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The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

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

#101

Post by pash »

jaggederest wrote: post #35
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.

The Fed’s estimates thru 2022 say real estate makes up 46.8% of net US wealth ($83.5 trillion of $178.4 trillion) [0].

0. Readably summarized at https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/net-wealth-is-over-135-... .

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

#102

Post by InDubioProRubio »

_zoltan_ wrote: post #46
rblatz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it would be bad for people's pension funds and such, shouldn't it be everyone's interest to actually keep showing up to prop up those real estate values?

Productivity would grow the amount of value in real-estate + some i guess. Should be a little spike starting at covid where new value is generated, but old losses are not priced in.

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

#103

Post by steve1977 »

kitsune_ wrote: post #49
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…

My theory, which is kind of informed by what I saw it play out in my company: The reason is a psychological one. Most leaders derive their power from in-person interactions. Remote and video calls severely impact that. Those leaders also love having an audience that needs to listen to them whenever they are in the room and the lack of that kind of feedback and adulation shellshocked a lot of them.

Totally agree. Add to that the fact that in many cases, businesses ran fine without the in-person interactions of these managers… which could mean that we actually don’t need them, the managers I mean. And they are very scared of that.

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

#104

Post by Ekaros »

dmazzoni wrote: post #51

I don't understand the logic behind this argument. Yes, some people made a bet on office real estate, and they're in a bad position right now. But those aren't the same people who are running businesses that use those offices. Why would most businesses care if real estate is propped up or not? How would increasing utilization of their buildings actually help them?

Also wouldn't the most sensible strategy for these ruthless capitalist to let in entirely crash and then scoop it up at the bottom and then mandate RTO...

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

#105

Post by hshshshsvsv »

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…

If you have billions of dollars in real estate losses and think can offset the losses by driving some anti remote work stories in media, I don't see why rich people would not do this. Also you think planting stories needs coordinated work across media. It doesn't. Read more about it.

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

#106

Post by throwaway984393 »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #60

This is maybe the stupidest article I've yet to see discussed on HN. This person thinks that multibillion dollar companies would be willing to sacrifice productivity to prop up the minor real estate assets they hold at the expense of their revenue and market cap?

[dead]

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

#107

Post by vishalontheline »

svara wrote: post #81

The borderline conspiracy theories on this are odd. If you're a manager, having a remote team is just harder. It can still work well with a certain type of people, people who are self directed and take pride in their work, but let's not fool ourselves into believing that's the only kind.

During quarantine, companies universally congratulated themselves and their staff on the boost in productivity that WFH enabled.

The non self-directed types were still employed, and their productivity wasn't much better or worse, but I suspect that the self-directed team members were able to deliver even more than before.

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

#108

Post by [deleted] »

fire_lake wrote: post #12
okamiueru wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is far fetched tho. If you have a couple of millions to spare, you can easily set up a little think tank on how to effect certain changes. If you're willing to throw money at something, it requires minimal effort to coordinate. Your question as to who these people are, is still valid. So my objection is only to the extent that it being unknown doesn't mean it isn't likely.

It would be a fantastic piece of investigative journalism if someone could link these stories to real estate investors somehow.

[deleted]

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

#109

Post by chaostheory »

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…

There are also tax incentives. Cities like big company offices because in theory their workers would become customers of local businesses, which would not be possible with remote work. Maybe cities have been threatening to take away the tax breaks unless leadership did a RTO?

It's also highly likely that this is a soft layoff, trying to delay the real layoffs in 2025

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

#110

Post by mzimbres »

Here is a low hanging fruit for governments around the world fighting low birth rates. Allow your people to work from home and they will start having more babies, simplle as that. I am my wife had to switch jobs just so we could work more from home, an unnecessary annoyance.
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