7 ms·

Remote Work Is Here to Stay, and Employers Aren’t Happy About It

76 points by pg_1234 3y ago

pierat 3y ago
Boo fucking hoo. I will "8 and skate", be it a remote or in person job. They dont pay me for overtime, so I don't donate it to a for-profit enterprise.
diogenescynic 3y ago
Why do they care? I don't have a commute, so I now work longer hours. I assume they are using spyware to track my hours spent anyways. Isn't this mutually beneficial for the employer and employee? I work more hours and they spend less on office rent and perks.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
  > Isn't this mutually beneficial for the employer and employee? Employers don’t want mutually beneficial, they want control. Working from home gives people the ability to work while handling other priorities as well. I’m sure the employer time tracking plays a role, but they’ve always had the ability to do that, the pandemic didn’t create that. I think it’s because companies love to push their corporate propaganda in person, upper level management loves to feel that they’re making a meaningful impact on team morale, but it just sucks when done over zoom.
  - lafar6503 3y ago
    I don't know where you take such knowledge from, is there any scientific paper on psychology and social behavior of employer class? I think most people are reasonable and rational in their expectations, and the unfortunate employers who have to deal with tech/it workers have to develop extraordinary patience and self-restraint in order to have anyone doing any work at all.
msandford 3y ago
Office workers didn't like the commute for 100 years and employers didn't do anything about it.
- photonbeam 3y ago
  We have the internet now though
5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
> "Employers believe offering remote work... hurts team building, communication, and workplace culture" * team building = observation & control, attendance & attention monitoring i.e presenteeism. * communication = verbal. i dont want to put myself at liability [because i often am] by putting things in writing * workplace culture = lmao. the bs we use to justify paying you less and/or guilting you into working above your compensation. also remember all those zoom recordings that got shared online of people being fired by some sociopath ceo. yeah we dont want that to happen again.
- friend_and_foe 3y ago
  Think about the fact that office space and it's maintenance are the second largest overhead after personell, and these companies want that overhead back. What is it worth to them? I'd say a big part of it is inertia, they have leases and procedures presuming physical presence and what not, I'd be willing to bet some governments are leaning on the biggest ones to prevent a collapse of the commercial real estate market (this is big business, pensions rely on it, this is a systemic risk) and then there's the control. All in all I'd say if you let the first 2 shake out by staying the course, the third one won't seem as appealing, but shaking them out is a very painful process.
  - wil421 3y ago
    State, county, and city tax breaks. Here’s an article about a company I used to work for and the associated tax breaks from the City of Atlanta government. I don’t believe the article includes any sort of state tax breaks they were given when they moved the HQ from Dayton to Metro Atlanta. Not to mention being in the office is more about Management controlling and observing. https://www.ajc.com/business/incentive-package-for-ncr-could-rise-45m/yZbxoMF5pAwdP14dUcEmxI/ https://www.ajc.com/business/incentive-package-for-ncr-could...
- BadCookie 3y ago
  In addition to liability concerns, most people have really poor writing skills. Half the time, in my experience, management has only the vaguest notion of a plan or strategy, and writing it down would reveal how poorly thought-out their ideas are. I have had a VP tell me that it’s “too much work” to write down their thoughts, and that they would “never” do such a thing. Maybe it’s just my employer … but I doubt it.
emocin 3y ago
Too bad.
PeterisP 3y ago
Money talks, bullshit walks. If employers really wanted employees to abandon remote work, that would be obviously visible as a significant difference in remuneration. If some employer is paying on-site workers 20% more than the exact same work for the same company remotely, then I'll believe that they truly want people to be on-site; but if not, then those are just empty words, not real preferences. On the other hand, I do see employees choosing a lower-paid role/employer just to ensure remote work, so that preference seems genuine.
- BossingAround 3y ago
  > If some employer is paying on-site workers 20% more than the exact same work for the same company remotely, then I'll believe that they truly want people to be on-site That would effectively mean increasing salary of the current employees that choose to go to the office by 20%. Alternatively, that'd mean reducing salary of current employees that choose not to. Either way, that seems like a horribly inefficient way to deal with the problem. Most companies choose much more subtle approaches, such as: 0) Stop hiring remote -> build a new workforce that does not expect remote conditions 1) Mandate RTO (just like Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, and others did) 2) Start putting people who do not respect RTO on PIP, or on some other bullshit process that'll threaten to fire those that do not conform while giving you, the company, enough time to replace them with new hires. 3) Slowly and silently follow through 2) until remote is a thing for <10-15% of the workforce. This gives the company a number of advantages, such as: 1) Not appearing evil 2) Not dealing with disruptions caused by mass employee exit Companies that really want RTO don't have to do it in a "big bang" way. Such companies would rather do it silently while telling you how they value your opinions on what the future workplace policy should be. They'll get away with it IIF point 0 is possible. I hope it is not, but who knows.
  - zer8k 3y ago
    My company had a mandatory come-to-office for every but people who are truly remote. For the truly remote (e.g. me) they cut all fringe benefits. They also have gone out of their way to find subtle ways to rub it in our face: expensive lunches and dinners for people who come in, all "fun events" happen locally and to attend you have to pay your own way, etc. So remote workers like me are second-class citizens. I've even heard "remote work will hurt your ability to advance in the company". They'll never stop hiring remote. Remote workers will simply become second class citizens at a company with fewer benefits for the same work. Most people, including myself, will happily sacrifice beer coolers and ping pong for the privilege of never having to deal with an office again. I do feel bad for people who are coming into the office. I hope those fun events and food are worth the gas money, increased risk, and reduced health going into the office entails.
butlerm 3y ago
Commuting when it isn't necessary is economically inefficient. Employees are required to pay the entirety of the cost. The only way this is likely to equalize out in favor of increased time on site is if employers start paying employees extra in some way for those days that they are required to be in the office.
protoman3000 3y ago
Employers like this should go to therapy instead of externalizing their pathology to other people. Just take the DMS-5 and go through the bullet points of Anxiety Disorders, Paranoid Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, it fits very well.
- elijahwright 3y ago
  It took me a minute to parse this and understand that you meant the DSM-5. Don’t know why.
- rawgabbit 3y ago
  Or deep down they admit they are winging it and don’t have a clue. But it sure is nice to see all those butts in seats.
neilwilson 3y ago
Require employers to pay wages by the hour door to door. Then see how much they want workers in the office. This is a classic case of Stated Preference vs. Revealed Preference
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  wanting people to RTO is a valid preference. It doesn't mean they also don't have a stronger preference to not pay employees more money. We see what wins out here.
- mikhailfranco 3y ago
  No, because then the employer is subsidizing commuting, but giving the employee the choice of the travel/work blend. In the limit, you could choose to live 4.5 hours away from work and spend all day commuting, compared to someone who lives next to the office and does a full day's work.
subroutine 3y ago
My company has roughly ~60 employees and leased a building with 60 offices and 5 conference rooms. They tried to get us to come in more often (than once a week), saying they couldn't justify giving everyone their own office if we continued at 20% capacity. Everyone basically said fine, whatever, we're cool with sharing. So we just moved to a new building with like 20 offices and 7 conference rooms, for $25k less per month rent; and it's actually way nicer. The day I go in is stacked with meetings and collabs, so I'm never in an office anyway. Mgmt is happy (for now) they are saving on overhead (100% indirect, so double-good); I think they've accepted there's no going back.
electrondood 3y ago
> Businesses gave mixed results on remote work productivity, with 30% saying it boosted output, and 40% saying it reduced it. So basically, there's no impact to productivity. Which is the bottom line. The bigger issue is commercial real estate leases, which often have occupancy requirements imposed by the city to keep area's tax base healthy. See: downtown Portland, downtown San Francisco, etc. The city needs local businesses to thrive, so the building owner needs the buildings occupied, so the company leasing it needs butts in seats.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  If 70% of businesses reported a change in output, it seems weird to conclude “there’s no impact to productivity” as it concerns an individual business setting policy.
  - axpy906 3y ago
    30 increase and 40 decrease which is a conflicting finding.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      I see it as evidence to do more granular research. What productivity increase/decrease so you see per company? In what industries? are these based on perceptions or hard metrics? what's the retention rate of companies, and do they correlate? It's a start, not something to conclude from.
karaterobot 3y ago
> Businesses gave mixed results on remote work productivity, with 30% saying it boosted output, and 40% saying it reduced it. Given that spread, my guess here is either that their data collection and analysis is bad, or that there are other factors involved in productivity other than just where the worker is located. It is probably a very very very complicated question that is collapsed down into this "work from home: good or bad" way that is the fashion of most (all) business related pseudoscience. Anecdotally, on the subject of work culture and community, I have a lot of friends I met at old jobs whom I still hang out with. What we bonded over was how much we disliked our customers, managers, and coworkers, and how much goofing off we could get away with in the office. We pushed a lot of chairs down hallways, and took a lot of very long lunches. That's about all I miss from working in the office: the not working part. It is true that I haven't developed similar communities in remote work, but I don't know where that fits in the "community building" argument for RTO.
- 0xcde4c3db 3y ago
  > Given that spread, my guess here is either that their data collection and analysis is bad, or that there are other factors involved in productivity other than just where the worker is located. The article doesn't get into the methodology of the survey, but another possibility is that respondents were just answering based on their feelings rather than any hard data at all. This sort of thing happens all the time; a well-known example is that if you survey Americans about crime, a large percentage will say crime has increased regardless of what's happening with actual levels of crime [1]. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/16/voters-perceptions-of-crime-continue-to-conflict-with-reality/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/16/voters-pe...
  - karaterobot 3y ago
    Yep, I forgot to mention bad design as a distinct possibility. Heck, could be all three!
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >That's about all I miss from working in the office: the not working part. I To be fair, I don't think anyone except the most mission-centric individuals will ever "miss work". Many people wouldn't work if they could avoid doing so. >It is true that I haven't developed similar communities in remote work, but I don't know where that fits in the "community building" argument for RTO. Isn't it just that? They want people to feel like they are working with a team, not as some remote drone from home that tags in. As you'll see from many comments on HN, some simply don't care about that, so it falls on deaf ears. But this sort of PR isn't really for employees, let alone ones who will quit rather than RTO. They are a lost cause in the company's eyes.
mkl95 3y ago
My employer is big into coworking. The offices are plain hell. Some of the perks are people shouting on top of their lungs, crappy toilets (quite literally), theft, and a spaghetti access control system that malfunctions and locks you up. My former employer rented a similar space, with similar features. I just don't wanna spend 1/3 of my life in hell.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  > I just don't wanna spend 1/3 of my life in hell Look on the bright side, at least you get to choose your version of hell Wasn’t the case for most of human history (Edit: man, Y’all really don’t like this joke :P)
  - gloryjulio 3y ago
    I don't find why this post deserves the downvotes. What's offensive about it?
GoToRO 3y ago
They were happy about it when we keept the lights on during the pandemic...
aurizon 3y ago
You get up, wash - eat - dress, then you go to your car - and your clock starts, your time, car time, miles, gas - the entire work day is on the clock, your lunch is paid for - you drive home and the clock stops. Currently this transit time/gas/miles/stress = unpaid. Make this all paid time and far fewer would want to drag you in and pay all that added $$ = wasted $$ that remote work obviates.
- Tao3300 3y ago
  > wash > dress Hold up, these are on the clock too.
  - dennis_jeeves1 3y ago
    True, let me also include the ritual of shaving. It ain't fun.
  - aurizon 3y ago
    Yes, I often remote unwashed and unclothed and toss on a shirt, shaved and combed when I zoom as those have a known schedule.... - usually
- bobolino123 3y ago
  Lunch is paid?
  - aurizon 3y ago
    The time is paid, not the kibble...
isykt 3y ago
As someone who relocated himself to be closer to an office, I’m ecstatic about it. I live within walking distance of my office, and I basically have it to myself most of the time. A bright, clean, air condition, professionally managed placed where I can just focus on work, and when I’m done, I leave it all there. As soon as I badge out, I’m in family mode. If a colleague decides to come in, it’s like seeing an old friend from college. We catch up, get some work done in a different way, and maybe get coffee. I’m not concerned about productivity either way. What will get is what will get done, and I’m happy about it.
- lukevp 3y ago
  The part you like sounds financially unviable… you have most of the office to yourself. In RTO, offices aren’t empty, they’re loud and full of people who don’t want to be there.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- subroutine 3y ago
  Are you "ecstatic" about living close to an office or RTO mandates? The former is totally understandable. Shit, who wouldn't want to live next to a sparsely populated office, optional to use whenever you want. If you're stoked mgmt is pushing RTO because more chums at the water cooler... not great Bob
  - isykt 3y ago
    The headline of the article is "Remote work is here to stay," and I'm ecstatic about that, because my employer is one of those that will probably never give up their real estate footprint. I get the flexibility to work from home if I want and the option to come into an office that is cleaned and maintained by someone else. I can easily afford where I live, and it's in near other non-work things that I enjoy. I don't work in the finance department. The company stock keeps going up and I'm enjoying my job. If either of those stops being true, I'll re-evaluate.
DrBazza 3y ago
One of the arguments I keep seeing for going back to the office boils down to 'I don't know something, being in the office means it's easy to walk over and ask someone'. I can see at least two problems: your company code, systems and processes are either poorly documented or complex, and you are happy to interrupt someone that is probably busy.
- icedchai 3y ago
  The interruptions are often no better with remote. Unless you completely disable Slack notifications, you'll be subject to annoying DMs and unnecessary @heres, and perhaps summoned to pointless Zoom calls where a not-actually "urgent" issue must be dealt with.
  - DrBazza 3y ago
    Again, that's a company and process problem. No one in my company does anything like that, thank goodness. Though I'm sure others do. If we get '@here'd it's an actual fix-it-now production problem. Then again, my soft-phone, and cell would also be ringing like crazy as well.
    - icedchai 3y ago
      Another problem: people using Slack as an email replacement. 30 lines? Send an email.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      >. No one in my company does anything like that, thank goodness. Though I'm sure others do. on the contrary, I have yet to work at a company that had proper up to date documented systems and processes. It's always suggested to ask a co-worker or a producer and get answers that way. Of course, we're professionals so I've never heard of the cases where someone is pinging someone 10 times a day for micro-questions. There's a hierarhy you should try to follow before pinging someone specifically, and for larger questions you should rearrange a meeting time, ideally 1+ days in advance. But we also acknowledge that there's tons of tribal knowledge in the company and industry as a whole that you can't simply Google. So you shouldn't treat asking questions as something to discourage.
boredemployee 3y ago
if 100% of the companies say that my profession (data analyst) will be in person at the office, starting tomorrow, I'll leave the profession and look for something else to do with my life. i. don't. want. to. work. in. the. office. i don't need office's bullshitism.
deleted 3y ago
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axpy906 3y ago
> 35% of all jobs that could be done remotely were being done by people who worked remote full-time—five times as much as before the pandemic I had to read this two times as it’s poorly worded. An any rate, it should be 80% and not 35%. You don’t need to go into an office to make software. There’s something just sinister how employers are handling this as it’s got nothing to do with actual output.
GenerWork 3y ago
To quote the popular Jeremy Clarkson meme, "Oh no! Anyways..." On a more serious note, once we return to a more jobseeker friendly market, I'm curious how companies that insist on RTO will be perceived by jobseekers. I imagine that those RTO companies will either change their tune very quickly or be considered a third rate place to work.
dasil003 3y ago
I find this kind of article pointlessly inflammatory. Oh, some aggregation of nameless finance chiefs want more workers in the office, what does the proletariat think of that!? This just breeds division and blanket accusations. Meanwhile, where I work, we're still allowed to be 100% remote, but also recognize this has pros and cons, especially for juniors and new members of the team who haven't met each other. Productivity is up, but team connection and cohesion is down. Generally people are happy with the tradeoff, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved via thoughtful tweaks (periodic get-togethers, hybrid meeting protocols, etc). The key is some level of trust and dialogue with management, not this adversarial hand-wringing-for-pageviews noise.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >Meanwhile, where I work, we're still allowed to be 100% remote, but also recognize this has pros and cons, especially for juniors and new members of the team who haven't met each other. Where working remotely is practical, 100% RTO doesn't make a lot of sense IMO. On the other hand, you can't really dismiss concerns about company culture, team cohesion with new employees, mentoring new grads, etc. as the product of evil executives trying to prop up their commercial real estate portfolio or whatever. (I'd also argue that the situation is probably worsened because so many companies are carefully scrutinizing expenses for travel, meetings, etc.)
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    > you can't really dismiss concerns about company culture, team cohesion with new employees, mentoring new grads, etc. as the product of evil executives trying to prop up their commercial real estate portfolio or whatever. Many people do dismiss the concerns because their goals pre-pandemic did not reflect these values. So they see it as a wolf in sheep's clothing.
pyjarrett 3y ago
I've been remote for almost 7 years. I live ~175 miles to the closest tech hub, so changing to in-office work isn't an option unless I move. If I was forced to move, an equivalent house to what I have now would cost about 3 times as much and I'd have at least an hour commute each way. I save a lot of money not commuting and eating at home, and a lot of issues I'd otherwise have to miss work for if I went into an office (family illness, childcare issues) are super easy to adjust my schedule to work around.
- kmkemp 3y ago
  Similar story here. I've been remote for 9 years. I don't live that far from a minor tech hub, but it would still be an hour commute each way. Housing here is below the national average, so there is a huge savings there. I've only put maybe 10k miles on my 2007 Corolla in the last 5 years, so I pay much less in gas/maintenance/replacing vehicles. I can have delicious, healthy food every day for half the cost. If I need someone to come to my house for repairs (or other reasons), I don't need to take a day off or miss hardly any work time. I don't have to be mad when they don't show up (maybe a little). My daughter can attend a great school that requires pickup, because being away from my PC for 30 minutes every day in the afternoon is just not a big deal. If I want to take a break and get in a quick jog in the middle of the day, it costs almost nothing in lost time; I just walk outside and start running. I don't know what sort of raise I would have to get to convince me to give all of that up. I think I've settled on 40%, which is untenable without relocation.
- DrBazza 3y ago
  In the UK, the move to WFH saved me £7000 per annum (the cost of a annual rail season ticket), the equivalent of £10,000 gross salary (taxed to £7k net).
quietthrow 3y ago
Would like to hear opinions of people who are actually CEOs or leaders of large orgs today. I think it’s a generational thing and that the next Google or Apple when it arrives will be fully remote and that will be one of its differentiating advantages as an employer. It will show that things can be done differently and then set the direction for other employers of that time. Until then, the current mentality of “you can only be productive when you are in person” will prevail. Everything just worked magically during the pandemic. Once it was gone it don’t work. It doesn’t really sound logical.
- jayd16 3y ago
  What makes you say it worked magically? It worked enough as the only option but it was also a time of massive overspend and then massive layoffs. Remote work is fine and some people like it a lot but I think if we're being honest the jury is still out on what the value is to the business.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    You also have to take into account something that should have been more noted at the time. Pretty much no executive in June 2020 was going to say "If we can't get people back into an office in three months we are so totally screwed as a business!" Of course, they had an incentive to say everything's fine--even better than fine.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >Once it was gone it don’t work. It doesn’t really sound logical. A lot of things can work reasonably well--and maybe even better than expected--over the short-term but there can be tolls as a "new normal" as time goes on.
deleted 3y ago
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zabzonk 3y ago
I used to work for a training company: - most productive days, writing a complete new windows 3.x course at home using my own pc and my company provided copy of framemaker - most enjoyable, back at the office/training rooms teaching the course different strokes etc
the_gipsy 3y ago
I purposely moved offshore to avoid being called to the office or meetups more than once or twice per year. There is no way I could get asked to come in for a week, or once per month, or whatever, physically not-gonna-happen.
- wdb 3y ago
  Why not? It’s your decision to move off shore
  - the_gipsy 3y ago
    I changed jobs. They know your location when interviewing so they can't "change their minds" later.
tb_technical 3y ago
Work culture in the west is a panopticon. It's no wonder they're not happy about it. You can no longer get by with stupid office fuck fuck games of throwing others under the bus. Now we all get by on measurable work output.
simula67 3y ago
> Businesses gave mixed results on remote work productivity, with 30% saying it boosted output, and 40% saying it reduced it. I think this is a continuation of the theme of technology making time-space co-ordination more independent. Recorded music/videos made it possible for artists to record their content and for consumers to enjoy it across space and time. E-commerce companies such as Amazon, Ebay, Craigslist made it possible for people to not require to be physically present at the same location at the same time to exchange goods and services. Zoom, Slack, Confluence, GitHub etc. did make it possible for people to build great products and services by collaborating across space and time for a long time, it just validated during COVID. The thing is remote work is what enables western companies to hire high quality labour from Asia, Eastern Europe etc to push out great innovations. If it works for that, why can it not work for employees across the length and breadth of the organisation? I remember when I used to work at a company where I had to do some testing on physical servers in a datacenter. When I had to install new operating systems, I had to physically walk into the data center and stand in the hot/cold isles, pop in my USB drive and (re)install the Operating Systems I needed. The day I discovered IPMI, I stopped going in. The IPMI implementation was not that good, but it was still better than going in physically to the data center. It cemented by view that, if something can be done remotely, it should be done remotely, even if the remote solution is not perfect.
- outside1234 3y ago
  I’m with you until you get to hiring people in other time zones that perhaps don’t speak the language (or don’t speak it well) of the management running the company. This doesn’t work - 95% of software is communication - and that drives successful projects to hire within timezone and with folks that can communicate well. We have decades of failed India outsourcing projects as proof of this.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    From US East Coast to Europe seems to work pretty well for a lot of things (both software and other things) but the English tends to be good and 5-6 hour time difference is manageable--although probably on the outer edge.
wdb 3y ago
Yes, I am already excited to go back to the office and sit in an open office and listen to Zoom meetings happening on speaker
redhale 3y ago
While the benefits of remote work are impossible to deny, something is obviously lost. In-person collaboration is just an order of magnitude richer than remote collaboration. I think the argument that the benefits of remote work outweigh the reduced fidelity of live collaboration is a strong one, but does still have this weakness. I am just patiently waiting for some technology or innovation breakthrough (or series of breakthroughs) that closes this collaboration gap and effectively ends this argument. I've tried dozens of remote collaboration tools, and it's basically all shit compared to sitting in physical proximity to other people. Maybe it'll never happen, but I'm hopeful (though it still may be a ways off). I'm thinking of things like: presence (knowing when someone is actually at their desk/truly available), ad-hoc conversations that drop in and out, swinging by someone's desk when they don't look busy or deep in thought, overhearing a discussion or debate that is interesting or that you can contribute to (or easily ignore), walking a few feet to a physical whiteboard to quickly sketch out an idea, visually noticing that a junior is struggling and rolling your chair over to offer help, having a colleague hearing you sigh loudly over and over in the course of a few minutes and stop by to see if you need help, friendly non-verbal or very brief greetings to coworkers as you pass in the hallway or make eye contact across the office but whom you don't actually need to speak to, and so on... Has anyone found any really good live collaboration tools other than the typical slack/teams/etc?
- GeneralAntilles 3y ago
  It improvements in the next generation of VR (e.g., expression and iris tracking) could open up big improvements here, but the inherent latency of long-distance communication feels like a fundamental challenge comparing anything to in-person.
  - ilaksh 3y ago
    VR and mixed reality is going to be a huge thing for work pretty soon. There are going to be lots of cases where the latency is really manageable, such as when people are in the same country or general area. With AI enhancements and eye tracking etc. it could become extremely realistic. So there will probably be a new fight about virtual attendance where employers want you to be in your virtual office seat so they can monitor you that way. That may actually be one thing that helps drive realistic AI and robotics in terms of emulating human behavior. People may eventually become their own employment agencies for AIs they train or curate and then rent out or apply for jobs. In some cases the employer may not know for sure if they have a human or not.
mikhailfranco 3y ago
Businesses should: - give equal pay for equal work; - encourage remote work if it is possible and productive; - let workers choose where to live. Remote work benefits employer (lower office costs), employee (time/cost/stress of commuting) and environment (pollution). These simple rules help to establish freer, more independent markets for labor, commercial real estate, residential property and various transport modalities. Cross subsidies by employers for high CoL just perpetuates the existing inbalances, and most of the benefits go direct to landlords. The result, compared to mass commuting into expensive cities, would be: - slighty lower wages in general, sharply lower for some bubble cities (SV, SF, London...); - cheaper offices, both less space required and lower cost/area, some businesses move out of the cities; - convergence of residential property prices across cities, suburbs and remote locations; - lower rents for low-paid non-remotable essential workers in cities; - much reduced economic waste on commuting, including less congestion for those that must travel; - reducing inequality across towns, cities and countries. There would be capital losses for speculative CRE and residential property investors.
thefz 3y ago
Some days remote work is doomed. Some other days it's here to stay. Reading the news is an emotional roller coaster.

76 points by pg_1234 3y ago

Boo fucking hoo. I will "8 and skate", be it a remote or in person job. They dont pay me for overtime, so I don't donate it to a for-profit enterprise.

diogenescynic 3y ago

Why do they care? I don't have a commute, so I now work longer hours. I assume they are using spyware to track my hours spent anyways. Isn't this mutually beneficial for the employer and employee? I work more hours and they spend less on office rent and perks.

LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
> Isn't this mutually beneficial for the employer and employee? Employers don’t want mutually beneficial, they want control. Working from home gives people the ability to work while handling other priorities as well. I’m sure the employer time tracking plays a role, but they’ve always had the ability to do that, the pandemic didn’t create that. I think it’s because companies love to push their corporate propaganda in person, upper level management loves to feel that they’re making a meaningful impact on team morale, but it just sucks when done over zoom.
- lafar6503 3y ago
  I don't know where you take such knowledge from, is there any scientific paper on psychology and social behavior of employer class? I think most people are reasonable and rational in their expectations, and the unfortunate employers who have to deal with tech/it workers have to develop extraordinary patience and self-restraint in order to have anyone doing any work at all.

msandford 3y ago

Office workers didn't like the commute for 100 years and employers didn't do anything about it.

photonbeam 3y ago
We have the internet now though

5350-uiop-1130 3y ago

> "Employers believe offering remote work... hurts team building, communication, and workplace culture" * team building = observation & control, attendance & attention monitoring i.e presenteeism. * communication = verbal. i dont want to put myself at liability [because i often am] by putting things in writing * workplace culture = lmao. the bs we use to justify paying you less and/or guilting you into working above your compensation. also remember all those zoom recordings that got shared online of people being fired by some sociopath ceo. yeah we dont want that to happen again.

friend_and_foe 3y ago
Think about the fact that office space and it's maintenance are the second largest overhead after personell, and these companies want that overhead back. What is it worth to them? I'd say a big part of it is inertia, they have leases and procedures presuming physical presence and what not, I'd be willing to bet some governments are leaning on the biggest ones to prevent a collapse of the commercial real estate market (this is big business, pensions rely on it, this is a systemic risk) and then there's the control. All in all I'd say if you let the first 2 shake out by staying the course, the third one won't seem as appealing, but shaking them out is a very painful process.
- wil421 3y ago
  State, county, and city tax breaks. Here’s an article about a company I used to work for and the associated tax breaks from the City of Atlanta government. I don’t believe the article includes any sort of state tax breaks they were given when they moved the HQ from Dayton to Metro Atlanta. Not to mention being in the office is more about Management controlling and observing. https://www.ajc.com/business/incentive-package-for-ncr-could-rise-45m/yZbxoMF5pAwdP14dUcEmxI/ https://www.ajc.com/business/incentive-package-for-ncr-could...
BadCookie 3y ago
In addition to liability concerns, most people have really poor writing skills. Half the time, in my experience, management has only the vaguest notion of a plan or strategy, and writing it down would reveal how poorly thought-out their ideas are. I have had a VP tell me that it’s “too much work” to write down their thoughts, and that they would “never” do such a thing. Maybe it’s just my employer … but I doubt it.

emocin 3y ago

Too bad.

PeterisP 3y ago

Money talks, bullshit walks. If employers really wanted employees to abandon remote work, that would be obviously visible as a significant difference in remuneration. If some employer is paying on-site workers 20% more than the exact same work for the same company remotely, then I'll believe that they truly want people to be on-site; but if not, then those are just empty words, not real preferences. On the other hand, I do see employees choosing a lower-paid role/employer just to ensure remote work, so that preference seems genuine.

BossingAround 3y ago
> If some employer is paying on-site workers 20% more than the exact same work for the same company remotely, then I'll believe that they truly want people to be on-site That would effectively mean increasing salary of the current employees that choose to go to the office by 20%. Alternatively, that'd mean reducing salary of current employees that choose not to. Either way, that seems like a horribly inefficient way to deal with the problem. Most companies choose much more subtle approaches, such as: 0) Stop hiring remote -> build a new workforce that does not expect remote conditions 1) Mandate RTO (just like Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, and others did) 2) Start putting people who do not respect RTO on PIP, or on some other bullshit process that'll threaten to fire those that do not conform while giving you, the company, enough time to replace them with new hires. 3) Slowly and silently follow through 2) until remote is a thing for <10-15% of the workforce. This gives the company a number of advantages, such as: 1) Not appearing evil 2) Not dealing with disruptions caused by mass employee exit Companies that really want RTO don't have to do it in a "big bang" way. Such companies would rather do it silently while telling you how they value your opinions on what the future workplace policy should be. They'll get away with it IIF point 0 is possible. I hope it is not, but who knows.
- zer8k 3y ago
  My company had a mandatory come-to-office for every but people who are truly remote. For the truly remote (e.g. me) they cut all fringe benefits. They also have gone out of their way to find subtle ways to rub it in our face: expensive lunches and dinners for people who come in, all "fun events" happen locally and to attend you have to pay your own way, etc. So remote workers like me are second-class citizens. I've even heard "remote work will hurt your ability to advance in the company". They'll never stop hiring remote. Remote workers will simply become second class citizens at a company with fewer benefits for the same work. Most people, including myself, will happily sacrifice beer coolers and ping pong for the privilege of never having to deal with an office again. I do feel bad for people who are coming into the office. I hope those fun events and food are worth the gas money, increased risk, and reduced health going into the office entails.

butlerm 3y ago

Commuting when it isn't necessary is economically inefficient. Employees are required to pay the entirety of the cost. The only way this is likely to equalize out in favor of increased time on site is if employers start paying employees extra in some way for those days that they are required to be in the office.

protoman3000 3y ago

Employers like this should go to therapy instead of externalizing their pathology to other people. Just take the DMS-5 and go through the bullet points of Anxiety Disorders, Paranoid Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, it fits very well.

elijahwright 3y ago
It took me a minute to parse this and understand that you meant the DSM-5. Don’t know why.
rawgabbit 3y ago
Or deep down they admit they are winging it and don’t have a clue. But it sure is nice to see all those butts in seats.

neilwilson 3y ago

Require employers to pay wages by the hour door to door. Then see how much they want workers in the office. This is a classic case of Stated Preference vs. Revealed Preference

johnnyanmac 3y ago
wanting people to RTO is a valid preference. It doesn't mean they also don't have a stronger preference to not pay employees more money. We see what wins out here.
mikhailfranco 3y ago
No, because then the employer is subsidizing commuting, but giving the employee the choice of the travel/work blend. In the limit, you could choose to live 4.5 hours away from work and spend all day commuting, compared to someone who lives next to the office and does a full day's work.

subroutine 3y ago

My company has roughly ~60 employees and leased a building with 60 offices and 5 conference rooms. They tried to get us to come in more often (than once a week), saying they couldn't justify giving everyone their own office if we continued at 20% capacity. Everyone basically said fine, whatever, we're cool with sharing. So we just moved to a new building with like 20 offices and 7 conference rooms, for $25k less per month rent; and it's actually way nicer. The day I go in is stacked with meetings and collabs, so I'm never in an office anyway. Mgmt is happy (for now) they are saving on overhead (100% indirect, so double-good); I think they've accepted there's no going back.

electrondood 3y ago

> Businesses gave mixed results on remote work productivity, with 30% saying it boosted output, and 40% saying it reduced it. So basically, there's no impact to productivity. Which is the bottom line. The bigger issue is commercial real estate leases, which often have occupancy requirements imposed by the city to keep area's tax base healthy. See: downtown Portland, downtown San Francisco, etc. The city needs local businesses to thrive, so the building owner needs the buildings occupied, so the company leasing it needs butts in seats.

sokoloff 3y ago
If 70% of businesses reported a change in output, it seems weird to conclude “there’s no impact to productivity” as it concerns an individual business setting policy.
- axpy906 3y ago
  30 increase and 40 decrease which is a conflicting finding.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    I see it as evidence to do more granular research. What productivity increase/decrease so you see per company? In what industries? are these based on perceptions or hard metrics? what's the retention rate of companies, and do they correlate? It's a start, not something to conclude from.

karaterobot 3y ago

> Businesses gave mixed results on remote work productivity, with 30% saying it boosted output, and 40% saying it reduced it. Given that spread, my guess here is either that their data collection and analysis is bad, or that there are other factors involved in productivity other than just where the worker is located. It is probably a very very very complicated question that is collapsed down into this "work from home: good or bad" way that is the fashion of most (all) business related pseudoscience. Anecdotally, on the subject of work culture and community, I have a lot of friends I met at old jobs whom I still hang out with. What we bonded over was how much we disliked our customers, managers, and coworkers, and how much goofing off we could get away with in the office. We pushed a lot of chairs down hallways, and took a lot of very long lunches. That's about all I miss from working in the office: the not working part. It is true that I haven't developed similar communities in remote work, but I don't know where that fits in the "community building" argument for RTO.

0xcde4c3db 3y ago
> Given that spread, my guess here is either that their data collection and analysis is bad, or that there are other factors involved in productivity other than just where the worker is located. The article doesn't get into the methodology of the survey, but another possibility is that respondents were just answering based on their feelings rather than any hard data at all. This sort of thing happens all the time; a well-known example is that if you survey Americans about crime, a large percentage will say crime has increased regardless of what's happening with actual levels of crime [1]. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/16/voters-perceptions-of-crime-continue-to-conflict-with-reality/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/16/voters-pe...
- karaterobot 3y ago
  Yep, I forgot to mention bad design as a distinct possibility. Heck, could be all three!
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>That's about all I miss from working in the office: the not working part. I To be fair, I don't think anyone except the most mission-centric individuals will ever "miss work". Many people wouldn't work if they could avoid doing so. >It is true that I haven't developed similar communities in remote work, but I don't know where that fits in the "community building" argument for RTO. Isn't it just that? They want people to feel like they are working with a team, not as some remote drone from home that tags in. As you'll see from many comments on HN, some simply don't care about that, so it falls on deaf ears. But this sort of PR isn't really for employees, let alone ones who will quit rather than RTO. They are a lost cause in the company's eyes.

mkl95 3y ago

My employer is big into coworking. The offices are plain hell. Some of the perks are people shouting on top of their lungs, crappy toilets (quite literally), theft, and a spaghetti access control system that malfunctions and locks you up. My former employer rented a similar space, with similar features. I just don't wanna spend 1/3 of my life in hell.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
> I just don't wanna spend 1/3 of my life in hell Look on the bright side, at least you get to choose your version of hell Wasn’t the case for most of human history (Edit: man, Y’all really don’t like this joke :P)
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  I don't find why this post deserves the downvotes. What's offensive about it?

GoToRO 3y ago

They were happy about it when we keept the lights on during the pandemic...

aurizon 3y ago

You get up, wash - eat - dress, then you go to your car - and your clock starts, your time, car time, miles, gas - the entire work day is on the clock, your lunch is paid for - you drive home and the clock stops. Currently this transit time/gas/miles/stress = unpaid. Make this all paid time and far fewer would want to drag you in and pay all that added $$ = wasted $$ that remote work obviates.

Tao3300 3y ago
> wash > dress Hold up, these are on the clock too.
- dennis_jeeves1 3y ago
  True, let me also include the ritual of shaving. It ain't fun.
- aurizon 3y ago
  Yes, I often remote unwashed and unclothed and toss on a shirt, shaved and combed when I zoom as those have a known schedule.... - usually
bobolino123 3y ago
Lunch is paid?
- aurizon 3y ago
  The time is paid, not the kibble...

isykt 3y ago

As someone who relocated himself to be closer to an office, I’m ecstatic about it. I live within walking distance of my office, and I basically have it to myself most of the time. A bright, clean, air condition, professionally managed placed where I can just focus on work, and when I’m done, I leave it all there. As soon as I badge out, I’m in family mode. If a colleague decides to come in, it’s like seeing an old friend from college. We catch up, get some work done in a different way, and maybe get coffee. I’m not concerned about productivity either way. What will get is what will get done, and I’m happy about it.

lukevp 3y ago
The part you like sounds financially unviable… you have most of the office to yourself. In RTO, offices aren’t empty, they’re loud and full of people who don’t want to be there.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
subroutine 3y ago
Are you "ecstatic" about living close to an office or RTO mandates? The former is totally understandable. Shit, who wouldn't want to live next to a sparsely populated office, optional to use whenever you want. If you're stoked mgmt is pushing RTO because more chums at the water cooler... not great Bob
- isykt 3y ago
  The headline of the article is "Remote work is here to stay," and I'm ecstatic about that, because my employer is one of those that will probably never give up their real estate footprint. I get the flexibility to work from home if I want and the option to come into an office that is cleaned and maintained by someone else. I can easily afford where I live, and it's in near other non-work things that I enjoy. I don't work in the finance department. The company stock keeps going up and I'm enjoying my job. If either of those stops being true, I'll re-evaluate.

DrBazza 3y ago

One of the arguments I keep seeing for going back to the office boils down to 'I don't know something, being in the office means it's easy to walk over and ask someone'. I can see at least two problems: your company code, systems and processes are either poorly documented or complex, and you are happy to interrupt someone that is probably busy.

icedchai 3y ago
The interruptions are often no better with remote. Unless you completely disable Slack notifications, you'll be subject to annoying DMs and unnecessary @heres, and perhaps summoned to pointless Zoom calls where a not-actually "urgent" issue must be dealt with.
- DrBazza 3y ago
  Again, that's a company and process problem. No one in my company does anything like that, thank goodness. Though I'm sure others do. If we get '@here'd it's an actual fix-it-now production problem. Then again, my soft-phone, and cell would also be ringing like crazy as well.
  - icedchai 3y ago
    Another problem: people using Slack as an email replacement. 30 lines? Send an email.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >. No one in my company does anything like that, thank goodness. Though I'm sure others do. on the contrary, I have yet to work at a company that had proper up to date documented systems and processes. It's always suggested to ask a co-worker or a producer and get answers that way. Of course, we're professionals so I've never heard of the cases where someone is pinging someone 10 times a day for micro-questions. There's a hierarhy you should try to follow before pinging someone specifically, and for larger questions you should rearrange a meeting time, ideally 1+ days in advance. But we also acknowledge that there's tons of tribal knowledge in the company and industry as a whole that you can't simply Google. So you shouldn't treat asking questions as something to discourage.

boredemployee 3y ago

if 100% of the companies say that my profession (data analyst) will be in person at the office, starting tomorrow, I'll leave the profession and look for something else to do with my life. i. don't. want. to. work. in. the. office. i don't need office's bullshitism.

deleted 3y ago

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axpy906 3y ago

> 35% of all jobs that could be done remotely were being done by people who worked remote full-time—five times as much as before the pandemic I had to read this two times as it’s poorly worded. An any rate, it should be 80% and not 35%. You don’t need to go into an office to make software. There’s something just sinister how employers are handling this as it’s got nothing to do with actual output.

GenerWork 3y ago

To quote the popular Jeremy Clarkson meme, "Oh no! Anyways..." On a more serious note, once we return to a more jobseeker friendly market, I'm curious how companies that insist on RTO will be perceived by jobseekers. I imagine that those RTO companies will either change their tune very quickly or be considered a third rate place to work.

dasil003 3y ago

I find this kind of article pointlessly inflammatory. Oh, some aggregation of nameless finance chiefs want more workers in the office, what does the proletariat think of that!? This just breeds division and blanket accusations. Meanwhile, where I work, we're still allowed to be 100% remote, but also recognize this has pros and cons, especially for juniors and new members of the team who haven't met each other. Productivity is up, but team connection and cohesion is down. Generally people are happy with the tradeoff, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved via thoughtful tweaks (periodic get-togethers, hybrid meeting protocols, etc). The key is some level of trust and dialogue with management, not this adversarial hand-wringing-for-pageviews noise.

ghaff 3y ago
>Meanwhile, where I work, we're still allowed to be 100% remote, but also recognize this has pros and cons, especially for juniors and new members of the team who haven't met each other. Where working remotely is practical, 100% RTO doesn't make a lot of sense IMO. On the other hand, you can't really dismiss concerns about company culture, team cohesion with new employees, mentoring new grads, etc. as the product of evil executives trying to prop up their commercial real estate portfolio or whatever. (I'd also argue that the situation is probably worsened because so many companies are carefully scrutinizing expenses for travel, meetings, etc.)
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  > you can't really dismiss concerns about company culture, team cohesion with new employees, mentoring new grads, etc. as the product of evil executives trying to prop up their commercial real estate portfolio or whatever. Many people do dismiss the concerns because their goals pre-pandemic did not reflect these values. So they see it as a wolf in sheep's clothing.

pyjarrett 3y ago

I've been remote for almost 7 years. I live ~175 miles to the closest tech hub, so changing to in-office work isn't an option unless I move. If I was forced to move, an equivalent house to what I have now would cost about 3 times as much and I'd have at least an hour commute each way. I save a lot of money not commuting and eating at home, and a lot of issues I'd otherwise have to miss work for if I went into an office (family illness, childcare issues) are super easy to adjust my schedule to work around.

kmkemp 3y ago
Similar story here. I've been remote for 9 years. I don't live that far from a minor tech hub, but it would still be an hour commute each way. Housing here is below the national average, so there is a huge savings there. I've only put maybe 10k miles on my 2007 Corolla in the last 5 years, so I pay much less in gas/maintenance/replacing vehicles. I can have delicious, healthy food every day for half the cost. If I need someone to come to my house for repairs (or other reasons), I don't need to take a day off or miss hardly any work time. I don't have to be mad when they don't show up (maybe a little). My daughter can attend a great school that requires pickup, because being away from my PC for 30 minutes every day in the afternoon is just not a big deal. If I want to take a break and get in a quick jog in the middle of the day, it costs almost nothing in lost time; I just walk outside and start running. I don't know what sort of raise I would have to get to convince me to give all of that up. I think I've settled on 40%, which is untenable without relocation.
DrBazza 3y ago
In the UK, the move to WFH saved me £7000 per annum (the cost of a annual rail season ticket), the equivalent of £10,000 gross salary (taxed to £7k net).

quietthrow 3y ago

Would like to hear opinions of people who are actually CEOs or leaders of large orgs today. I think it’s a generational thing and that the next Google or Apple when it arrives will be fully remote and that will be one of its differentiating advantages as an employer. It will show that things can be done differently and then set the direction for other employers of that time. Until then, the current mentality of “you can only be productive when you are in person” will prevail. Everything just worked magically during the pandemic. Once it was gone it don’t work. It doesn’t really sound logical.

jayd16 3y ago
What makes you say it worked magically? It worked enough as the only option but it was also a time of massive overspend and then massive layoffs. Remote work is fine and some people like it a lot but I think if we're being honest the jury is still out on what the value is to the business.
- ghaff 3y ago
  You also have to take into account something that should have been more noted at the time. Pretty much no executive in June 2020 was going to say "If we can't get people back into an office in three months we are so totally screwed as a business!" Of course, they had an incentive to say everything's fine--even better than fine.
ghaff 3y ago
>Once it was gone it don’t work. It doesn’t really sound logical. A lot of things can work reasonably well--and maybe even better than expected--over the short-term but there can be tolls as a "new normal" as time goes on.

deleted 3y ago

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zabzonk 3y ago

I used to work for a training company: - most productive days, writing a complete new windows 3.x course at home using my own pc and my company provided copy of framemaker - most enjoyable, back at the office/training rooms teaching the course different strokes etc

the_gipsy 3y ago

I purposely moved offshore to avoid being called to the office or meetups more than once or twice per year. There is no way I could get asked to come in for a week, or once per month, or whatever, physically not-gonna-happen.

wdb 3y ago
Why not? It’s your decision to move off shore
- the_gipsy 3y ago
  I changed jobs. They know your location when interviewing so they can't "change their minds" later.

tb_technical 3y ago

Work culture in the west is a panopticon. It's no wonder they're not happy about it. You can no longer get by with stupid office fuck fuck games of throwing others under the bus. Now we all get by on measurable work output.

simula67 3y ago

> Businesses gave mixed results on remote work productivity, with 30% saying it boosted output, and 40% saying it reduced it. I think this is a continuation of the theme of technology making time-space co-ordination more independent. Recorded music/videos made it possible for artists to record their content and for consumers to enjoy it across space and time. E-commerce companies such as Amazon, Ebay, Craigslist made it possible for people to not require to be physically present at the same location at the same time to exchange goods and services. Zoom, Slack, Confluence, GitHub etc. did make it possible for people to build great products and services by collaborating across space and time for a long time, it just validated during COVID. The thing is remote work is what enables western companies to hire high quality labour from Asia, Eastern Europe etc to push out great innovations. If it works for that, why can it not work for employees across the length and breadth of the organisation? I remember when I used to work at a company where I had to do some testing on physical servers in a datacenter. When I had to install new operating systems, I had to physically walk into the data center and stand in the hot/cold isles, pop in my USB drive and (re)install the Operating Systems I needed. The day I discovered IPMI, I stopped going in. The IPMI implementation was not that good, but it was still better than going in physically to the data center. It cemented by view that, if something can be done remotely, it should be done remotely, even if the remote solution is not perfect.

outside1234 3y ago
I’m with you until you get to hiring people in other time zones that perhaps don’t speak the language (or don’t speak it well) of the management running the company. This doesn’t work - 95% of software is communication - and that drives successful projects to hire within timezone and with folks that can communicate well. We have decades of failed India outsourcing projects as proof of this.
- ghaff 3y ago
  From US East Coast to Europe seems to work pretty well for a lot of things (both software and other things) but the English tends to be good and 5-6 hour time difference is manageable--although probably on the outer edge.

wdb 3y ago

Yes, I am already excited to go back to the office and sit in an open office and listen to Zoom meetings happening on speaker

redhale 3y ago

While the benefits of remote work are impossible to deny, something is obviously lost. In-person collaboration is just an order of magnitude richer than remote collaboration. I think the argument that the benefits of remote work outweigh the reduced fidelity of live collaboration is a strong one, but does still have this weakness. I am just patiently waiting for some technology or innovation breakthrough (or series of breakthroughs) that closes this collaboration gap and effectively ends this argument. I've tried dozens of remote collaboration tools, and it's basically all shit compared to sitting in physical proximity to other people. Maybe it'll never happen, but I'm hopeful (though it still may be a ways off). I'm thinking of things like: presence (knowing when someone is actually at their desk/truly available), ad-hoc conversations that drop in and out, swinging by someone's desk when they don't look busy or deep in thought, overhearing a discussion or debate that is interesting or that you can contribute to (or easily ignore), walking a few feet to a physical whiteboard to quickly sketch out an idea, visually noticing that a junior is struggling and rolling your chair over to offer help, having a colleague hearing you sigh loudly over and over in the course of a few minutes and stop by to see if you need help, friendly non-verbal or very brief greetings to coworkers as you pass in the hallway or make eye contact across the office but whom you don't actually need to speak to, and so on... Has anyone found any really good live collaboration tools other than the typical slack/teams/etc?

GeneralAntilles 3y ago
It improvements in the next generation of VR (e.g., expression and iris tracking) could open up big improvements here, but the inherent latency of long-distance communication feels like a fundamental challenge comparing anything to in-person.
- ilaksh 3y ago
  VR and mixed reality is going to be a huge thing for work pretty soon. There are going to be lots of cases where the latency is really manageable, such as when people are in the same country or general area. With AI enhancements and eye tracking etc. it could become extremely realistic. So there will probably be a new fight about virtual attendance where employers want you to be in your virtual office seat so they can monitor you that way. That may actually be one thing that helps drive realistic AI and robotics in terms of emulating human behavior. People may eventually become their own employment agencies for AIs they train or curate and then rent out or apply for jobs. In some cases the employer may not know for sure if they have a human or not.

mikhailfranco 3y ago

Businesses should: - give equal pay for equal work; - encourage remote work if it is possible and productive; - let workers choose where to live. Remote work benefits employer (lower office costs), employee (time/cost/stress of commuting) and environment (pollution). These simple rules help to establish freer, more independent markets for labor, commercial real estate, residential property and various transport modalities. Cross subsidies by employers for high CoL just perpetuates the existing inbalances, and most of the benefits go direct to landlords. The result, compared to mass commuting into expensive cities, would be: - slighty lower wages in general, sharply lower for some bubble cities (SV, SF, London...); - cheaper offices, both less space required and lower cost/area, some businesses move out of the cities; - convergence of residential property prices across cities, suburbs and remote locations; - lower rents for low-paid non-remotable essential workers in cities; - much reduced economic waste on commuting, including less congestion for those that must travel; - reducing inequality across towns, cities and countries. There would be capital losses for speculative CRE and residential property investors.

thefz 3y ago

Some days remote work is doomed. Some other days it's here to stay. Reading the news is an emotional roller coaster.