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The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

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Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#41

Post by TuringNYC »

snapcaster wrote: post #16
rfwhyte wrote: post #12

The real reason CEOs want people back in office is 100% because they are broadly part of the same socio-economic class that owns the vast majority of commercial real estate around the world. They and their friends and family own all the commercial real estate, and high vacancy rates are are hurting their bottom lines and reducing the rate at which their property values increase, so they want people back in the office…

I've heard this before, but would the actual collusion mechanics be to make this happen? Like, my landlord buddy golfing just won't stop pestering me about getting my company to return to office so I convince the board of my company to do it?

Most executives have major real estate holdings in their pension plans. If the employer owns the building, the employer and equity-owning executives have yet more real estate holdings, albiet indirectly.

Because of ZIRP, pensions have been reaching for yield by doing anything they can, and that has often been CMBS, CRE equity, CRE bank loans, etc.

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#42

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

taylodl wrote: post #33
Kon-Peki wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. We were supposed to go back after 1 month, then 3 months, than 1 year, than 18 months, and then it was "we give up, work wherever you want - but for taxes and insurance purposes you MUST stay inside the state". And now our office lease is up; CEO recently announced where the new office will be. It will be extremely close to his new house and will have desks for even more people than we have now. You'd have t…

Nobody likes an ass-kisser. That's the best career advice I can give you.

In my experience, ass-kissing leads to better career outcomes than the opposite. Not many people like being challenged.

Life lessons from a too-blunt guy who just wants to work without the politics.

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#43

Post by eikenberry »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #20
linkjuice4all wrote: post #5

"My advice to the many CEOs tasked with this decision? Just own it." It would be nice if we could get this level of honesty from CEOs - but let's not pretend that firing people is the only driver for RTO. Some other motivations include: - We took a tax break that specifies some level of in-office time per employee and we already spent the money - We're getting pressured from local governments to bring customers into…

Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? Especially if you’re a big company and have a lot of new grads/inexperienced hires that are harder to train up remotely?

Ranking productivity over retention is what is crazy. Enterprises have fostered a culture that promotes thinking of people as replaceable commodities instead of assets that gain value over time. The turnover that view engenders means there is no institutional knowledge built up over time, forever keeping the company on unstable footing as they never really know what's going on.

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#44

Post by unethical_ban »

ethanbond wrote: post #30
MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any proof you’re more productive at home other than staying you don’t have to commute and can do laundry during the day? Edit: I’m not sure why I can’t reply to the guy below me but plenty of Google results about surveys that show WFH is less productive.

Yes, there's tons of evidence that distractions are incredibly costly, especially for complex or creative work, and that modern offices are super distracting places. Sure you could imagine a hypothetical world in which offices were designed differently, but for the most part RTO is return-to-open-office, with multiple distractions per hour.

Yes, there's tons of evidence that distractions are incredibly costly, especially for complex or creative work,

and that home offices are cramped places where work intrudes on the home sanctum; where the chores and unfinished personal tasks of one's life haunt the mind of the worker and distract them from the undivided attention of their work tasks and interactions with coworkers.

I am more on edge from waiting for someone to message me while at home than I ever was when I thought someone was going to walk up to me.

Disclaimer: like everyone else here, this is an opinion. Thinking WFH is magical is also an opinion. WFH has some upsides, and some people get more upside than others.

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#45

Post by futureshock »

lapcat wrote: post #28

You can speculate about various external reasons, but I suspect the real explanation is less rational and more psychological, instinctive, primal: managers enjoy the physicality and immediacy of management. They love to survey their domain, as if a lord, to be able to watch their underlings, to stand over their shoulders or get in their face, force them to acknowledge and respond to you. With WFH, a lot of that is lo…

I think this is exactly right. Also I think that control over the bodies of others is a big point as well. You are talking about power and physical power to dominate the body of another is a very pure form of this power. So telling people where to sit, when they come and go, having them gather in this room and that room, it fulfills a primal need.

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#46

Post by dijit »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #25
daveoc64 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy to think that without having anything to back it up.

Do you have any proof you’re more productive at home other than staying you don’t have to commute and can do laundry during the day? Edit: I’m not sure why I can’t reply to the guy below me but plenty of Google results about surveys that show WFH is less productive.

I dislike that you’re being downvoted, downvoting is not a disagree button.

There’s a lot of studies that show that productivity is better at home for some individuals, I don’t think there has been a proper meta-study because there’s studies that prove whatever you want to believe right now.

Even without citing any study, it does feel organic that it depends entirely on your job, your level of autonomy, your existing relationship to your colleagues and manager, the level of trust and ultimately your home situation.

Having 3 kids running around most of the day in a 2bedroom apartment is not going to be as productive as sitting in an air conditioned office that has good physical and auditory privacy.

However, it’s also true that management has been basically cutting costs extremely in terms of office space for decades, you don’t even get enough personal space or privacy for a cubicle now: let alone a door you could close.

Erosion of the quality of the office over this period of time has created a pretty large gulf to cross. I would argue that most people have better working conditions at home than the torrid open office that we’ve been subjected to.

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#49

Post by enumjorge »

lapcat wrote: post #28

You can speculate about various external reasons, but I suspect the real explanation is less rational and more psychological, instinctive, primal: managers enjoy the physicality and immediacy of management. They love to survey their domain, as if a lord, to be able to watch their underlings, to stand over their shoulders or get in their face, force them to acknowledge and respond to you. With WFH, a lot of that is lo…

I've seen this attribution of RTO to "managers" before but it doesn't ring true in my experience. Managers is too broad of a group of people. Every manager I've had since the beginning of the pandemic has loved working from home and said they don't want to go back.

If this [1] story from a few weeks ago is to be believed these directives are coming from the people at the top: executives, high level management, and investors. That story is about Microsoft specifically, but I don't see anything in there that would indicate the same couldn't have happened at other tech companies.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37643608

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#50

Post by ProjectArcturis »

lapcat wrote: post #28

You can speculate about various external reasons, but I suspect the real explanation is less rational and more psychological, instinctive, primal: managers enjoy the physicality and immediacy of management. They love to survey their domain, as if a lord, to be able to watch their underlings, to stand over their shoulders or get in their face, force them to acknowledge and respond to you. With WFH, a lot of that is lo…

Yup. Imagine Michael Scott trying to manage a team of remote workers. He would do ANYTHING to get them back in the office again. And it would have absolutely nothing to do with profitability.
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