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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

#51

Post by taylodl »

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?

Is it crazy to think a big company should have a comprehensive onboarding program that includes training and shadowing someone? Especially for an intern? That can all be done remotely.

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

#52

Post by apercu »

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?

Everyone is different.

I spent 8.5 years commuting in the Toronto area with traffic getting worse and worse each year.

Being a morning person meant I lost my most productive work hours in the car (public transport would take almost twice as long) and arrived at the office stressed from the 1.5 hour drive, all while getting emails and calls that I couldn't really deal with in the car, stressing me out more, arriving at the office in no mood to be able to think clearly.

I quit that job (difficult, financially and emotionally, because as the President of the company I had literally built large parts and hire more than 2/3rds of the team), and went back to consulting.

It was night and day, in far fewer hours I produced a lot more, simply because I eliminated stresses and had more and better focus time.

It also helped me create and set up boundaries, because the modern workplace is pretty toxic, at all levels. Maybe always has been.

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

#53

Post by [deleted] »

unethical_ban wrote: post #44
ethanbond wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

[deleted]

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

#54

Post by Gibbon1 »

throwaway9274 wrote: post #10

The problem with this idea is that the highest performers are the group most likely to quit.

Bonus when you realize the employee that just quit after the layoffs spent the last six months looking for a job instead of working.

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

#55

Post by hotpotamus »

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.

This is the opposite of my experience. Or at least, bosses love ass-kissers; other employees not so much.

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

#56

Post by hotnfresh »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #19
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…

> 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 the city to spend money at local businesses Extremely interested in any examples if you have them handy. If I'm in the office simply because of a tax break, then I feel I'm productive and revenue-generating by doing absolutely nothing wh…

Don’t have an example with citation handy, but anecdote that I’ve seen such programs used at small businesses, with tax advantages tied to having employees within the city limits or in a certain district, and I’ve seen bigger bespoke incentive plans to draw larger businesses include similar language. X jobs at Y location, that kind of thing.

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

#57

Post by topspin »

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…

A big part being CEO is deliberately not owning things. Diluting responsibility is a key survival skill for top management.

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

#58

Post by bryanlarsen »

t0mas88 wrote: post #29
throwaway9274 wrote: post #10

The problem with this idea is that the highest performers are the group most likely to quit.

Well... Those that are best at interviewing and selling themselves are the most likely to quit after finding a new position. That doesn't necessarily correlate with the highest performers. Might actually correlate more with those that also spend a lot of time on internal politics, which are good for their performance reviews but not for the companies actual performance. Especially in the more technical roles most of…

The good interviewers are the first to jump ship, but then they talk the top performers into joining them at the new place.

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

#59

Post by monkeydust »

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 am a manager and I certainly don't share this view and I know my manager doesn't either. In a lot of cases this push is coming from the executive committee which I think supports the argument made in the article if you extrapolate where we might be heading in the economic cycle. We just have to deal with it.

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

#60

Post by flappyeagle »

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…

armchair psychiatry at its finest. you've never managed anything significant clearly.

Here I'll do one: "software developers like to choose their own tools because they don't care about using the most efficient best in class tool available, they like to think of themselves as artists as if they were all little da vincis who have yet to be recognized for their brilliance"

See how condescending and dumb this is?

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