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RTO: WTAF

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Re: RTO: WTAF

#61

Post by quitit »

gabesullice wrote: post #9

I'm genuinely interested in why RTO is trending. I searched Harvard Business Review, Gartner, and other sources just last week trying to find the rationale, but I wasn't successful. In fact, I found those sources to be a little cautionary. E.g., they say "if you do switch to in-office or hybrid, make sure you actually have metrics to evaluate the effects" and "ensure it makes sense for the actual work to be done by e…

Of the information I have reviewed brain storming / creative sessions are better in person versus online sessions. This does lend to hybrid approaches being useful. All other metrics were better or had no difference.

One point I did note is that there is an increase in management overhead when workers are separated, and this increase in workload by senior management is likely a pain point for them - even though there are likely productivity benefits in forcing management to communicate through official channels and have a more organised approach to task delegation/internal messaging.

From a financial perspective office spaces are a type of investment vehicle. Prior to the GFC office space was lucrative, and that was again peaking pre-covid. There are likely secondary motivations at play beyond productivity.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#62

Post by us-merul »

varispeed wrote: post #57
bonoboTP wrote: post #26

It bears repeating that if you're a tech worker in the US, your greatest asset is your physical location. You might think you like remote jobs, but you will have competition from South America, Western and Eastern Europe, etc. as well as people in the US living in flyover states in the middle of nowhere with cheap rent. If the focus also shifts more to raw input-output task accomplishmentbas opposed to in person soci…

The argument doesn’t hold water. Companies aren’t pushing RTO because they want to pay higher salaries to office-bound staff in expensive metros. If raw “input–output” and cheap labour were the only metric, they’d go fully remote, tap global markets, and slash payroll overnight. RTO is about control and optics, not cost optimisation. It’s management preference, real estate sunk costs, and the illusion of productivity…

It also turns remote work into a negotiated benefit, which may be preferred over actual raises.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#63

Post by pitched »

000ooo000 wrote: post #31
EmilStenstrom wrote: post #18

Sigh This debate has been going on for years now. Remote is good for: People who work alone & People that don't like commuting Remote is bad for: People who work together with other people & People who like socializing IRL (including managers) Too many developers think they are working alone, while in fact they are part of a team and they would be better off working closer to that team.

>Too many developers think they are working alone, while in fact they are part of a team and they would be better off working closer to that team. Sounds like you think software development is like one of those stock photos with 8 people smiling and high-fiving around a whiteboard. Devs are (mostly) nerds. Nerds have been collaborating in the online world for decades. They somehow managed to achieve things and build…

I really, strongly believe that if devs were building genuine friendships with their team mates remotely, there would be no RTO. I have only ever seen the opposite: people are distancing from each other more than ever. Aren’t we in a “loneliness epidemic”?

Re: RTO: WTAF

#65

Post by xienze »

bonoboTP wrote: post #26

It bears repeating that if you're a tech worker in the US, your greatest asset is your physical location. You might think you like remote jobs, but you will have competition from South America, Western and Eastern Europe, etc. as well as people in the US living in flyover states in the middle of nowhere with cheap rent. If the focus also shifts more to raw input-output task accomplishmentbas opposed to in person soci…

> If you think that everyone overseas is simply less intelligent, you'll have a rough awakening.

Counterpoint, developer offshoring has been happening since at least the late nineties with eh, limited success. It's hard to get around major timezone differences and thick accents. This isn't even getting into the fatal mistake that everyone makes -- thinking that there's, for example, a billion more "Brilliant Indian Guy in Our Office" clones out there in India.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#66

Post by SR2Z »

bonoboTP wrote: post #26

It bears repeating that if you're a tech worker in the US, your greatest asset is your physical location. You might think you like remote jobs, but you will have competition from South America, Western and Eastern Europe, etc. as well as people in the US living in flyover states in the middle of nowhere with cheap rent. If the focus also shifts more to raw input-output task accomplishmentbas opposed to in person soci…

I think that folks overseas aren't as capable of communicating with Americans as other Americans are. I think that American tech companies would prefer a motivated at-will employee at 3x the cost of an unfirable European with a statutory month off every year. I think that none of this will magically make it easier to raise money outside the US.

There are obviously plenty of brilliant people outside the US. Unfortunately, intelligence is not the only factor that revenue per employee emerges from - or else the US would not dominate the tech sector and it would be uncommon to find remote-first companies based entirely in the US.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#67

Post by xienze »

mft_ wrote: post #13

I think there are three alternative hypotheses the article misses from its list: * Ego: senior people need to be seen and respected in person; being reduced to equally-sized thumbnail videos on Teams doesn't feed this need. * Real estate: some companies have financial commitments (e.g. long-term leases, owned buildings) to large office buildings which need to be justified; selling or ending the lease early might refl…

I think the bigger driver is that cities and states are pressuring companies to RTO because of the massive negative impact to local businesses and governments who no longer have thousands of people coming into a particular area on a daily basis.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#68

Post by Macha »

birdalbrocum wrote: post #21

What RTO and WTAF means? Who knows. I clicked on link to find out but looks like website blogs my IP range. I will never know this important information..

WTAF: WT Actual F

RTO: Return to Office

Re: RTO: WTAF

#69

Post by passwordoops »

varispeed wrote: post #57
bonoboTP wrote: post #26

It bears repeating that if you're a tech worker in the US, your greatest asset is your physical location. You might think you like remote jobs, but you will have competition from South America, Western and Eastern Europe, etc. as well as people in the US living in flyover states in the middle of nowhere with cheap rent. If the focus also shifts more to raw input-output task accomplishmentbas opposed to in person soci…

The argument doesn’t hold water. Companies aren’t pushing RTO because they want to pay higher salaries to office-bound staff in expensive metros. If raw “input–output” and cheap labour were the only metric, they’d go fully remote, tap global markets, and slash payroll overnight. RTO is about control and optics, not cost optimisation. It’s management preference, real estate sunk costs, and the illusion of productivity…

You're partially correct in RTO being about control. Sunk costs in real estate and local tax benefits pay a significant role.

But if every company decided "you know what? Let's go remote!", it will be a matter of months, if not weeks, before every CFO/CEO/Board decides to boost profits by tapping the global talent pool.

The recent delusions to replace software engineers with LLMs is a pretty good indication of where the thinking is vis-a-vis capable engineering

Re: RTO: WTAF

#70

Post by pitched »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #49
threemux wrote: post #10

> employees who now have to spend money on [...] childcare Excuse me, what? Unless he's referring to something like before and after school care for an older child, he's saying people were foregoing daycare for their young children? As a parent of two children younger than kindergarten age, I don't understand how productive remote work was being done without childcare.

You’re right for younger children but for older children in school you can definitely handle it while working remotely. You just pick them up from school and then they can mostly do stuff on their own the afternoon. But if you have to go in office suddenly that doesn’t work anymore.

To expand on this a touch, kids are only in school for 6 hours a day. For ages between kindergarten and grade 4 or so, it is generally frowned on to let them make their way home alone. A single parent with no child care cannot be in an office for 8 hours straight.
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