1. Real Estate Loss: These companies have leased a lot of real estate. They can renege and save a lot of money long term. But in short term, they have to pay severance price ---> Less profits ---> Shares drop ---> CEO under pressure.
2. Bosses love Office: If you have a job with corner office, job is ordering people and want to show off your new porsche (since you're richer), can't do it at home.
3. RTO triggered attrition: Market is in a bad shape, companies need to fire people. But layoffs generally signal the market that the company is no longer growing. RTO acts as a proxy for layoffs.
4. Incentive based compensation: if you put "Employee of the month" on a wall , you can get away with paying x% less to the same employee. Similar effect doesn't occur with over-the-internet recognition.
5. Locking People in: A remote employee can jump companies in a matter of few clicks. For office based companies, you have to move house/cities and deal with a new commute.
If you lease an office and now your employees are working from home, does it actually make a difference? You leased it for X years, regardless of where people are working. If you're hiring then it is an opportunity to hire more office loving folks without needing to find more office space. Otherwise, it's just a sunk cost.
People keep saying "real estate," but I don't buy that there isn't at least one person in the C-suite saying "it's a sunk cost, WFH is cheaper long-term."
I'm a developer, and I have way more power than the companies I work for.
I can switch companies and basically get same or higher pay. For the company that I leave, they have to invest in hiring and retrain some other developer, that won't be as productive as me in the first few months.
So basically, me switching jobs costs me nothing. For the company that loses me, and the company that gains me, they both have an associated cost.
Why do I have this power? Well, at least in Europe there is a huge shortage on software developers, so that puts us in a very strong position.
Don't wrongly assume that an employer is always in the stronger position.
This is not my koolaid flavor. It appears you’re pretty sold on those paths as most ideal from your post history, but it is disingenuous to ask people to do what you’re asking simply to have better working arrangements or conditions and better pay.
I live in Belgium, and employees are very well protected here, and unions very strong. So I definitely get the difference between us and US :).
If you're in US and want to move closer to a system as we have in EU, I get that.
It just seems to me that a lot of times, people get stuck in this boss vs servant mentality. That companies are these groups of people that control everything. I find it a very wrong view of the world. In the western world it's so easy to become your own boss, and even employ people if you wish. All of a sudden you are part of this group that "controls everything".
Plenty of people are not 'school smart' like software developers, but still start some contracting business and make nice money.
- for a general perspective remote work means we have no tangible reasons anymore to live in dense areas, where services reign, that's means braking the push toward "you'll own nothing" because people rediscover the value of owning a home, tools etc instead of live to work just to pay services;
- in-office means being geographically bound, having some friends and so on, so being a bit more tied to a company than a remote worker, who is actually like an external contractors. If you work from remote switching from a company to another means no "office" or "physical" change, you just change few URLs, projects but the rest will be the same.
These two are IMVHO the most tangible and generally ignored things. Did you imaging an Uber service in a vast spread are where anyone have a car and a garage, no parking problems at all? Did you imaging Just Eat in such are? Public transportation? Ready-made food? MOST of such business became meaningless. People living at home love to have a nice home, party at home, not much going to the new shopping center, going in nature (witch is so far free) instead of going spending some money downtown and so on. This economical model it's not much different than the classic Keynes joke about digging a hole now, fill it tomorrow, re-dig it tomorrow after BUT for those who profit from such business means big money.
I think they only use point 1 as an excuse. If you remove people from the office you can save a lot of ad-hoc costs immediately. You pay less for coffee. You can save on heating. You can probably also save on cleaning costs if you concentrate the remaining employees into certain floors.
I have definitely seen companies cut their losses before. If you remove all these points and only keep 1, most companies would shift to remote regardless of their real estate.
I always laugh when I see this being touted as the WFH justification as if these minor cost savings actually factor at all. Rent maybe …but coffee, energy, and custodial costs? Pittance.
Random aside, but "all politics is local" was popularized by Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, the longest continuous Speaker in House history (5 terms, no interruptions!).
GBH is 1/2 way through a podcast about Boston's Big Dig, which started while Tip was Speaker, and resulted in an enormous tunnel named after the man who shepherded its funding through Congress. It's a great listen, and, so far, is abundant evidence that all politics is, indeed, local. Thanks for the tip, Tip!
> They can renege and save a lot of money long term.
It's not quite that simple (it never is). That will crash the real estate market, which will affect the value of lots of investments, like, say, the savings of all of the employees of the company (and of course the other investments of the stakeholders of the company).
Just let it all crash. It really is that simple. It's all their fault for "investing" money in the "safe" real estate market. They shouldn't be protected from the consequences of their decisions.
I get the sense that the large corporations taking an authoritarian stance toward RTO is not happening because they have data showing that RTO is the most efficient way to operate. If they had the data, they'd pound on the data rather than pounding on the table.
Instead I suspect that there's immense political pressure to bring warm bodies to offices because the waste of resources is load bearing for the macro economy. It's a paradox of thrift situation: if we actually become efficient then a lot of people are going to need to take a substantial writedown. These people aren't going to take that writedown without putting up a fight.
I bet the real story is one of retention, which is not always what companies want to advertise. If you’re going into the office, it’s harder to find time to schedule interview.
But on top of that, going into the office and talking to real people and building relationships is going to result in you wanting to stay with the company for longer. This is what I like about going into the office. I don’t know if I work any more effectively, but I do like getting lunch with people and just hanging out, and I do feel a greater attachment to the team as a result. If I were totally remote, I surely would just be working for the highest bidder.
I can tell you with certainty it's the opposite of retention. Point #3 on prakhar897 comment is pretty much everything, nobody is hiring, firing is happening across all F500 just slowly enough to fly under the radar.
Avoid IRL meetings, even if the other person is sitting 5 meters away, why? because productivity measuring software gets no data points if you meet IRL, you are instead measured as AFK. If you VC, the productivity software measures your attendance, how much time you spent talking versus others, is your video on, your adherence to the calls schedule, and depending on the VC software, it can even analyze the transcript and decide if your input / the entire meeting was valuable. Managers can get an aggregate roll up of all this data and great insights into which departments, team members an individual most interacted with... it goes on and on.
At most mega corps you may not be informed yet, but you are already living in a corporate Orwellian dystopia.
In all your corporate comms, on chat or on VC, Make no jokes, speak no niceties reduce small talk, use positive words but not too much, since the machine is bad at understanding, humor, cynicism or sarcasm. Don't ramble, the machine is good at boiling down emotional or spirited ramblings about directions are very bad, they are boiled down to, "not a fit".
Retention doesn't seem to be a real focus - there are still layoffs happening. If anything, the other angle for RTO is a form of constructive dismissal to augment the RIFs without taking the hit for severance.
Using RTO to get rid of people is such a catastrophically bad management strategy. You have no control over who is going to leave, so you could just end up encouraging you most valuable or even critical people to leave. That may happen anyway, no doubt, but that should not be your goal.
Doubt it because companies usually spend more on recruitment than retention. Sometimes hiring for the same position at a higher range than the one given to existing employees for the same role.
A flaw in this article like every other I've ever read both acknowledges that we don't have good objective data and then also goes to say "remote work works, don't fight it", etc. COVID wasn't this big, controlled experiment that tested remote work - it was the opposite, there was no "control" as everyone went remote at the same.
There isn't good data in either direction, and I doubt there will be, ever - but that's a poor reason to not be opinionated about something. There's limited and conflicting data on whether static vs. dynamic programming languages are more productive, but plenty of people on this site have very strong opinions on that. Remote work is no different.
It is time to stop complaining one way or the other and let people and markets vote with their feet and dollars.
I worked for a fortune 300 corp in pre pandemic times. I interacted with people in NY, PA, and IL on a daily basis. Every meeting had at least 1 person dialing in. Other than grabbing lunch with coworkers I miss nothing about being remote.
Work during COVID had a lot of other things impacting it (e.g., extreme stress, being new to RTO, massive macro economic shifts).
The word "control" comes from "controlling confounding factors except for the factor being studied", which is definitely not the case when comparing COVID era work to pre COVID work.
People are going to complain even more esp wrt markets (and whether they are trying to protect a loosing position or not)... you'll probably be better off just not reading these things...
Good luck selling that to companies that have contracts with cities which involve a specific number of headcount working at an office, funneling money into downtown businesses, restaurants, etc.
It really is a shame. I'm seeing longtime high-performing coworkers leave because we've returned to the office, and they don't want to spend 2 hours commuting for 3 days of the week...
> employers [are] fueled by a belief that employees work more effectively when they’re physically present.
plus
> Many in the C-suite are frustrated that their office space is underused
plus
> Most leaders achieved their position while working in an office and therefore want to maintain the playing field on which they succeeded
all of which might be true to varying degrees. But what is the role of institutional owners who also have massive investments in downtown office spaces and commercial properties, investments that are now slowly eroded because of remote? I would assume they are applying some pressure through the boards?
I have no proof ATM though. But it would be expected. But futile in the long run, the shift to remote has taken place already.
One of the few unfounded conspiracy theories I believe is that there is some kind of unofficial, concerted effort from Western oligarchs to use RTO to bolster commercial office space valuations and prevent a banking crisis.
The problem is, I think the conviction to do this is relatively weak. They’re fine to do it with existing leased or bought office space because it’s mostly a sunk cost and just a matter of prodding their workers into compliance (in an employers’ market, thanks Fed), but most aren’t really willing to scoop these 60-70% discounted empty office spaces off the market. So we may end up with a banking crisis anyway, as word on the street is these huge losses in valuation threaten to blow up a lot of regional banks.
> One of the few unfounded conspiracy theories I believe is that there is some kind of unofficial, concerted effort from Western oligarchs to use RTO to bolster commercial office space valuations and prevent a banking crisis.
Hard to say if it's true and to what degree but these guys need to adapt. There is enormous demand for more buildings - but they do not necessarily have to be offices. Most funds prefer commercial real estate because it's easier to deal with but I don't think they have any chance against the market, they will have to adapt.
It's not just going to be us regionals, unless we pretend that none of the commercial paper is being used as acceptable collateral at central clearing houses, bilateral or tri-party swaps globably.
Global central bank balance sheets since 2008 already tells the direction that it, when an crisis eventually unfolds, will go...
Heaven forbid any of these workers in these contested rto corps have exposure to non central/private bank monetary systems... going to make that "war" more complicated for them...
The best thing the pandemic ever did was accelerate to shift to remote working. It was always my dream to move to 3-4 days a week WFH and it became a reality 10 years early than i expected. I’m now fully remote and couldn’t be happier. Work life balance is incredible with remote working
I head to the office to badge in every day, then I'm on Zoom calls, even with folks in the same office since there's often someone from a different office on the calls I'm on - of course because it helps in-person collaboration.
At the same time we don't have budget for me to regularly meet the team in person, so here we are with RTO making us more productive.
Before RTO I'd head in regularly for meetings or just to catch up, but the 2-3 days at home really meant I could get work done in peace and spend less for transport, food, etc. and get other things done without rushing.
I'm quite sure we'll see companies with a more reasonable approach both get more talent and make them more productive.
This just means I can do real work with my camera off while half listening to the status meeting instead of sitting in a meeting bored while someone blathers on too long.
Quit a job with a major US bank in 21Q3 because of their premature RTO push.
I never enjoyed going into an office especially once they converted our floor to be more open.
I also think hybrid could be an option for those who like going to an office each day. But, it shouldn't be mandatory. Businesses mandating RTO are waging a losing battle.
That is really the kicker. Forced return to office, but also, make the work environment worse with open-office layouts and maximum distractions.
I am not happy about it, but I will come into work when you make me. Just do not pretend it is about making me more productive. I am an IC, my job is to keep my head down and think. I do that best when I have walls and silence.
Open offices are a non-starter for me after I've seen the alternatives.
Going from an open office to a private office was really life changing for me. All of a sudden I had energy and focus left over after work to do things like exercise, develop friendships, learn new skills, etc. Perhaps with offices less full, more people will experience this.
Oh man, I once worked at a place where, for a time, all the programming staff got put on our own floor. JUST programmers. We didn't have managers (was a small company). It was seriously awesome. Not only was it really quiet, but basically all conversations were 100% "compatible" with how I was thinking. There were never people talking about some totally leftfield thing that totally threw me out of my focus zone (until a sales person would bring a client up to our floor to give a tour). It was a pretty unique experience. I don't think I've worked in any other office like that before or since.
Many major tech companies are simultaneously closing offices and densifying the remaining ones while telling folks they are required to attend. Some of those folks also no longer have dedicated desks. Good times.
Depends on the position. I worked at IBM in the late aughts and they has a daily office lease model where you could book an office to work in at most IBM facilities or work from home. It was essentially non-mandatory hybrid-- people who did things like support for overseas customers never ever came into the office because requiring them to come into the office was stupid. An SSH session and company-provided phone in the office look exactly like they do at home. People like pre-sales, sales, product managers, engineering managers, etc. that had to do more meeting and planning than individual work came into the office every day because it worked better for them. There was no real reason they couldn't be remote and conduct all of their business over the phone-- the business was completely set up for it-- they just weren't as productive that way. It really wasn't a problem.
I think a big part of managers' opposition to remote work is that they want more control or at least the appearance of control over the employees. It begins with being able to control other people to come to the office.
Now if you can force them to come to the office, then you might give some of them a treat of working from home say one day a week. They will have to try to please you or you might take such privilege away.
It sounds crazy but I assume based on some experience that there are many people who simply enjoy being able to boss other people around, to make others please you.
Many managers simply desire power over others because it gives them a real or perceived benefit. It may not be good for the company, but it can be good for the boss.
I'm a manager and I'm all for remote work myself - I just show up in the office two times a week because the company requires me to do it. Many of my manager peers are also supportive. The mandates you describe don't usually come from frontline managers who are close to the work, but from high level executives who are completely detached from the day-to-day of software development.
I work fully remote and I've never felt more alienated from my colleagues. It also hurts that everyone is in Europe and I'm in India. Getting an EU Visa is next to insane for Indians.
Additionally, I am an ambivert, as it turns out. I preferred fully remote because I'm hearing impaired, but I would love to go to a physical office 3 days a week and meet people. I might go to a Wework from Jan.
So you give one point that makes you sound anti-WFH, but then you caveat that with a lot of other information that makes your position pretty vague - i.e. taking a job where you really cannot be in the office, and will be in a separate time zone too.
From another perspective, you only have your job because remote work makes it possible. You need some separate social interaction to fill a felt gap.
I work remote from the rest of my team, but in my case it's just living in a different European country. The time zone is the same. I feel connected with them just fine.
Every polarizing topic is not taking into account some important dimension. The answer is always the same which both sides don't like because of their frameworks which ignore that dimension. The answer is: "it depends".
Usually when talking about very specific scenarios, reasonable people on both sides will agree on the same solution. For one side it will be "obviously" while for the other - "a special case".
Generally speaking, I think it's better for most people to be in the office most of the time. I work for a government contractor, and so I'm probably in a different situation than most, but I a the balance of work in the office three days a week, and getting two days at home. We've lost quite a few people because their performance went downhill when they started working from home, but found some whose performance went up. It's a case by case basis type of thing, but the hybrid model has been good for my team and I.
I love that remote is a big option today. I may one day need or want to take it. Until then I want to work in the way I've found most productive and rewarding to me - in person.
Depends on the people. I'm currently interviewing with a few different SaaS companies that are fully in person. Everyone there has clearly opted for in person as there are many remote opportunities.
A lot of work, even as a programmer, is about collaboration. Between different engineers, designers, product people, etc. Doing that over a call sucks and is emotionally draining. Doing that with 3 people in a room feels much better. If I'm working I want to do my best work. That doesn't just mean writing good code and keeping services online. It means knowing what everyone on the team thinks.
Maybe this comes down to how you view work. Is it just a way to get paid? If so - getting together in person needlessly complicates your life. For me work is an opportunity to hone my skills and produce something worth using.
Remote can be a huge asset to some companies. I interviewed with render.com for example - and they're mostly remote. Keeping a PaaS online with customers around the world requires you to have good time zone coverage. You can't do that with everyone in a San Francisco office.
Edit: This is very reminiscent of being back in school. I, mostly, liked going to school. I'm not going to force myself into nearly as many learning opportunities when given free time. Sure I'll occasionally pick up a small project, a new hobby, but the amount I get into my brain is far less. And I do have lots of free time. Even when I was in school, even when employed. But working forces me into a better state (not the global max by any means, but more optimal for sure). I feel well paid, live comfortably, and don't work too hard or for too many hours. 30-35 per week is ideal.
You put an amusing picture in my head of "I've found most productive and rewarding to me - in person" showing up at the office and finding it empty. Do they then start visiting their colleagues at their homes, pestering them for coffee?
It's time to end work, mofo. There's no shortage of money, we could all live happily ever after, never working a day in our lives, but bossman has other ideas.
1. Real Estate Loss: These companies have leased a lot of real estate. They can renege and save a lot of money long term. But in short term, they have to pay severance price ---> Less profits ---> Shares drop ---> CEO under pressure.
2. Bosses love Office: If you have a job with corner office, job is ordering people and want to show off your new porsche (since you're richer), can't do it at home.
3. RTO triggered attrition: Market is in a bad shape, companies need to fire people. But layoffs generally signal the market that the company is no longer growing. RTO acts as a proxy for layoffs.
4. Incentive based compensation: if you put "Employee of the month" on a wall , you can get away with paying x% less to the same employee. Similar effect doesn't occur with over-the-internet recognition.
5. Locking People in: A remote employee can jump companies in a matter of few clicks. For office based companies, you have to move house/cities and deal with a new commute.