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Does anyone have a running list of cited reasons for why this is happening? The few people I've asked in executive decisionmaking circles have all chalked it up

Does anyone have a running list of cited reasons for why this is happening? The few people I've asked in executive decisionmaking circles have all chalked it up to judgment calls, but I'm inclined to believe that there's a more coordinated effort going on to backstop CRE. Even the article blames emotions, and while I know people can be fickle, I find it hard to believe that there isn't some kind of data informing the move, whether it's data describing something that should be obvious (productivity) or something opaque or irrelevant to most employees (coordinated effort to prop up investments)

germinalphrase 3y ago
Does it need to be any more complicated than “we’re spending a TON of money on office space…”.
_fat_santa 3y ago
My guess is commercial real estate. The companies pushing RTO are the same ones that own their own office buildings. Offloading those now is near impossible because there's such a glut in the market.
sc68cal 3y ago
Labor must be disciplined, and cannot be allowed to think that they have the upper hand in negotiations over wages and working conditions. Therefore, RTO is being pushed, even when data shows that workers are more productive and companies would save money by not having to spend money on real estate. The principals that executives claim to be driven by (data, productivity, cost savings, profits) get tossed out the window when it turns out the results don't fit their stated objective.
zanellato19 3y ago
So many CEOs are in direct communication and believe that the office is better that no matter how data contradicts that, they still will make the move and the masses simply have to obey.
- eganist 3y ago
  It's just so poorly managed too. A lot of these companies are heavy on engineering. The returns would likely be stronger if buildings were converted to dedicated offices for engineers; they'd pull those in who want their own office to work, let those who want to stay home keep working from home, maintain that physical presence they want for incubating junior talent, and get better productivity out of everyone.
  - yourapostasy 3y ago
    I think this is a promising approach. My version of it would be to switch to the Bell Labs / Xerox PARC layout style of individual engineer offices surrounding a central conference room area. Couple that with a genuine leadership backing and incentives promoting mentorship for senior individual contributors to come in and mentor juniors in the physical offices. When those juniors are promoted to a sufficient level of demonstrated consistent self-sufficiency and outcome-driven behavior over a number of years, the new more senior position includes the right to go full remote. In any case, in my personal experience with clients' engineering organizations, those where you have to micromanage to the point going to the office is necessary to manage well don't accomplish much in any case, and tend to produce technical debt at a much faster pace, than those with much tighter company culture cohesion around self-motivated engineers. I've concluded over the decades it is due to a highly useful information compression dynamic leading to an even more useful abstraction interface only possible in a high trust environment.
    - randysalami 3y ago
      As a junior developer who works remote, I would love to work at a place that took this approach.
Workaccount2 3y ago
Companies are more efficient/productive with in office workers. Throw all the click-minded news articles and anecdotes in the world at me. These leaders aren't idiots and they are definitely crunching numbers. If full remote was more profitable, they would do it. Full stop. The headline should be "90% of companies find in office work more profitable". Because that is all they really care about.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  At my prior megacorp where I was a senior leader we analyzed closely remote work patterns and in office patterns and found a pronounced improvement in productivity and employee happiness when employees choose how to work best for themselves. However our aging senior leader declared everyone must work in the office because it’s how his career unfolded. People tried to talk him down, but he wouldn’t accept any data but doubled down hard on hand waving culture arguments. It evolved into “it’s for the children,” despite the out of college hires had done considerably better than other demographics remotely. No company has provided evidence of any efficiency gain in office, while there is plenty of evidence of gain with universal flexible work arrangements. Even Amazon, a very data driven culture, has no data to back up RTO. It’s just a gut feeling from Andy. N.b., when my prior company declared all senior leaders must work in the office 5 days a week, I did the only honorable thing and quit loudly and went to a more interesting company paying better with a more interesting role that doesn’t feel the need to control me physically. If employers value controlling my body over my contribution, they can have neither.
brvsft 3y ago
My guess is that in some cases, this sort of policy is actually a form of layoffs where they want to reduce costs through lower headcount without calling it a layoff. They know some sizable chunk of employees will balk and find another remote job if forced to return to the office. Instead of the company picking who gets laid off, the employees pick themselves. There are definitely some downsides to such a policy, especially in that you can't control who leaves. You could lose some top performers this way. But it would still accomplish lowering costs while sidestepping much of the bad press of being forced to lower costs through a layoff.
syndicatedjelly 3y ago
A very big reason that few corporations or outlets discuss is commercial real estate. A lot of these businesses likely have deals with the city where they agreed to let them build a fancy new building, in exchange for a larger tax base that commutes to the area, buys lunch, whatever. Furthermore, buildings are more valuable when they're used.
twh270 3y ago
To add to the other comments, when the nature of the job or the work environment is dysfunctional/dystopian it's easier to get people to be a little more productive when they are in the office.
SkyPuncher 3y ago
Prior to the pandemic, I was on an amazing remote team. We made time to hang out and talk twice per week. We often let our standups turn into water cooler sessions. Generally, we understood that we had to “waste” some time in order to create the social interactions that would come naturally in person. Then I got promoted. I reported into the CEO. Everyone is so busy and has their own priorities that it’s extremely hard to get people to spend time on anything that isn’t strictly business. It’s isolating. It can make people feel out of touch. After a while, it just seems to wear on people. I also suspect that the types of personalities that thrive at leadership/executive levels don’t do super well with stepping back to socialize.

germinalphrase 3y ago

Does it need to be any more complicated than “we’re spending a TON of money on office space…”.

_fat_santa 3y ago

My guess is commercial real estate. The companies pushing RTO are the same ones that own their own office buildings. Offloading those now is near impossible because there's such a glut in the market.

sc68cal 3y ago

Labor must be disciplined, and cannot be allowed to think that they have the upper hand in negotiations over wages and working conditions. Therefore, RTO is being pushed, even when data shows that workers are more productive and companies would save money by not having to spend money on real estate. The principals that executives claim to be driven by (data, productivity, cost savings, profits) get tossed out the window when it turns out the results don't fit their stated objective.

zanellato19 3y ago

So many CEOs are in direct communication and believe that the office is better that no matter how data contradicts that, they still will make the move and the masses simply have to obey.

eganist 3y ago
It's just so poorly managed too. A lot of these companies are heavy on engineering. The returns would likely be stronger if buildings were converted to dedicated offices for engineers; they'd pull those in who want their own office to work, let those who want to stay home keep working from home, maintain that physical presence they want for incubating junior talent, and get better productivity out of everyone.
- yourapostasy 3y ago
  I think this is a promising approach. My version of it would be to switch to the Bell Labs / Xerox PARC layout style of individual engineer offices surrounding a central conference room area. Couple that with a genuine leadership backing and incentives promoting mentorship for senior individual contributors to come in and mentor juniors in the physical offices. When those juniors are promoted to a sufficient level of demonstrated consistent self-sufficiency and outcome-driven behavior over a number of years, the new more senior position includes the right to go full remote. In any case, in my personal experience with clients' engineering organizations, those where you have to micromanage to the point going to the office is necessary to manage well don't accomplish much in any case, and tend to produce technical debt at a much faster pace, than those with much tighter company culture cohesion around self-motivated engineers. I've concluded over the decades it is due to a highly useful information compression dynamic leading to an even more useful abstraction interface only possible in a high trust environment.
  - randysalami 3y ago
    As a junior developer who works remote, I would love to work at a place that took this approach.

Workaccount2 3y ago

Companies are more efficient/productive with in office workers. Throw all the click-minded news articles and anecdotes in the world at me. These leaders aren't idiots and they are definitely crunching numbers. If full remote was more profitable, they would do it. Full stop. The headline should be "90% of companies find in office work more profitable". Because that is all they really care about.

fnordpiglet 3y ago
At my prior megacorp where I was a senior leader we analyzed closely remote work patterns and in office patterns and found a pronounced improvement in productivity and employee happiness when employees choose how to work best for themselves. However our aging senior leader declared everyone must work in the office because it’s how his career unfolded. People tried to talk him down, but he wouldn’t accept any data but doubled down hard on hand waving culture arguments. It evolved into “it’s for the children,” despite the out of college hires had done considerably better than other demographics remotely. No company has provided evidence of any efficiency gain in office, while there is plenty of evidence of gain with universal flexible work arrangements. Even Amazon, a very data driven culture, has no data to back up RTO. It’s just a gut feeling from Andy. N.b., when my prior company declared all senior leaders must work in the office 5 days a week, I did the only honorable thing and quit loudly and went to a more interesting company paying better with a more interesting role that doesn’t feel the need to control me physically. If employers value controlling my body over my contribution, they can have neither.

brvsft 3y ago

My guess is that in some cases, this sort of policy is actually a form of layoffs where they want to reduce costs through lower headcount without calling it a layoff. They know some sizable chunk of employees will balk and find another remote job if forced to return to the office. Instead of the company picking who gets laid off, the employees pick themselves. There are definitely some downsides to such a policy, especially in that you can't control who leaves. You could lose some top performers this way. But it would still accomplish lowering costs while sidestepping much of the bad press of being forced to lower costs through a layoff.

syndicatedjelly 3y ago

A very big reason that few corporations or outlets discuss is commercial real estate. A lot of these businesses likely have deals with the city where they agreed to let them build a fancy new building, in exchange for a larger tax base that commutes to the area, buys lunch, whatever. Furthermore, buildings are more valuable when they're used.

twh270 3y ago

To add to the other comments, when the nature of the job or the work environment is dysfunctional/dystopian it's easier to get people to be a little more productive when they are in the office.

SkyPuncher 3y ago

Prior to the pandemic, I was on an amazing remote team. We made time to hang out and talk twice per week. We often let our standups turn into water cooler sessions. Generally, we understood that we had to “waste” some time in order to create the social interactions that would come naturally in person. Then I got promoted. I reported into the CEO. Everyone is so busy and has their own priorities that it’s extremely hard to get people to spend time on anything that isn’t strictly business. It’s isolating. It can make people feel out of touch. After a while, it just seems to wear on people. I also suspect that the types of personalities that thrive at leadership/executive levels don’t do super well with stepping back to socialize.