CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management
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Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management
#2Case in point with UPS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39191723
Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management
#3In a lot of ways RTO has put working conditions in a worse spot than they were pre-pandemic. In the Before Times occasional remoting was informal and casual - if you had a doctor's appointment at an odd time, you'd remote for the day, with no formal approval nor teeth-gnashing.
Now even small everyday things like this are fraught. There are often formal approval chains now for what used to be entirely between you and your boss. Even where there aren't formal approval chains your boss now knows that these arrangement count against the team in some opaque metrics even they don't have access to.
Likewise, hiring remote candidates has become a minefield - pre-pandemic it was often entirely discretionary on the part of the hiring manager. Sure, the default was in-office, but making exceptions to it was entirely between the people who needed to work with the candidate and whether they thought they can make the arrangement work.
Now it has to be run up the flagpole - in some places all the way up the flagpole to the very top of the company. And at every rung along that ladder everyone knows - again - that allowing the exception will count against them in opaque and faceless metrics that are being scrutinized.
A top performer has to move out of town because of family reasons? In the old days you talk to your manager, maybe your skip, they'd tell HR it's fine, and... it just goes. Now? 95% chance the person has to leave the company, because someone in the newly-installed approval chain is going to nix it because - again - it counts against them personally where it didn't before.
Sigh. In so many ways we've regressed on this so much. The level of flexibility and discretion teams have on work locations has narrowed so dramatically, in exchange for yet another spreadsheet-driven bureaucracy.
Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management
#4Another WFH/RTO article. How many are we going to do? Has the argument changed in any way? Or are proponents of both going to use the exact same arguments as ever?
Here… allow me…
WFH: I will never admit any abuse on my part or on anyone else's ever.
RTO: This is happening. And everyone agrees, so you will have no choice.
Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management
#5The thing that I keep coming back to, is that if a company is taking an action, it should be about reducing friction to go to and making the office space a better place to work.
If the company is taking an action that makes it less likely for people to come to the office or enjoy it, then it's pretty clear what they are doing.
Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management
#6People really want to push remote work as being great for businesses. The sad reality is that it’s not (at least for knowledge workers)… it kills productivity and the output is always lower quality.
Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management
#7Thus, having demonstrated powerful leadership by forcing return to office without actually making the office a place anyone wants to be, the CEO returns to his den to hibernate until interest rates reach 2%.
Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management
#8People really want to push remote work as being great for businesses. The sad reality is that it’s not (at least for knowledge workers)… it kills productivity and the output is always lower quality.
Except for all the all remote companies doing well, for whatever mysterious reason.
Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management
#9People really want to push remote work as being great for businesses. The sad reality is that it’s not (at least for knowledge workers)… it kills productivity and the output is always lower quality.
> The sad reality is that it’s not (at least for knowledge workers)… it kills productivity and the output is always lower quality.
Is this actually a fact that you can prove, or simply a belief?
Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management
#10People really want to push remote work as being great for businesses. The sad reality is that it’s not (at least for knowledge workers)… it kills productivity and the output is always lower quality.
> always lower quality
Gonna need a source on that.