[tra3]

I dont get it. Study after study seems to indicate that remote work is more efficient all around. What is it that makes management so bearish towards remote?

When Microsoft "lost the mobile war" everybody was in the office still, no? Is it conceivable that google is behind on AI for reasons other than wfh?

[JohnMakin]

> What is it that makes management so bearish towards remote?

I think it's not one specific reason - primarily though, I think, it gives employees more power over their employment situation and lives. Employers love power over their employees and I expect them to react harshly when they perceive this power is threatened.

Secondly, CEO's are typically lifelong corporate cretins with zero imagination, and they mostly just copy whatever CEO they think is reputable. The result is they all end up copying whatever everyone else is doing. I promise you, Meta's "year of efficiency" was not unique to meta, nor was that naming. So, once one declares remote work is dead, all of them will fall behind.

Thirdly, I think it is investments already made into real estate and sunk-cost fallacy type of thing. Probably not even a little part of it is the ego boost that comes with getting your preferred parking space, corner office where you can gaze smugly at your less fortunate underlings, etc.

They don't actually care about productivity, because I think the studies are pretty conclusive about remote work so far. It's far, far easier to waste time doing nothing in an office than at home, at least for me. I can easily kill a half hour doing a lap around the bullpens and appear to be working but in reality I'm doing nothing. In most corporate remote work environments, they'll notice really quickly if you're gone for a half hour because of all the productivity software.

[cracrecry]

>What is it that makes management so bearish towards remote?

You will be surprised how many people that became rich with startups have invested in real state. A lot of those investments are tanking now because of WFH, so they have something personal against it.

>When Microsoft "lost the mobile war" everybody was in the office still, no?

Microsoft lost both "the Internet" and "mobile" because they just could not understand it, like IBM could not understand a world with a computer in every desktop. It is a normal thing when your culture gives you success, the world changes, your culture remains the same.

Other companies appear that understand it and they win. If Google does not adpat, others will.

[pluc]

Because people being self-disciplined and self-motivated annihilates the management layer. What do you manage when people manage themselves? You can be a project manager or you can be out of a job. They don't like that.

[daveslash]

I think it was Joel Spolsky who said that a manager is someone who moves the chairs out of the way so that the individual contributors can do their work well.

I'm not a manager by title, but when I'm managing something, my objective is to get as many hassles out of the way as possible and reduce as much cognitive load off people as I can. The rest usually takes care of itself.

[novok]

I'm guessing you've never been a software engineering manager, or was one at a crappy place? The more self managing they are, the better! It turns into a coach/mentorship role at that point.

[eltoxo]

I am guessing you have never worked at a giant corporation with 5 levels of useless middle managers that have no purpose if there are no office politics to manage?

Those are the managers that hate work from home. Not managers actually doing productive management.

[grecy]

> turns into a coach/mentorship role at that point.

Sure, if the managers have any experience at all doing the actual work. These days that is rare, middle management are all just MBAs who don’t have a clue how to do the work.

[novok]

Again, signs you are working at a crappy place. Those places are incompetent and you should move to somewhere where it is competent.

I have actually been a manager at a big tech and a small start up, and yes there is politics at all sizes, but its extremely rare for an engineering manager to not have been an engineer previously. I was that manager, being the mentor.

[icedchai]

They sure know how to send emails and slack messages though.

[postalrat]

What do you mean "more efficient all around"? Bean counting won't produce great products.

[jayd16]

> When Microsoft "lost the mobile war" everybody was in the office still, no?

If WFH magically solved all problems or prevented failure everyone would do it but lets be real...it doesn't. No one is going to be convinced by an argument like this.

[heavyset_go]

RTO policies came from the top down. Executives and investors have portfolios that depend on commercial real estate, and prime residential real estate, increasing in value.

[zizee]

Slight conspiracy theory time: WFH has caused a drastic and sudden change to the economics of CBDs. Gradual change can be absorbed into economies, but a massive change leaves many people overexposed. For instance, office space valuations are taking a big hit. Here's the conspiracy: someone is ringing alarm bells behind the scenes, warning of another GFC sized event, and governments and people of influence like Schmidt are being urged to act.