The push to return to the office was always about the value of commercial mortgage backed securities. Worker satisfaction is not even a topic to the people who decided it must be so.
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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I'm sure that's part of it, but most office-based companies do not own commercial real estate. They're renters of it. Having workers return to the office does nothing for the value of their property, as they don't own any.
While it does give management a sense that they're paying rent on those long-term commercial leases for a reason, it's pretty clear that the real value for them is in being able to directly see employees when they're not in-camera. Managers and ownership have demonstrated that they do not trust their employees, and pulling them back into the office is much more about feeling like they can control their lessers than it is about anything else.
If after 3 years of a pandemic, a manager is unable to achieve success with remote employees, that manager is failing and should be let go.
I led a team on two continents at my last company, and my CEO had the nerve to tell us that RTO was so we could "get the crucial face to face time that ensures cooperation and efficiency"
Face to face. With Europe. From Ohio. Okay.
She could've just told us she has no idea how to function in a remote environment, but Forbes articles about how our company's value was "deteriorating rapidly" was a big enough clue.
Preaching to the choir. I left my last job because they mandated return to office so that I could work remotely with teams in Montreal and Paris.
The only difference between doing that in my home office and doing it from their office was they could watch over my shoulder from there.
It's not about managing remote teams. It's about controlling workers, and those are very different things. These people are worried that you might be getting your laundry done between work tasks, or that you're actually working 5 jobs, or other ridiculous bullshit, not about whether you're achieving your assigned tasks.
Remote work is cheaper, more efficient, and leads to happier workers, and they'd rather wreck the first two to ensure the don't have the third.
I'd argue that if you're worried about what your salaried employee is doing between tasks, when their tasks are being completed, you're a bad manager full stop.
That's what I meant by saying people were incapable of managing remote teams.
You and I both know it's always entrenched senior leadership, too, and they're never the ones losing their jobs to incompetence.
This whole shift in working has been eye-opening and frustrating in equal measure.
It's something of a prism of top-down class warfare, there are so many layers to it. I'm sure middle managers have exactly the same motivations as you (edit: as you mention. sorry), because I've had those managers doing exactly what you're describing to me right in the middle of lockdown.
The media campaign against working from home is definitely based on the falling value of commercial real estate.
Indeed, which now backfires heavily so it seems. Interesting to see what will come out of this.
But they said it was about collaboration...
Lols.
Anecdotally, (and perhaps unsurprisingly) the flip side of this has also proven true: Working somewhere with an open public commitment to work-from-home and hybrid work had has been great for recruiting and retaining desirable talent, particularly in Information Technology roles.
I can back up what you're saying with what I've seen. Had to hire a few people over the last couple years and remote work is a big selling point in the competition for talent.
It also massively expands the pool of potential candidates. Even a large city say NYC is still VASTLY less people then say all of North America or even just the US. You don't have to pigeon hole yourself to local candidates.
I got 2 offers last year. One was 2 days in the office weekly arbitrarily (so most people would be sitting alone) for no reason and the other was remote except for maybe a couple days a month
Easy choice
I'm all for hybrid work models, but this reporting smells fishy: why don't they mention the contrasting scores for companies not enforcing return to office? If they were markedly different, wouldn't you want to underscore that? The author then going on a self-promotion spree for his hybrid work consultancy does not inspire confidence in the findings either ...
As much as I love hybrid work myself, this style of lazy and frankly biased reporting only serves to undermine confidence in actual success stories. Say no to lazy "journalism".
In the 2000s, asshole VPs who wanted to save a buck had no issue with offshoring work and having them be 100% remote in another time zone. They loved it
People in the states want to work from their home and come in when needed, suddenly they're worthless and unproductive
Which is it? If it's so bad eliminate all offshore resources. Don't think that will happen..
It's almost like we work to live, not the other way around.
It's never been about the profits. It is about expressing power over the workers and making them understand who is in control.
The crux of the problem lies in the anchoring bias, which leads us to heavily rely on the first piece of information offered (the anchor) when making decisions. [...] Recognizing and accounting for the status quo and anchoring biases can enable us to create a workplace that not only attracts but also retains its employees in the new age of flexibility. After all, success in the world of business is as much about understanding people as it is about numbers and strategy.
Somewhat reductionist and more like a "understand your enemies" from the reactive point of view.
This piece's main purpose is to push the author's consultancy service on "helping tech and finance industry executives drive collaboration, innovation, and retention in hybrid work".
So although the phenomenon might be valid, it will be impossible for them to articulate the real reason behind the change: people are becoming aware that "returning to the office" is more about controlling the work force through power, rather than any bullshit business benefits.
It's distressing how important career advancement is to some when the actual chances of career advancement tend to be low. You may be one of five people up for the promotion into management but that means four-fifths of the eligible workers are going to be disappointed.
If pay is not the issue then I'd rather start in a job I like, and do it for decades. And if money is an issue, then I'm not being paid enough starting.