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Are people still going to try to blame office lease agreements for management wanting workers back in the office? When are remote workers going to start blamin

Are people still going to try to blame office lease agreements for management wanting workers back in the office? When are remote workers going to start blaming themselves? Clearly, companies big and small are recalling their workers back to their office. Clearly, they have data showing that their productivity metrics have declined. Tech management are usually very data-driven compared to other industries. So if they're recalling workers, then they must see something. The simplest explanation is that remote/hybrid culture is less productive on some metric - whether it's total company output or less creativity or whatever it is. So while an individual remote worker might perceive himself or herself as being more productive, they often do not think at the level of the total company output. And no, management isn't going to come out and explicitly say that their WFH workers are lazier and less productive. That's just bad PR. But you can infer what management is seeing from their actions. They'd never come out and say "We are recalling our workers because we have data showing they're less productive while working from home.". Saying something like that would cause a lot of bad PR. Piss off your workers even more. The media, pro-WFH people, HN will pan the company for saying something like that. There's no winning for the company to take this risk. It's best to say something generic like "culture".

helij 3y ago
The issue is that data is the opposite or wfh and in the office are on par in terms of productivity. Of course they'll use every trick in the book to get people into the office - even economy cooling and will try to work on your feelings like 'let's support the economy by having buzzing city centres'. Then 'culture', 'energy' and all other bits and pieces. They'll even give you a carrot in terms of pay rise and bonus which will then get eaten by transport costs making your actual pay in reality less than last year due to inflation, etc. I am thankful that our company doesn't do that. We have data that proves wfh is at least the same and better in terms of productivity. Oh, and also, we listened to our employees when they wanted complete flexibility. It was not just HR exercise sending questionnaire out and then ignoring it saying something like 'we hear you but...'.
- senttoschool 3y ago
  >The issue is that data is the opposite or wfh and in the office are on par in terms of productivity. But clearly, the tech companies recalling workers disagree. PS. I don't believe in 3rd party studies since they rely surveys and the subjectiveness of remote workers. Companies actually have access to employee data. Also, studies need to be multi-year because while people were likely enthusiastic and motivated 3 years ago, they might have checked out while WFH by now.
  - helij 3y ago
    It's about 'synergy', 'culture', and similar and not about data and productivity. It's all fluff.

helij 3y ago

The issue is that data is the opposite or wfh and in the office are on par in terms of productivity. Of course they'll use every trick in the book to get people into the office - even economy cooling and will try to work on your feelings like 'let's support the economy by having buzzing city centres'. Then 'culture', 'energy' and all other bits and pieces. They'll even give you a carrot in terms of pay rise and bonus which will then get eaten by transport costs making your actual pay in reality less than last year due to inflation, etc. I am thankful that our company doesn't do that. We have data that proves wfh is at least the same and better in terms of productivity. Oh, and also, we listened to our employees when they wanted complete flexibility. It was not just HR exercise sending questionnaire out and then ignoring it saying something like 'we hear you but...'.

senttoschool 3y ago
>The issue is that data is the opposite or wfh and in the office are on par in terms of productivity. But clearly, the tech companies recalling workers disagree. PS. I don't believe in 3rd party studies since they rely surveys and the subjectiveness of remote workers. Companies actually have access to employee data. Also, studies need to be multi-year because while people were likely enthusiastic and motivated 3 years ago, they might have checked out while WFH by now.
- helij 3y ago
  It's about 'synergy', 'culture', and similar and not about data and productivity. It's all fluff.