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The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

the-sentinel-intelligence.com

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Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#31

Post by shwouchk »

ronjakoi wrote: post #20
klodolph wrote: post #10

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in A…

Can you please explain what you mean by employee attrition to a non-native English speaker?

I think he means that some companies would like employees to voluntarily quit

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#32

Post by fragmede »

ronjakoi wrote: post #20
klodolph wrote: post #10

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in A…

Can you please explain what you mean by employee attrition to a non-native English speaker?

Employees quit for all sorts of reasons. When a company gets big enough, it's just resource management, like a board game. Employee attrition is getting employees to quit without firing them, which is usually cheaper for the company.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#34

Post by JimDabell »

fire_lake wrote: post #2

Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they? I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured fo…

> Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they?

It’s not just that. The article talks about “landlords who buy up trophy office buildings”, but fails to draw the connecting line to the managers who demand RTO. The managers aren’t the landlords but the article seems to treat them as one single “elites” entity. How can the landlords demand RTO? Where is the financial incentive for the managers to RTO?

There’s a story here when Amazon gets tax breaks, for instance. But that doesn’t generalise to RTO mandates everywhere; it’s the exception rather than the rule.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#35

Post by jaggederest »

klodolph wrote: post #10

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in A…

A significant majority of the total wealth in the US is in real estate (~$90T of ~$150T). Most of that is residential, but about a third of it is commercial.

So about 10-20% of the total wealth in the US is in the form of commercial real estate, a significant amount of which is offices or office-adjacent-services that lose value if offices are not occupied.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#37

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

fire_lake wrote: post #2

Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they? I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured fo…

Exactly, these articles always just make me face palm because the authors never manage a cogent argument about who is making the actual RTO decisions and who cares about commercial real estate values. It's much easier just to chalk it up to the nebulous and scary "elites" and then the authors don't have to do any actual research.

For one, look at the expenses of some of the large tech companies that often make the front page here on HN due to their RTO plans. Real estate is a relatively teeny portion (salaries are obviously the biggest). Point being, no sane CEO would demand RTO to "prop up commercial real estate" if they thought it would be a net negative for their actual business long term, precisely because their concerns about real estate values are so far down on their list of priorities.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#38

Post by cyclonereef »

The idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy real-estate owners who have globally conspired to control people to go back to the office holds about as much weight in my mind as the idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy who have globally conspired to create a virus to control the population.

Covid was an outlier event, and the outcomes that occurred as a result of it will revert to the mean over time.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#39

Post by neuroelectron »

klodolph wrote: post #10

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in A…

Amazon wants retention? That seems very strange and counter-intuitive. When did this happen?

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#40

Post by rblatz »

klodolph wrote: post #10

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in A…

I’ve long suspected it’s a PR campaign/propaganda and talking points aimed directly at the c suite class. A lot of people with a lot of money stand to lose a lot. Banks, investors, retirement funds…

Start circulating studies showing people working multiple remote jobs at once, steer thinking around company culture, normalize it through repetition, send out talking points. Eventually dominos will start failing.

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