Why return-to-office mandates fail::The question over whether to allow employees to work from home has been settled. Here’s the new normal.
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Because the best performing employees will leave for more money in other remote roles, dumping a ton of work on the remaining workers who are either a) mediocre, or b) incompetent extroverts who can’t wait to spend all day talking about fantasy football with a captive audience.
A remote work perk is the new onsite barista and free lunches. People don’t want free Korean BBQ, they want to not commute for 3 hours a day.
Top tech talent will always go to the companies with the best perks and comp.
Top tech talent could suddenly apply to any job instead of the few nearby companies, exploding their options. If anything, even remote companies should send Korean BBQ to each employee’s house.
Captive audience because they’re trapped in the office with them.
Trapped in an “open collaborative space”, yes.
Dude, did fucking Josh Allen have a season, or what? Week after week, he just kept it steady and helped me win my league!
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
This genuinely spiked my blood pressure. I hope you’re fucking happy
But if people don’t go back to the office, commercial real estate will crash, they’ll convert it all into affordable housing, and my curb appeal will lose its sweet, sweet premium value.
Let’s not pretend there isn’t a micromanaging control issue involved in this, but the core is all about real estate.
The “they’ll convert it all into affordable housing” part I wouldn’t be so sure about it. 😅 Some might just abandoned it if no body wants it.
They’ve converted a hotel here in Calgary to condos and a work friend owns one.
It’s not classified as affordable housing but the conversion is possible and should be done en masse.
Yeah, just look at how many abandoned buildings there are in most big cities. Seems like everything just expands outwards with new buildings rather than demolishing/converting old ones.
Are you telling me I could afford a Center City apartment if we don’t return to the office? Sign me up
How come no one wants to talk about all the small business closing and people losing their jobs. This is a real tangible impact that shouldn’t be dismissed. I live in a big city and we’re all feeling the impact of people not returning to office work. Lack of revenue (small business, real estate, retail) is going to play a huge role in city budgets in the coming years. I work from home so I understand the appeal. Still, I don’t know how we, the city, come out of this.
America doesn’t have communities. In a normal civilized country there would be grand plazas, city centers, districts to walk/shop/eat/live life.
We have work/home/and maybe a night out sometimes. We shouldn’t be offloading thr responsibilities of city planners and band-aiding small business by forcing companies to hire in office staff.
We need better, more efficient cities in America, it is the reason everything is going to hell here.
grand plazas, city centers, districts to walk/shop/eat/live life
Yes. That’s called a city. I don’t know what cities you have in mind but this is how I would describe my city of Philadelphia.
Most cities west of the Mississippi river and really anything that’s had a growth spurt since about the 1970s/80s. Half of the South there are cities with “historic downtown [this place]” signs all over an area that is slowly deteriorating and basically unused compared to the new main drag that is a freeway with the big box stores and fast food on the side.
Philadelphia was laid out before sprawl and when both parties worked at building stuff instead of being dedicated to tearing down government or being a big tent where everyone can argue with each other.
Sounds like you’re comparing a small town to a major city. We do have places in this country that meet your demands. And then there are smaller communities that don’t. And because lots of people prefer suburban sprawl over the convenience of living in a city, they may need to commute to where big business is.
If your small town is near an interstate or train track, and has open land, you may be lucky enough to have a decent size business break ground. Now more people can live closer to work. And now more people move to that town. And more small businesses open to support the growing community. And not far down the highway a mega strip mall opens. And within a few miles you have more homes and schools going up and now that train track has a train station. Congratulations, you now live in a small city. You got any sidewalks? Did they save any of that open land for parks? How’s the infrastructure holding up? How’s traffic?
That’s exactly what happening in the town I grew up in. I hated it and moved to an actual city. Life is relaxing and convenient and full of life. I have no car and use a bike public transportation. I more often walk to the stores and restaurants (those that haven’t closed yet). I engage with people (minimally) and find little joys in my daily life.
Now, imagine all of this if everyone just worked from home. There would be no need for a large corporate building or more homes or stores or schools. You’d have to drive further to the places where people live more densely for your everyday items. Or just rely on the miracle of the internet for someone to drop it at your door. Because as much as lots of people like suburban sprawl, they love not having to interact with anyone IRL.
Outside of Philadelphia is a region called The Mainline. It gets its name from the regional rail system that connects affluent suburbs with the city. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve spoken with who complain about living in the suburbs and having to drive one of the worst highways in the country for their morning commute. When I ask why they simply don’t drive a few minutes to the station and take a train in to their place of work, they look at me as if I had two heads. Because people don’t want to interact with anyone IRL. They rather waste hours a day in the confines of their own vehicle and scream so no one can hear them.
It’s not the cities that need to be fixed. It’s the American mentality of individualism and false security in isolation. This needs to change and then the cities will naturally follow in revival.
So, while I greatly appreciate the work from home perspective, there’s more to the story than real estate losing value.
Yeah, and driving to park in a massive parking lot that takes an additional 5 minutes to get inside a store is not a shopping plaze, and no open air malls with no actual communities near them don’t count as a “Third place”
We don’t have the data, says the company that tracks their employees and customers relentlessly.
I’m in a position to have knowledge about multiple bargaining committees working on their first union contracts. The demand to RTO is literally entirely the ego of CEOs and other executives that believe their opinion is more valuable than research. They also know that employees will never accept “because we say so”, so they cling to flimsy or highly biased data as evidence, without ever showing their sources or methods.
Another aspect that is likely overlooked: they’re counting on people to quit. It’s an opportunity to have a self-selecting layoff without massive payouts or running into the WARN act. Apple has made this more than apparent by mandating RTO at a location, and then relocating that office to Texas. They still have other labor laws to deal with, but they don’t care about talent retention.
The issue with the self-selecting layoffs is that it’s usually the best talent that leaves. Not that they care, as it won’t negatively impact this quarter’s numbers. But funny/sad to see them all confused a year later when number go down.
Have them come to office or fire them and loose maybe 50% of my company (code) knowledge while no new hires know what to do and the remaining coworkers are not trained fully in the task?
Easy choice.
I should become a CEO if I can think much beyond the horizon.
You’d be a terrible CEO because you would conserve resources during slumps to retain capacity for the future
This looks bad this year and you don’t have any reason to believe that your market will pick back up, so you would get fired and the new guy would look amazing pulling the company out of the slump.
This was such a big /s I felt like it wouldnt need an actual /s
Working from home has its pros and cons. Fortunately, in my experience, the pros are all mine and the cons are all someone else’s. That kind of colours my judgement.
You, too, do the morning meetings on the shitter?
It has become a fake discussion already.
It is not the question anymore whether work at home is better or work at the office. It is not the question whether you go back to the place where you have worked before.
It is big bosses fabricating excuses for laying off people.
How? They have closed your old office long ago. Now they tell you that another place in a different state is “your” office. Now go and “return” to there. Or they have hired you for WfH with no plans to ever work in an office, and now they tell you to “return” to somewhere.
And then you can watch them moaning and whining how so many of their employees people just do not want to “return”, and therefore they need stronger policies…
It doesn’t help that the people mandating return to office are working from home when they demand it.
To be fair many companies who said you have to return to work did this as they knew they had to do lay offs. It is cheaper if people just leave and you don’t have to pay a severance pay.
And more often than not, the people that left were the higher performing employees. Penny-wise, pound-foolish.
If people can talk without being tracked they might unionize.
Im not gonna click the link. I am gonna live under the assumption that, because that thumbnail is next to the headline, that chick is to blame.
Fuck you old lady. Let us work from home.
