeing reduced worker productivity from WFH, or there is another incentive, but it's not strictly economic.
Big offices tend to be in urban areas that without the offices for people to work, have less demand for that expensive housing. It’s also expensive to convert and not ideal for manufacturing or other uses.
