Ask HN: Why are some companies still trying to force return to office? Seems like the consensus is that you can do just fine (if not better) if your employees are remote. So why are some companies still trying to force workers back to the office knowing many would rather quit? |
You may think they are wrong. You may not like that they believe this. But they really do believe that in-person is better for getting stuff done, and that's why they want it.
When I've responded in the past, with an employer point of view, I get down-voted. That's OK. You may not like what i have to say.
Of course companies are different. There are many reasons for office work. Many of them bad. You may work for a company with many layers of useless management. I commiserate with you, and clearly my experience, and answer, isn't relevant to you. I can only speak to my situation.
I only have a short commute, so I go into the office about 3 days a week. I usually work from home a couple days as well.
When I'm in the office, people ask me questions. When I'm at home they don't. For me this is good, I'd like people to ask rather than waste time. Those who are never in the office never ask.
Which brings me to the next observation. People in the office are growing faster than those at home. Or perhaps my perception is that those in the office are growing. Peoplecat home seem to "do their thing", which includes making the same mistakes, and taking longer to do things.
Equally people at home are not challenged with questions, they are not pushed out of their comfort zones. They are not helping others along.
All of this plays out when folk are being promoted. For some I can see their evolution. For others their stagnation. Long-term it'll be interesting to see if this progresses.
For the record, we all come to the office on Wednesday, for the rest they're free to choose. Their has been un uptick in morale since we started coming back for that. I think some folk get very lonely and isolated being permanently at home.
Ultimately full-remote is not actually ideal for either party, but YMMV depending on pretty much every other part of the business culture.
For example, you might not work directly with Karl, but he could still give some suggestions for using git that could be helpful.
This doesn't mean that in-person is always better - but corporate leadership is hearing enough anecdotes such as mine to push for RTO again.
I will add that this will last a generation but no more. There are tons of companies make it work remotely note that these “old schoolers” once they are gone and replace buy gen z and gen z+1 will have a completely diff modus operandi. The only way this accelerates is the next google /apple / meta is a remote first company. This will unleash fully remote to the mainstream
Two years ago there's wasn't enough data to know what would work long term. There is now.
All that matters is what the current decision makers want to do — and of course that depends on their motivations. Unless you understand their motivations, how can you say what is “better”?
I have joined a FAANG recently and by comparison their culture is painful for remote, despite them having 2 years to refine during the pandemic. It is slowly getting better this last year, but culturally they are still years away from being effective at remote.
For those who say Real Estate is the reason, that math doesn't add up there. Apple doesn't give a shit about 5 billion dollars in real estate that is wasted if they think it will make employees less productive. That's a rounding error on most of their products. They genuinely believe it's at worst neutral to demand RTO.
Consensus where? many managers quote the Microsoft study that Remote work is making productivity and innovation harder for example
If I need to push a project I'd really love to work face to face, it takes me 5 min to spot the problem or to slip in a conversation easily. Or even just observing what's happening is fun and educating.
But in large corps I understand the dilemma, even if you go to the office your job is to hop in remote meetings, that sucks. Then the office might just be cancelled.
Banks says they are solvent because they have "hard" assets to borrow against. Govts promises the paradise with future taxes.
Got to the office? Pay toll
Got a coffee? Pay taxes
Consume more petrol/gas for your car? Pay taxes.
More electricity? pay taxes.
You can't expect they let you out so easy right?
because the board members have leases nearby.
because someone that is invested want you to go there, spend money or create expenses (consume food from cafeteria,etc.)
If the student does not go in person to a university how valuable is the commercial lease at the university?
When pressed, he also suggested that new hires need hands-on, one-on-one mentorship to grow and learn the business. At least that's a legitimate reason.
But for mature, distributed teams who already work remotely (COVID or not), return to office is a huge drain of employees time and attention, IMO.
If a company accepts that remote work is better and in the end gets more done, then why care about the lease at all?
Simply pay the rent for the remainder of the lease and file it under "bad decision". Really, what's the alternative? Force people to come back to the office just to justify the rent? If it's not in the best interest of the company? (remember we determined earlier one that the productivity is higher with people working remotely).