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80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

cnbc.com

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Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#5

> The sunk cost of unused office space has been a major factor in companies’ decisions to change their RTO approach, says Kacher. > In New York City, office space costs, on average, about $16,000 a year per employee, the New York Times reports. Oof.

And yet, believe it or not, they still want to beat the RTO drum.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#7

> The sunk cost of unused office space has been a major factor in companies’ decisions to change their RTO approach, says Kacher. > In New York City, office space costs, on average, about $16,000 a year per employee, the New York Times reports. Oof.

I knew from the start that this was a major reason so many companies want RTO, no executive wants to look like a fool in front of their board for wasting millions or more on office space. Even more so when you have bigger companies that have billions invested in real estate across major cities

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#8
post #2

basically because they picked a fight and lost no actual remorse

> basically because they picked a fight and lost

Did they lose?

Pretty sure the prevailing sentiment among the C-level has effectively become "Get back to your cube and shut up because we said so, or little Timmy won't be getting his braces." here in the US.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#9
> and say they would have approached their plans differently if they had a better understanding of what their employees wanted

The poor employers. If only there was some way they could have gained that understanding. Without actually listening to employees and taking them seriously, of course. Don't let's be silly now.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#10
> Some leaders lamented the challenge of measuring the success of in-office policies, while others said it’s been hard to make long-term real estate investments without knowing how employees might feel about being in the office weeks, or even months, from now.

In other words, the two most obvious objections to RTO turned out to be correct. That is, that when the leadership says that being in the office is more productive, they are speaking from desire rather than evidence, and that the sunk cost of a commercial lease had more weight in the decision than the employees' opinions did. Two things they could have avoided with one minute of reflection.

On the other hand, I'm pleasantly surprised that 80% of executives were willing to admit they could have done a better job. I'd expect most of them to say it went flawlessly, in a voice which echoed off the cubicle walls of a nearly empty office.

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