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Your average productive firm is not incentivized to optimize CRE value. However, they are often renting commercial real-estate on a fixed-term lease and need t

Your average productive firm is not incentivized to optimize CRE value. However, they are often renting commercial real-estate on a fixed-term lease and need to get what value from the remainder of their lease that they can.

jedberg 3y ago
That's the sunk cost fallacy. They're gonna pay it regardless, it doesn't matter if people show up or not. It's still cheaper to not have folks show up because then you don't have to pay for all the ongoing incidental charges.
- thrtythreeforty 3y ago
  I've been hearing this a lot, and I actually think you have the company's logic backward. (For what it's worth, I'm pro-WFH, and I think a lot of circles don't square with the rhetoric from my company regarding RTO, but hear me out.) The lease is locked in. From the company's perspective, the building is now free, except for marginal costs per employee that shows up. So the only remaining math for the company to consider is, are the benefits that the company gains from an onsite employee greater than the $2/day it costs to provide coffee and toilet paper? Remember, the company is happy to outsource the cost of commuting to employees, and only cares about the value of the building if they own it. And they have great institutional difficulty in weighing intangible employee satisfaction against other perceived gains for the company. Under this logic, I think it's easy to see why management, acting in the company's best interest, is pushing RTO so hard. If it costs employees $10/day but makes the company $3, that's free money.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    So as soon as the lease is up and needs to be renewed, you're proposing exec management is going to be like "Yeah, you know how we had this major brouhaha forcing everyone to RTO that sometimes it felt like the majority of our internal comms were on this topic? We changed our mind, we're all going to WFH from now on." The mental gymnastics folks go through to support one side or the other in this debate is just mind boggling to me, especially since their are much simpler and more likely pros/cons for both WFH and RTO.
- whateveracct 3y ago
  Nobody said management is inherently rational.

jedberg 3y ago

That's the sunk cost fallacy. They're gonna pay it regardless, it doesn't matter if people show up or not. It's still cheaper to not have folks show up because then you don't have to pay for all the ongoing incidental charges.

thrtythreeforty 3y ago
I've been hearing this a lot, and I actually think you have the company's logic backward. (For what it's worth, I'm pro-WFH, and I think a lot of circles don't square with the rhetoric from my company regarding RTO, but hear me out.) The lease is locked in. From the company's perspective, the building is now free, except for marginal costs per employee that shows up. So the only remaining math for the company to consider is, are the benefits that the company gains from an onsite employee greater than the $2/day it costs to provide coffee and toilet paper? Remember, the company is happy to outsource the cost of commuting to employees, and only cares about the value of the building if they own it. And they have great institutional difficulty in weighing intangible employee satisfaction against other perceived gains for the company. Under this logic, I think it's easy to see why management, acting in the company's best interest, is pushing RTO so hard. If it costs employees $10/day but makes the company $3, that's free money.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  So as soon as the lease is up and needs to be renewed, you're proposing exec management is going to be like "Yeah, you know how we had this major brouhaha forcing everyone to RTO that sometimes it felt like the majority of our internal comms were on this topic? We changed our mind, we're all going to WFH from now on." The mental gymnastics folks go through to support one side or the other in this debate is just mind boggling to me, especially since their are much simpler and more likely pros/cons for both WFH and RTO.
whateveracct 3y ago
Nobody said management is inherently rational.