It is unclear who wants RTO, at least within tech and other leaders whom I know within tech.
Those who are entering the workforce, remote working is fun for greybeards and terrible for fresh grads, interns and apprentices.
Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
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Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#22> “staggering 76% of employees stand ready to jump ship if their companies decide to pull the plug on flexible work schedules” People always say this, but I’d bet that the vast majority of those 76% would begrudgingly go in if it was demanded. Talk is cheap, as they say.
n=1. Out of roughly 8 colleagues (mix of infosec, IT, networking), all sought employment elsewhere when RTOd and were able to find remote jobs at higher pay within 2-3 weeks. Those who left pulled others with in some cases. Agree talk is cheap, so you've gotta let someone find out when they fuck around. If the org hurts or burns due to poor management, that is a management problem. Manage better. It is a choice.
Always be interviewing, always be ready to move on. If an employer wants loyalty, I recommend a dog. To be clear, this is not intended to be adversarial. On the contrary, it is simply recognizing the tenuous employment relationship for what it is.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#23The manager class is going to go kicking and screaming into the new world where they can no longer call their otherwise totally capable, productive employees into the office for morning snack like schoolchildren. The faster they accept it, the better off their organizations will be.
I empathized a little with my manager during the pandemic. My job got somewhat easier, his got much, much harder. I guess managers took a little longer to be whacked by the wrecking ball of technology.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#24> “staggering 76% of employees stand ready to jump ship if their companies decide to pull the plug on flexible work schedules” People always say this, but I’d bet that the vast majority of those 76% would begrudgingly go in if it was demanded. Talk is cheap, as they say.
As always, the people with the most options and who are most in demand will be the ones to leave first. I've seen this firsthand. Then you're left with the worst people, people who are unhappy but stuck, and people who just can't be bothered to do anything about it. Sounds like a great recipe for productivity! I love working with my fellow cage-mates.
The least talented people will likely stick around because finding alternative employment is more challenging for them. That's disastrous for morale.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#25> “staggering 76% of employees stand ready to jump ship if their companies decide to pull the plug on flexible work schedules” People always say this, but I’d bet that the vast majority of those 76% would begrudgingly go in if it was demanded. Talk is cheap, as they say.
The younger generations would sabotage us from within if we tried this.
We've already had a couple "silent" rebellions from "zoomers" and even "millenials".
It's astounding not worth the risk for my firm except for certain teams.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#26Seems more nuanced than this discussion is making it out. We have had attrition and recruiting challenges with RTO, but also noticeable improvements in morale and productivity - especially when it comes to onboarding new folks.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#27Commercial real estate value is a bubble that's gonna pop soon. There's just way more office space than anyone needs.
Is there a way to short CRE other than investing in non-commercial RE? I'd think you can probably directly short CRE-focused REITs but I'd be worried about them rebalancing or diversifying even as CRE starts to pop.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#28Of course it's too early to tell with lots of confounding variables, but labor productivity has been taking a steep dive[0]. So perhaps in the aggregate, WFH is resulting in less work being done. I say this as someone who's been full-time WFH for over a decade; I'm not taking a position one way or another. [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MPU4910063
That chart confuses me. Each data point is percentage increase vs the PREVIOUS year?
So the "steep dive" that you talk about is a single year -1.7% decrease vs a decade of constant increase, going as high as 4.6% in a single year?
I feel that chart is almost deceitful. Every year that this is above 0 is a percentage win no matter the delta. So if that chart showed
* 2030 -> 20%
* 2031 -> 1%
It'd feel like a steep dive, but 2031 would still be an _increase_ in productivity over 2030.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#29> “staggering 76% of employees stand ready to jump ship if their companies decide to pull the plug on flexible work schedules” People always say this, but I’d bet that the vast majority of those 76% would begrudgingly go in if it was demanded. Talk is cheap, as they say.
It's not the same thing but...
We've had 2 of 3 engineering role candidates we recently made offers to decline citing our 3 days a week in office policy...
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#30It is unclear who wants RTO, at least within tech and other leaders whom I know within tech.
I prefer RTO and being in the office with the entire team. That doesn't make me crazy, and I know several others on my team feel the same way.