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The return-to-the-office trend backfires

thehill.com

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Re: The return-to-the-office trend backfires

#111

Post by benterix »

ecshafer wrote: post #51
asdff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you also consider the nation as you know, a nation, and not a rat race of individual interest, the best thing the government could do is encourage working from home. Break the hell up these "hubs" of white collar industry and let's disperse this work and compensation across the country. I'm betting we would see quite a lot more growth anyhow if these jobs were distributed across the country vs just concentrated…

WFH aside. Any company that hits a certain size, starts to be broken up into multiple offices, buildings, floors, etc. and becomes de-facto remote. Meetings all become phone calls. and the team itself is mostly co-located. I am always a big confused at that point, why have a 20k person campus and 2 10k person campuses. Why not have 40 1k campuses? They are all effectively remote anyways.

I work for a multinational corporation and I was remote also before the pandemic. It is very smooth and everybody's happy. Once a year we meet in person in a larger group, it if an interesting experience, and then everybody goes back home and continue working as usual. When I see people bending over backwards and doing strange things out of distrust and the desire to control their employees and make their life miserable for no real reason, I feel really sorry, it makes zero sense to me.

Re: The return-to-the-office trend backfires

#113

Post by genthree »

heraldgeezer wrote: post #53

What if I actually like the office? I have a 40min walk to it or 10min bus ride, so no American commute, lol. (Your society is done) I like my colleagues. Sometimes you want to meet and solve problems face to face, and not have it be planned. I have a shift schedule, sometimes I am the only one in the office, that is bliss :) But my work is 100% in office.

Good office with a short walkable or bike able commute is my preference.

I've never had "good" plus that kind of commute. I've only had one of those at a time, and about half the time, neither.

So skipping the commute—and having a private bathroom, and all my own food available for lunch without packing, and fewer infections per year, and being able to deal with kid-emergencies with far less disruption to my work day et c—easily wins.

But yes I prefer a good office and a nice, active commute. I'm on track to literally never have that combo together ever in my life, but it'd be my favorite way to work.

Re: The return-to-the-office trend backfires

#114

Post by genthree »

awepofiwaop wrote: post #97
asdff wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about Bay area here, not San Diego. Much of the US experiences 40-50 degree grey bleak cloudy winters.

Really? Genuine question - I'd like to move there. Keep in mind "year round perfect weather" does include summers that aren't preposterously hot. I've found that everywhere else, certainly in the midwest, where I live, either gets too hot in summer or too cold in winter (or is extremely remote, i.e. Hawaii).

> I've found that everywhere else, certainly in the midwest, where I live, either gets too hot in summer or too cold in winter

Much of the midwest gets both. Stifling humidity and temps often in the 90s, sometimes topping 100, for (effectively) a horrid 5- to 6-month-long summer. "Arctic blasts" in the Winter for sustained highs under 10 for days on end, lots of ice storms (and, if you do get a real, good snow, nowhere to ski anyway). 3 months total shared between Spring and Fall when the weather doesn't suck.

Re: The return-to-the-office trend backfires

#115

Post by stronglikedan »

mcs5280 wrote: post #61

My company gave us 3 months notice and said 100% RTO in January 2026. I warned them this was a dealbreaker for me. They said sorry, no exceptions. In January I submitted my two weeks notice, citing RTO. They accepted my resignation letter and then called me a few hours later saying they could make an exception. Now I'm back to 100% remote. I wouldn't consider myself to be an irreplaceable superstar employee, but they…

> Not sure what the point of this dance was.

It's to reduce dance partners. Most people won't push back against "no exceptions", so they greatly reduce the number of exceptions they have to consider just by saying it.

Re: The return-to-the-office trend backfires

#116

Post by palmotea »

isahers wrote: post #5

This is interesting because it does not jibe at all with the people I know and how productive they are. The friends I know working big tech hybrid jobs work maybe 25 hours in a good week, whereas the friends I know in office 4/5 days a week are easily at double that. I'd imagine there are some confounding variables here. I wonder if a lot of those hybrid companies driving high revenue growth are just profit machines…

> The friends I know working big tech hybrid jobs work maybe 25 hours in a good week, whereas the friends I know in office 4/5 days a week are easily at double that.

Hours "worked" != productivity.

Re: The return-to-the-office trend backfires

#117

Post by surgical_fire »

matchbok3 wrote: post #10
CivBase wrote: post #4

For something to "backfire" you first have to account for why it was done. This article assumes performance and retention are the only considerations. It does not account for things like commercial real estate value, a buesiness's ability to monitor and control its employees, or excuses for layoffs.

What do you mean by "monitor and control"? Should an employer not be able to see what their employees are doing at work? What is an "excuse" for a layoff, exactly?

If you deliver all tasks in a timely manner, is productive and helpful in a team setting, contribute to discussions and initiatives beyond your immediate assignments... What exactly should I monitor? How many minutes per day your butt is in a seat? If you did a school run and woked a bit more after hours to compensate? If you had a headache and took a short nap after lunchtime?

How does monitoring you contribute to anything?

Re: The return-to-the-office trend backfires

#118

Post by palmotea »

diacritical wrote: post #71

I will never go back to the office. There are enough jobs around, even if they pay less. Hell, to live a comfortable life I could work at a job that pays 5x less than what I get paid now (not that much), even though I'll have to sacrifice some stuff. But I'll have to sacrifice luxuries, not my time or mental health. Personally, I see it like this: Option 1 - at home: * stay in my comfortable air-conditioned room in m…

> * having to make idle boring chit chat with corporate drones who want to socialize,

This point makes you look like a jerk.

Re: The return-to-the-office trend backfires

#119

Post by red-iron-pine »

graemep wrote: post #8
isahers wrote: post #5

This is interesting because it does not jibe at all with the people I know and how productive they are. The friends I know working big tech hybrid jobs work maybe 25 hours in a good week, whereas the friends I know in office 4/5 days a week are easily at double that. I'd imagine there are some confounding variables here. I wonder if a lot of those hybrid companies driving high revenue growth are just profit machines…

Do they do more work by working longer hours? People often do not. Output is not the same thing as hours worked. Productivity is output per hour, so its also possible for output to fall and productivity to rise. This will be the usual case with fewer hours.

> Output is not the same thing as hours worked.

factories would disagree. there are diminishing returns as people get tired and productivity dips, but there is still a direct, linear relationship.

however its very different from knowledge- or social-based (e.g. sales) workers. there is often no direct 1-to-1

Re: The return-to-the-office trend backfires

#120

Post by red-iron-pine »

jmyeet wrote: post #28

Any analysis that frames this as a productivity or talent-attraction issue is flawed from the start because that was never the point and still isn't. The point of RTO mandates is to suppress wages . It's to get people to quit rather than having to lay them off. It's part of the permanent layoffs culture we're now in where every year 5-10% of the workers at a company will be laid off. Remaining workers will do more la…

easy mate the same people pushing those suppressions are the ones posting here. or having their bots post here. you're supposed to pretend capitalism is great.

but yeah it's clearly body shedding with the goal of rehiring on the cheap. and/or buying time to see how AI plays out.

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