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Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

businessinsider.com

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Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#591

Post by wiseowise »

tjr wrote: post #414
moralestapia wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And if I’m dressed professionally, I get more done and I get better responses from others than when I’m wearing shorts and a tee shirt. Are you a butler? No offense. No one in tech would give two f...s about what you're wearing when you push git commits.

For some people, what they wear has an impact on their own performance. It's not necessarily about how others perceive them, and it's not necessarily logical. Some people work better with music, or with a window to look out... some people work better in fancier attire.

If only it was possible to dress up at home…

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#592

Post by lucketone »

missedthecue wrote: post #545
yepitwas wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why the various tax incentives and such (plus stealth layoffs) aren't enough to explain it. I've seen companies do some weird shit for those "X workers at location Y at least Z hours per year" tax incentives. I'd believe it's a major motivator for RTO (though probably somewhat behind the layoffs motivation)

The incentives don't pencil out. They don't make an entire separate corporate structure and several extra layers of taxation result in more money for investors instead of just... giving it to investors. Why the push for RTO? The most simple and boring answer. Most people work and especially learn from each other better in-person than over Zoom and Slack. Practically zero people will try to pretend that remote school…

> The incentives don't pencil out.

Devils advocating:

If I am already an owner of real estate, I’m interested not only in monthly rent, but also in property value (I can sell it or I can use it as collateral for a loan).

If offices are half empty across whole town, then property values are down.

On the other hand if you somehow would be able to saturate the office space, them property values go up.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#593

Post by znpy »

zero_shift wrote: post #190

At $org, we too are undertaking a mandatory RTO order, enforced with door access logs. People are up in arms, particularly those in our smaller locales, where the offices we have are perfunctory at best. The rationale is the usual one: collaboration, watercooler chat, unspecific evidence / "research" about productivity (that we are told definitely exists, but is yet to be shared). I remain baffled by executives' obse…

> I still have no idea where it comes from.

i was chatting with HR boss last week. he's 100% sure these kind of mandates are reductions in force (layoffs) masked as return to office.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#594

Post by dddgghhbbfblk »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #528
dragonwriter wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RTO mandates are about many things, but actual business value of being in the office to the business doing the mandate is low on the list. Among the things it is about: (1) Executives with emotional attachment to certain leadership styles that are enabled by physical presence, (2) Interest in the investor class for the commercial real estate market. The business impacted may not be invested in it, but the businesses’…

It is hilarious that people think the second largest company on the planet, with a market cap over $5 trillion, spends even one second worry about the profit margins of commercial real estate companies, makes any decisions based on that, or is somehow cowed by their alleged political power despite being much, much, much smaller than Microsoft.

They care insofar as the collapse of commercial real estate is cited as a social harm of WFH by the elite classes outside the business that push RTO.

It's not an explicit decision making factor, just something that's in the background that has contributed to the overall idea that "RTO = good"

These decisions are all being made by vibes, after all, not by a cold rational analysis

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#595

Post by [deleted] »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #517
chii wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cameras on 100% i hate the idea of camera on 100% of the time. I am not presentable when WFH. That's the point. I might also be on the toilet - which otherwise is dead time!

Cameras off is a drain for collaboration. Frankly, I think your productivity would benefit from RTO. Professionalism does help in collaboration.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#596

Post by olivermuty »

watwut wrote: post #581
terminalshort wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 and 3 aren't real. Nobody gives a damn about their shareholders other investments, and no one company has the numbers to save them anyway. And nobody is dumb enough to do RTO as a layoff proxy because anybody with a brain knows you're going to lose the people with options, who are exactly the people you don't want to lose. 1 is spot on.

3 is very real. Sometimes even openly so, as in an executive telling it out loud. > And nobody is dumb enough to do RTO as a layoff proxy because anybody with a brain knows you're going to lose the people with options, who are exactly the people you don't want to lose. Here is what our CEO told me once: layoffs always mean you loose more people then those you just fired. That is unavoidable and can amount to addition…

Well RTO mandate means you lose ONLY the good people with other options or make the people with no options have animosity since the deal was changed

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#597

Post by wiseowise »

wpm wrote: post #491
chii wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unspecific vibes that it must be bad if employees like it I read it as the feeling that they know somehow that the employees are not putting in 100% of their attention at home on the work assigned. And i do believe it to be true - lots of people claim that WFH means they can "do the laundry" and/or go to the post office. The fact is that there's very few self-starters and intrinsically motivated employees. Most are…

> Not to mention the fact that it is indeed much harder to have collaborative discussions that are spontaneous and unplanned in a WFH setting, compared to the office. This is a culture thing that is easily fixed by mandating cameras on, buying everyone good microphones, and a consensus that you can ping someone with a question, go back and forth, and know that you aren't imposing by throwing a /zoom into the Slack DM…

Hahahaha, my sides. Jesus. That’s the funniest I’ve heard in this thread.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#598

Post by sokoloff »

malfist wrote: post #515
RHSeeger wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You /s, but that's actually a fair point - Some people work better at home, away from the office - Some people work better in the office, with their co-workers around them Those two facts are at direct odds with each other. It's unfortunate, but you can't give both groups what they want.

It's not a fair point. The same argument could be made that I work better if I also get your paycheck. - Some people work better if they get their paycheck and their coworker's paycheck - Some people work better when each person gets their own paycheck No one is saying that's unfortunate that you can't give both groups what they want

What is happening is some companies are choosing A and others are choosing B.

Employees who really care about A will prefer companies who chose A, same for B. Employees who care more about other properties C, D, E, etc. but not much about A or B will prefer companies that provide those properties.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#599

Post by rk06 »

adamiscool8 wrote: post #128

>We’ve looked at how our teams work best, and the data is clear: when people work together in person more often, they thrive — they are more energized, empowered, and they deliver stronger results. Citation needed or this is just more vibe-xecutive decree.

it is obviously more nonsense. There is no way one single will approach will work for ALL employees. some people just do not want to spend 4hrs in commute on daily basis. and any senior employee with kids would prefer to spend more time with kid than on

and that is when Office does not hinder productivity through lack of team space, meeting rooms and open office non sense or seting up equipment.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#600

Post by Longlius »

j-bos wrote: post #405
reenorap wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remain baffled by executives' obsession with RTO It's because although many people do work well in RTO, the vast majority don't. And the various TikTok videos showing "Day in the life of a remote worker" didn't help the cause either. I worked at a fully remote company during the pandemic and trying to get people online was almost impossible. They would disappear for hours and I would be blocked by them and it was…

> trying to get people online was almost impossible. They would disappear for hours and I would be blocked by them I don't understand why this is such a problem. I've even heard CEOs complain about this, about their direct reports. Child, if someone is AWOL on their job and they're blocking you, ring their boss. And if you're the boss, hold them to account. Why do so many orgs need a steamroller to level the flower b…

That's because this isn't actually a thing that's happened. I've seen plenty of remote employees fired for not being available during business hours. The idea that we need mass RTO to handle a few problem employees is silly.
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