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This is incorrect. CEOs are literally planning these moves together. In a more general sense they're also creating an open culture to promote this type of thing

This is incorrect. CEOs are literally planning these moves together. In a more general sense they're also creating an open culture to promote this type of thing. Take a scroll through some VC/CEO twitter accounts and see how many whine about WFH or people "cheating" at work, working two jobs, not having a work ethic... The capital class is good at working in its own interest and it has a lot of leverage to do so.

fullshark 3y ago
They are unhappy for sure, and are all copying each other because they are afraid of making the wrong move. They looked at what Musk did with Twitter with great interest I'm sure, looking for lessons for example to carry over, as one of the few leaders willing to stick his neck out. I don't believe there's major orchestration but it is true when everyone's on each other boards an incestuous common sense/wisdom tends to emerge about what needs to happen and what the justification will be, and I'm sure they all believe it's inevitable all the companies move back towards full time on site.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Whether it's deliberate collusion or everyone just happening to be uncreatively following each other, the outcome is the same. That said, I've never seen Corporate America so universally aligned on a single thing than they are aligned on "Workers must return to the office." Definitely a tin-foil hat theory, but it really does strongly feel like they're all sitting in the same smoky room somewhere, making sure they all do the same thing in lock step.
- candiodari 3y ago
  Following Twitter seems like a suboptimal move to me: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66217641 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66217641 And according to this the extreme tactics only destroyed Twitter, they did not even achieve an actual return to office. https://archive.md/GvzCX https://archive.md/GvzCX (original link: https://fortune.com/2023/03/24/return-to-office-elon-musk-twitter-tesla-layoffs/ https://fortune.com/2023/03/24/return-to-office-elon-musk-tw... ) Add to that that Twitter is now letting go of office space as well. Now some of that is due to layoffs, but it could also mean Mr. Musk is not even expecting RTO to work at Twitter, or at least not to the extent he planned.
voisin 3y ago
> CEOs are literally planning these moves together. Source? I would hope by 2023 we would agree that tweets != reality.
dnissley 3y ago
It's too easy for smart CEOs to defect and gain an advantage by allowing WFH. The capital class is not reasonably aligned on the RTO issue. Many CEOs and leadership teams themselves are reluctant to come in to the office, and so end up aligned with their workers on this particular issue.
- esafak 3y ago
  Hence the existence of companies that (still) support remote work.
toss1 3y ago
Yup. The capital class that participates in this carp is also bad at managing. I wish I could locate it again, but a study some decades ago concluded that remote work makes good managers better and bad managers worse. Seems to be the difference between managing for results (where you DGAF about spurious indicia of work) vs managing for spurious indicia of work that are more like indicia of minute-to-minute control (e.g., seeing someone's butt in a seat, tracking keystrokes, calling ad-hoc meetings, etc.). Any serious manager has projects and tasks for the workers, and a realistic idea of what can be accomplished. If they are handing out those tasks and resources, and work of sufficient quality is getting accomplished on time, they recognize that it does not matter if the person is in the office across the hall, in their home office, or on the beach in Bermuda. (And if the manager is giving so little work that the worker can take two jobs, but quality work is getting done at a sufficiently profitable rate to justify that job, so what if the worker is 'moonlighting'?; the manager is getting what they need at a market rate, and has a happier employee) Good managers also have the advantage of being able to hire from a global talent pool instead of a ~1-hour-commute radius from each office, and drastically reduced office real estate costs. Those are REAL competitive advantages that of which the smart CEOs will take advantage. Sadly, most are not that smart, and the RTO movement is proof.

fullshark 3y ago

They are unhappy for sure, and are all copying each other because they are afraid of making the wrong move. They looked at what Musk did with Twitter with great interest I'm sure, looking for lessons for example to carry over, as one of the few leaders willing to stick his neck out. I don't believe there's major orchestration but it is true when everyone's on each other boards an incestuous common sense/wisdom tends to emerge about what needs to happen and what the justification will be, and I'm sure they all believe it's inevitable all the companies move back towards full time on site.

ryandrake 3y ago
Whether it's deliberate collusion or everyone just happening to be uncreatively following each other, the outcome is the same. That said, I've never seen Corporate America so universally aligned on a single thing than they are aligned on "Workers must return to the office." Definitely a tin-foil hat theory, but it really does strongly feel like they're all sitting in the same smoky room somewhere, making sure they all do the same thing in lock step.
candiodari 3y ago
Following Twitter seems like a suboptimal move to me: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66217641 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66217641 And according to this the extreme tactics only destroyed Twitter, they did not even achieve an actual return to office. https://archive.md/GvzCX https://archive.md/GvzCX (original link: https://fortune.com/2023/03/24/return-to-office-elon-musk-twitter-tesla-layoffs/ https://fortune.com/2023/03/24/return-to-office-elon-musk-tw... ) Add to that that Twitter is now letting go of office space as well. Now some of that is due to layoffs, but it could also mean Mr. Musk is not even expecting RTO to work at Twitter, or at least not to the extent he planned.

voisin 3y ago

> CEOs are literally planning these moves together. Source? I would hope by 2023 we would agree that tweets != reality.

dnissley 3y ago

It's too easy for smart CEOs to defect and gain an advantage by allowing WFH. The capital class is not reasonably aligned on the RTO issue. Many CEOs and leadership teams themselves are reluctant to come in to the office, and so end up aligned with their workers on this particular issue.

esafak 3y ago
Hence the existence of companies that (still) support remote work.

toss1 3y ago

Yup. The capital class that participates in this carp is also bad at managing. I wish I could locate it again, but a study some decades ago concluded that remote work makes good managers better and bad managers worse. Seems to be the difference between managing for results (where you DGAF about spurious indicia of work) vs managing for spurious indicia of work that are more like indicia of minute-to-minute control (e.g., seeing someone's butt in a seat, tracking keystrokes, calling ad-hoc meetings, etc.). Any serious manager has projects and tasks for the workers, and a realistic idea of what can be accomplished. If they are handing out those tasks and resources, and work of sufficient quality is getting accomplished on time, they recognize that it does not matter if the person is in the office across the hall, in their home office, or on the beach in Bermuda. (And if the manager is giving so little work that the worker can take two jobs, but quality work is getting done at a sufficiently profitable rate to justify that job, so what if the worker is 'moonlighting'?; the manager is getting what they need at a market rate, and has a happier employee) Good managers also have the advantage of being able to hire from a global talent pool instead of a ~1-hour-commute radius from each office, and drastically reduced office real estate costs. Those are REAL competitive advantages that of which the smart CEOs will take advantage. Sadly, most are not that smart, and the RTO movement is proof.