[CapmCrackaWaka]

Every time I hear news like this, I think “hmmm layoffs coming to XYZ soon”.

For some reason, the idea that RTO is caused by out of touch execs is pervasive, but I really don’t think that’s the reason. These companies need people to leave. The cheapest way to do that is for an employee to leave voluntarily after they have gotten another job. Hell, if enough people leave, you might not even have to do layoffs.

We can bitch about it all we want, but these execs know what they’re doing. They aren’t stupid or out of touch.

EDIT: I will add that I’m also curious about the long-term implications of this kind of trickery. It doesn’t seem like a good long-term solution, you can’t just order RTO and then allow remote work year after year. Everyone is going to have to find something that works long-term eventually.

[pavel_lishin]

It also means they've done the arithmetic, and know that it's worth losing their top X% of people - the ones who'll have the easiest time finding a better job.

[iamleppert]

Obviously you've never worked for a big corporation before. Corporations don't want top employees. In a corporate environment, top employees are a nuisance much of the time. Most managers, if given the choice, would rather have an employee who shows up, does their work (but not too much), doesn't care about anything (and thus will do whatever they are told) and will accept whatever is given to them, and someone who is not at risk of leaving and can be laid off or fired easily/cheaply when the time comes.

Top employees often have an axe to grind, an ego to satisfy or a ladder to climb. This is the last thing a corporation wants or needs. When I was a manager in Corporate America, I was instructed to screen out overly ambitious or eager candidates. They are just too much trouble for what amounts to normally a 10-20% increase in performance over a regular candidate.

[CapmCrackaWaka]

It would be really interesting to see if they take that into account when they make these decisions. I’d have to imagine that the top X percent are also the highest paid, so maybe that’s actually a benefit.

[giraffe_lady]

I would guess they looked at who is mostly likely to leave based on forced RTO and they liked the answer. Probably something like parents of young children, mostly women, people who are caring for an elder or disabled family member, so again mostly women, and people who have a disability themselves.

[michaelt]

A smart employer is already paying their best employees more than they can get elsewhere.

After all, I know Alice gets things done fast and to a high standard, she can be trusted to deliver important projects, and she's very familiar our most important systems.

All anyone else knows is her job title is "Level 17 Engineer", she's got a firm handshake, and she knows how to find a cycle in a linked list.

It'd be pretty absurd for me to let myself get outbid on salary by someone with less information.

[scsh]

I don't think they really care, or feel that they have to care. The way that I've seen it work is they'll make rare exceptions for individuals they absolutely can't lose or wan't to hire but that's it and the exceptions truly are rare.

[pavel_lishin]

I absolutely agree that they dont' care on an emotional level, but they're going to find it difficult to run a business when 90% of the senior staff leave and take their institutional memory with them.

[mlinhares]

Yeah, anyone that assumes these people care if it hurts the company in the long run is just mad, all they want is to see the stock go up after the announcement.

[ozmodiar]

Sadly I think you're right. As some say the cruelty is the point. I also think much of the AI boom is just an excuse to get rid of people and get them to accept worse conditions. At the local IBM office they cut half the staff with the reason given being that AI would replace them, then told the other half they would need to work unpaid overtime to cover the lost staff (what happened to the AI?).

Programmers have been an expensive cost to companies for awhile and it's been obvious since outsourcing attempts decades ago that CEOs would like to do whatever they can to break their backs.

[xienze]

I think it’s a bit of that coupled with:

* Not liking the idea of paying for office space that sits mostly empty.

* Even if they wanted to unload their commercial real estate and go fully remote, the market for that is not good.

* Local governments pressuring companies to bring employees back to offices because those employees in turn buy goods and services in the area.

[xenocratus]

You're forgetting:

The people calling the shots might also be investors in the real estate market, so have an incentive for it to not crash. :)

[InDubioProRubio]

So, you say as a return to office employee, if i boycott local services by bringing my own food, making my own coffee and not going out for lunch, i can render political pressure moot?

[xienze]

I doubt execs care at that point. They, much like most of us, only care about getting people off their back. "Hey, I got the employees back into the office like you wanted, it's your problem now."

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I know that RTO is offensive to many, and not mildly so... but if they were trying to force people to quit of their own accord, wouldn't we also see an escalation of tactics beyond RTO? If it's a good strategy, why stop there?

[SauciestGNU]

Many of these rto mandates have been followed by layoffs if enough employees aren't induced to leave by the degradation in working conditions.

[77pt77]

> if enough people leave, you might not even have to do layoffs.

Signaling to stock holders that you're doing layoffs is the most important part of layoffs.

If done in secrecy it's almost useless.

[TrackerFF]

The DOGE bros even said it publicly - that RTO is one of the cards up their sleeve for making federal workers quit.

The mask has come off. Everyone knows that these RTO steps are indeed part of their "make work so miserable that they'll quit" strategy.

[xoneill]

They're not out of touch they know exactly what they're doing, following orders while these centibillionaires are jockeying for position on the Forbes 100.

The strategy was and always will be bottom line: Displacement of American workers through attrition by hiring remote Asian workers -- 1 FTE = 4 Indian workers.

'Most' of these are American companies selling American products and services to Americans. If they like Asia so freaking much, leave the US and go sell your $hitty products and services over there!

[gr4vityWall]

> These companies need people to leave.

Why? I don't have the impression neither Amazon or AT&T are unprofitable.

[fred_is_fred]

Not unprofitable is not a measure of success for a CEO. More profitable than last quarter is.

[gr4vityWall]

I don't disagree with your statement per se, but neither "being more profitable than last quarter" or "the current CEO needs to be successful" imply "these companies need people to leave".

That is one of the possible ways of making "line go up".

But when I hear that a company __needs__ to make an X number of employees go, it gives me the impression they are in the red, and/or the organization will suffer great damage if they don't proceed with it. The organization doesn't even need to be a business per se.

Saying "those companies want to fire employees to increase profits" IMO is more accurate, even if a bit more verbose.