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The damaging results of mandated return to office

entrepreneur.com

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Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#11
"Unispace finds that nearly half (42%) of companies that mandated office returns witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. Imagine that — nearly half!"

Does this mean that 58% of companies that mandated a return underestimated attrition? And 71% are doing fine with recruitment?

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#12
post #2

"Unispace finds that nearly half (42%) of companies that mandated office returns witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated." My guess is that you're also more likely to lose your best performers - since they will have higher confidence in being able to find a remote-friendly job somewhere else.

There's a belief among folks who already favor RTO that the highest performers will also dislike permanent WFH, it seems to me. And given how notoriously difficult it is to reliably measure developer quality, that may be a belief they can harbor long past when you'd expect evidence to have mounted against it.

Your parent does not really say that though. Assuming that WFH/RTO preference is distributed equally across highest and lowest performers his statement will be true. As lowest performers will be stickier (regardless of preference) and highest performers won't be so you may lose 50% of your highest performers but a lower amount of lowest WFH-loving performers. Effectively averaging down the skill level of your company.

It's not really a WFH/RTO thing so much as a benefits thing. The same would be true for another variable like free lunches.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#13

We'll get a lot more hybrid offices: some people in the office, others at home. This is far from ideal, but it's what we'll get. Managers will get to keep some of their precious oversight—err, excuse me, serendipitous collaboration—but workers with any leverage will stay home if they want. Over time, we'll hit an equilibrium that is less WFH than today, but more than in 2019. > A late-stage SaaS startup decided to em…

> it's what we'll get

Only if we're not willing to fight for more.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#14
post #11

"Unispace finds that nearly half (42%) of companies that mandated office returns witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. Imagine that — nearly half!" Does this mean that 58% of companies that mandated a return underestimated attrition? And 71% are doing fine with recruitment?

I haven't read the underlying report since it is behind a wall. Having said that, when companies make predictions, they rarely predict a specific number. It is likely that a significant amount of companies saw attrition that was within the expected range. Having said that, they certainly should also report the number that saw less then expected. There is really no way to make sense of just the number presented.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#16
post #11

"Unispace finds that nearly half (42%) of companies that mandated office returns witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. Imagine that — nearly half!" Does this mean that 58% of companies that mandated a return underestimated attrition? And 71% are doing fine with recruitment?

Depends on how you measure. if you got 3 levels - high, normal, low - then the 58% could be both normal and low...

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#18
The real first advantage in a long time that small companies and startups have over big FAANG players and similar is 100% remote. The edge on hiring is real and by putting remote-OK in your job description you get a much better swath of employees willing to get paid less to avoid the commuting nightmare and live anywhere.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#19
I wish we stopped with the "companies should do this/should do that". Existing big companies are too comfortable and lazy for the remote work revolution.

Remote work is a radical change in culture and work organization. It will take new companies with new workflows and organizational ideas to make it work well. We're not there yet. Managers don't understand yet how to do it, they need to read a lot of documentation (Gitlab's is a good start) to start grasping it.

But it will happen and the companies/startups that crack remote work will be at great advantage. Employee satisfaction is just a small part. There are other, bigger advantages: access to a bigger talent pool, talent retention, saving money, etc

And then, after that comes a revolution in cities. Walkable, safe and cheap places with good internet have a lot to gain (e.g. Portugal, Thailand). Unsafe or expensive cities have a lot to loose (e.g. San Francisco).

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#20
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a belief among folks who already favor RTO that the highest performers will also dislike permanent WFH, it seems to me. And given how notoriously difficult it is to reliably measure developer quality, that may be a belief they can harbor long past when you'd expect evidence to have mounted against it.

Your parent does not really say that though. Assuming that WFH/RTO preference is distributed equally across highest and lowest performers his statement will be true. As lowest performers will be stickier (regardless of preference) and highest performers won't be so you may lose 50% of your highest performers but a lower amount of lowest WFH-loving performers. Effectively averaging down the skill level of your company…

Is there a study that breaks down whether high performers are more or less likely to want a return to office?
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