CEOs Are Using Return To Office Mandates To Mask Poor Management::Why are companies that promote remote services so opposed to enabling remote work, and more importantly, feel the need to threaten their employees?
“the analysis revealed that RTO mandates are more likely in firms with poor recent stock performance and have had no significant impacts on firm profitability or stock-returns.”
This is our company. Haven’t met our growth goals since covid? Make everyone commute three times a week, that will fix it. We need to bring everyone together to find the missing money that leadership decided we should be making.
And the RTO demands are about intentionally lowering headcount without paying unemployment or severance so they can boost their numbers.
RTO itself is poor management. it’s 2024, what the fuck are you doing. office work isn’t some peak utopian concept, it’s only really been a thing for around a century, and it’s grown increasingly miserable as productivity skyrockets while wages don’t. any honest person hates it, and it is objectively archaic now that we have the internet
yeah, zoom meetings do suck, talking is more awkward, collaboration is harder, vibes are harder to maintain. but in no universe should that take precedent over the massive quality of life improvements WFH offers for the worker. internal work dynamics mean fuck all versus not having to leave your home/family/pets for 8+ hours every day
in no universe should that take precedent over the massive quality of life improvements WFH offers for the worker
They don’t give 1/10th of a shit about worker comfort or joy. It’s all about shareholder profits and control. And as the article was saying, about trying to dump blame. The great thing is, again, as stated in the article, that these RTO companies are severely limiting their talent pool. It will start to become clearer and clearer that companies that moved totally WFH retain employees and will see more benefits for their bottom line.
I mean, think about it for two seconds, how can renting office space and equipment and all the office supplies in every office location for one company be justified when all it gives you is a smaller talent pool, less happy workers making productivity sink and and turnover skyrocket, and an excuse when you need it?
It’s just craziness. It’s stupid bosses and rich people sacrificing the worker for…I honestly don’t know what is driving them to do this, because I can’t imagine they are getting any benefit at all.
They don’t care about profits any more than feudalism did. It’s about domination and sadism. Read “Bullshit Jobs” if you want to understand the dynamics here. Profit had absolutely nothing to do with it.
What! You mean it’s not about improving collaboration!
Yeah, I mean it totally would improve my collaboration if I, a software architect, went into a small sales office near me even though no one in my department, not even the same division of my company will be there, so I’ll still be using the same communication tools.
Plus the pay cut I’ll be taking by having to pay for another car, gas, and downtown parking. None of which the company will cover. And the building is only open from 7:30 to 5 Pacific Time, but all my meetings are Eastern Time, so I’ll be missing morning meetings while I commute and wait for the building to open, and I sure as heck won’t be bringing my laptop home, so they get that many hours out of me and no weekends.
Yep everyone benefits.
There’s a particular joy to going all the way into the office so you can sit in remote meetings all day. Really makes you feel like your time is valued.
Makes me glad I work for a company 5 hours away from where I live, my contract doesn’t state I have to work in the office, and I was hired on as a remote employee so if they do try RTO at my company which it seems like they won’t, it would be a constructive dismissal and I can just collect Employment Insurance.
Forcing employees back into the office is so dumb but I’m glad some companies seem to be holding strong with remote work. Having younger, more reasonable leadership seems to help with this.
For each recruiter that tells me Hybrid or on site, I tell them why I’m not interested and if things change, then message me.
