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RTO: WTAF

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Re: RTO: WTAF

#11

Post by MarcelOlsz »

gabesullice wrote: post #9

I'm genuinely interested in why RTO is trending. I searched Harvard Business Review, Gartner, and other sources just last week trying to find the rationale, but I wasn't successful. In fact, I found those sources to be a little cautionary. E.g., they say "if you do switch to in-office or hybrid, make sure you actually have metrics to evaluate the effects" and "ensure it makes sense for the actual work to be done by e…

It's a lazy and cowardly way to get people to cull themselves and save money on severance packages. It's not that deep.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#12

Post by deviation »

I feel that the reason RTO is still such a wonderful topic to write about or debate online, is that the spectrum of human "experience" is so wide, that there will always be a significant number of people on either side of the fence.

Personally, I can't count the amount of times I've switched sides, and I don't think I'm the only one.

IMO, mandated RTO is (objectively) an effort by large organizations to make their "systems" more predictable in aggregate. The manner of predictability will be largely depend on the size of the organization (e.g. A startup vs. Microsoft) and their needs (productivity/reliability/consistency/etc), and we see this manifest in any number of the RTO announcements we've seen online.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#13

Post by mft_ »

I think there are three alternative hypotheses the article misses from its list:

* Ego: senior people need to be seen and respected in person; being reduced to equally-sized thumbnail videos on Teams doesn't feed this need.

* Real estate: some companies have financial commitments (e.g. long-term leases, owned buildings) to large office buildings which need to be justified; selling or ending the lease early might reflect badly on leadership.

* Extroverts: some people just prefer to be in an office, surrounded by and interacting with lots of people, rather than sitting at home in relative isolation. (I'm definitely not one of them, but I have good friends who are like this.)

Re: RTO: WTAF

#14

Post by oytis »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #11
gabesullice wrote: post #9

I'm genuinely interested in why RTO is trending. I searched Harvard Business Review, Gartner, and other sources just last week trying to find the rationale, but I wasn't successful. In fact, I found those sources to be a little cautionary. E.g., they say "if you do switch to in-office or hybrid, make sure you actually have metrics to evaluate the effects" and "ensure it makes sense for the actual work to be done by e…

It's a lazy and cowardly way to get people to cull themselves and save money on severance packages. It's not that deep.

Isn't it possible to just not give people severance packages?

Re: RTO: WTAF

#15

Post by deviation »

gabesullice wrote: post #9

I'm genuinely interested in why RTO is trending. I searched Harvard Business Review, Gartner, and other sources just last week trying to find the rationale, but I wasn't successful. In fact, I found those sources to be a little cautionary. E.g., they say "if you do switch to in-office or hybrid, make sure you actually have metrics to evaluate the effects" and "ensure it makes sense for the actual work to be done by e…

I feel that companies still misunderstand how to evaluate these metrics they're collecting on the efficacy of RTO.

IMO, RTO efficacy should be measured on a team-by-team basis. There are no doubt zero "one size fits all" approaches for entire orgs, or entire companies (and if there are, then the metrics should /strongly/ reflect that)

Re: RTO: WTAF

#16

Post by majorbugger »

mft_ wrote: post #13

I think there are three alternative hypotheses the article misses from its list: * Ego: senior people need to be seen and respected in person; being reduced to equally-sized thumbnail videos on Teams doesn't feed this need. * Real estate: some companies have financial commitments (e.g. long-term leases, owned buildings) to large office buildings which need to be justified; selling or ending the lease early might refl…

Do these extroverts have a job that requires any level of focus? I'm also pretty much an extrovert but if I need to get any work done, being in the office is actually counterproductive for me and for people who I interact with.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#17

Post by swiftcoder »

mft_ wrote: post #13

I think there are three alternative hypotheses the article misses from its list: * Ego: senior people need to be seen and respected in person; being reduced to equally-sized thumbnail videos on Teams doesn't feed this need. * Real estate: some companies have financial commitments (e.g. long-term leases, owned buildings) to large office buildings which need to be justified; selling or ending the lease early might refl…

> Ego

We can give them bigger/more-prominent zoom portraits by seniority. Should make everyone happy.

> Real estate

Probably shouldn't still be gambling company finances on real estate, 5 years after a pandemic forced us all to go remote.

> Extroverts

Great! We can put all the extroverts back in the glass fishbowl, while the rest of us do actual work from home

Re: RTO: WTAF

#18

Post by EmilStenstrom »

Sigh This debate has been going on for years now.

Remote is good for: People who work alone & People that don't like commuting

Remote is bad for: People who work together with other people & People who like socializing IRL (including managers)

Too many developers think they are working alone, while in fact they are part of a team and they would be better off working closer to that team.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#19

Post by swiftcoder »

oytis wrote: post #14
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lazy and cowardly way to get people to cull themselves and save money on severance packages. It's not that deep.

Isn't it possible to just not give people severance packages?

Depends what sort of contract they have (and/or how much perceived leverage they have - firing high-income workers who have a public platform can make for messy PR)

Re: RTO: WTAF

#20

Post by oytis »

mft_ wrote: post #13

I think there are three alternative hypotheses the article misses from its list: * Ego: senior people need to be seen and respected in person; being reduced to equally-sized thumbnail videos on Teams doesn't feed this need. * Real estate: some companies have financial commitments (e.g. long-term leases, owned buildings) to large office buildings which need to be justified; selling or ending the lease early might refl…

I wonder if it can be a genuine attempt to save positions. E.g. the board might be asking why they keep remote employees in the US instead of letting them go and hiring in a cheaper location
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