[bko]

So why do companies insist?

If it has no meaningful impact on productivity, and workers don't like it (including a lot of managers), why push it?

That's why I believe that companies have some evidence (or belief) that work from home employees are not as productive, enough so to wage this political battle and pay loads in office expenses.

[verteu]

I've found that RTO is mainly useful for new employees. They have lots of novice questions, false assumptions, and sub-optimal workflows that are most easily corrected in person (where the barrier to talking or noticing issues is lower).

For ICs with good experience/independence, I haven't noticed any benefit.

[t-writescode]

All of that can be solved by a healthy mentorship environment; and you can create a healthy mentorship environment remotely.

Arguably, for example, pair programming is far easier, remotely, with screen sharing.

[convolvatron]

personally I've come to believe that's not about the real estate investments. maybe some. nor just a generic assumption that people working at home are slacking off, maybe some. and not about the desire to express domination in person, maybe some.

I think that WFH substantially shifts the power balance to the worker. if I don't have to worry about my commute, or which city or country I'm actually working in, then the barriers to me changing employer start to really drop to zero. so if I feel bad enough about the situation, I can just spin up a new job without changing .. anything.

I understand if everyone else is WFH and I'm only hiring in office, that puts me at a disadvantage. I'm still willing to consider this thesis.

[gretch]

One aspect I rarely see discussed on these messages boards, but one of critical importance, is the role that in-office has on developing new employees over time.

Imagine you are a new grad who just got hired but all the senior employees all work remote. How do you learn the trade? It’s much harder to become established.

However senior employees who were established already pre covid don’t experience this problem.

If you are the leader of the company, you realize that one day all of these senior ppl will retire one day and the people who are juniors today will be the main work force. Will they be just as good in this remote-first environment?

Maybe yes, maybe no, either way it’s a huge unknown and that means big risk.

[dowager_dan99]

My last company was fully remote and went through an expansion of hiring a lot of jrs and co-ops. They had a pretty well developed onboarding & mentoring process but it was still very hard. In the end I saw the same people be successful in a remote-first environment as I suspect would have been successful in-office. I believe it was harder on the seniors and other mentors though.

[gilbetron]

Soft layoffs to suppress wages, many of the C-Suite have a lot of money in commercial real estate (personal investements) - like a lot, management class are people skilled in face-to-face interactions and Remote work disrupts that. If you read the literature about Remote vs In Office work, it generally leans to Remote seeming a bit more productive. There are arguments both way, and anyone honest with themselves see that it is a complex issue with no clear winner.

In office work is more social and fun, that's for sure. But I've heard many VP+ managers comment, "Yeah, I'm WFH today because I need to focus and gets some things done."

[teddyh]

It is extremely generous of you to assume that those who push for RTO have the company’s interest in mind.

[bko]

Okay, so what's the point? Just to piss of employees and waste money on real-estate and snacks?

[linkjuice4all]

Organizations consist of many individuals with different motivations, so it's hard to ascribe a single reason to an individual or group.

Here are some of the real and assumed reasons that companies are pushing for this:

- They have accepted tax breaks or other financial benefits from cities tied to specific headcounts or jobs created

- They are locked into longer term leases or own the building outright and want to make use of their sunk costs

- They found that (on average?) remote employees are less productive

- They want to encourage employees to find another employer

- It's a control/showing-off thing

There seems to be a financial motivation behind this and apparently employee happiness/productivity doesn't appear to be part of it. I [anecdata warning] don't see employers mentioning any sort of commute benefit/subsidy for returning to the office nor do I see 'remote employment' touted as a benefit so these decisions are being made without any consideration for employees.

I guess pick from one of the above and figure out which way a company stands to benefit - there's your answer.

[bko]

> They have accepted tax breaks or other financial benefits from cities tied to specific headcounts or jobs created

I don't think that's how tax cuts work. No matter the incentives, it's cheaper to not have office space than to have office space and get some write off. I doubt some city is saying "For every $100 of office expenses, we'll give you $200 of tax credits". If anything, companies track days worked from home so they don't have to pay as much city taxes

> They are locked into longer term leases or own the building outright and want to make use of their sunk costs

You can always sublease and many do. There are also variable expenses (insurance, maintenance, etc)

> They found that (on average?) remote employees are less productive

This is my belief

> They want to encourage employees to find another employer

Maybe, as a filtering mechanism. Kind of like soft layoffs, but its very risky.

> It's a control/showing-off thing

Also very risky because you just piss people off and pay to do it.

[teddyh]

Some people become bosses and managers because they like to boss people around. When they’re not physically around other people who are their subordinates, they can’t scratch their itch. More generously, some people have built their whole management style on watching people around the office and get a feel for what’s going on. And if they can’t see someone, they assume that that person is hiding somewhere in order to slack off. Now imagine this person a few years ago in a company which went all work-from-home. This person would want cameras on all employees during work hours, and constant meetings, to to get that same feeling that they can get a sense of what is going on. This same person would naturally advocate to RTO as soon as possible, could not clearly articulate why, but would fall back on their managerial authority to get it done.

[intended]

Soft layoffs.