[fathomdeez]

Why do these companies keep trying to fire remote employees? Is it so hard to let them keep working from home? Is the company's real estate portfolio that important? You could probably even pay remote workers less (or give non-remote employees a "bonus" for coming in) and everyone would still be happy.

[frollogaston]

Too many issues with remote employees disappearing to do other stuff during the day. Amazon and others are requiring employees to go to any office, not necessarily the one with their teammates, so it's evidently not about in-person collaboration. My manager (different company) told me straight up, the dept is ok with me working remote but not other people.

Older than this is the "open office" thing. We saw over time how this wasn't about collaboration or even space-saving, but about keeping employees under watch.

[lurking_swe]

isn’t it trivial for management to see a higher bar, and enforce it? If expectations are not met, just fire them. The solution is simple IMO.

Are the managers competent? Do they know how to evaluate if work/goals are being met without counting how many hours the employee is online?

[nizmow]

I suspect this will become increasingly common with companies that allow remote work. Atlassian is a large Australian tech employer that is full remote, and this is definitely the case there - performance reviews twice yearly and a very high attrition rate.

[frollogaston]

I can certainly see a company that wants to be remote-first making it work. Probably not one that has already invested tons of money and time in offices filled with well-established employees.

[frollogaston]

Letting people work at a slow pace for a while, PIPing them, then ultimately firing, is very expensive. An unproductive teammate not only doesn't get stuff done but also brings down the rest of the team.

Edit: Some companies also don't like the morale effects of sink-or-swim, though Amazon is fine with it I've heard.

[lurking_swe]

i agree it’s expensive. but that can happen in person in the office too, right? The risk of a bad hire is high regardless i think.

[frollogaston]

They aren't exactly bad hires. Lots of previously solid employees were going kinda AWOL sometimes while remote. Even if someone wants to be responsive, after seeing enough pings go unanswered all day, they might follow suit.

They could redefine the job requirements to be remote-first, but that'd require a lot of firing and hiring.

[bediger4000]

My guess is that there's tax breaks on the line in most cases. That is, corporations got some tax breaks on the basis of so many humans in downtown (or whatever office). If they don't meet those obligations, they loose some overly generous subsidy.

[abirch]

From what I can tell, it's currently an employers' market.

1) Companies are reducing salaries when they hire new workers.

2) Companies are not having problems finding in person employees.

I'm going to have a surprised pikachu face when the market flips and everyone resigns from these companies.

[frollogaston]

Yeah there's this too, some overhired in 2020-21 and want to get rid of people, and it's cheaper if they resign than if they're laid off.

[quectophoton]

Look at it from the companies' point of view:

- Human contact is more important than efficiency gains, hence mandating return-to-office.

- At the same time, efficiency gains are more important than human contact, hence reducing human headcount in favor of increased AI use.

If you read between the lines, you can see how those two points are related: humans find difficult to feel connected when their communication partner is just pixels on a screen, so that's why remote workers are being replaced with AI.

[yks]

> Human contact is more important than efficiency gains, hence mandating return-to-office.

First, citation needed. Second, in this day and age companies try whatever they can to ruin in-office employees' morale as well, which goes counter to the position that social quality of life is important for efficiency.

[quectophoton]

Poe's law strikes again, I should have added "/s" at the end of my message.

If I had to rewrite my previous message in a less subtle way, it would be that companies are constantly contradicting themselves when giving any public "reason" for their actions, and I do not think employees' happiness (which fathomdeez focuses on) is anywhere close to their actual reason.

[frollogaston]

The endless Q&A between employees and bosses show that it's not about collaboration, and bosses aren't saying what it's really about. None of their answers make sense.