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Ask HN: Why are some companies still trying to force return to office?

17 points by chandler767 3y ago

Seems like the consensus is that you can do just fine (if not better) if your employees are remote. So why are some companies still trying to force workers back to the office knowing many would rather quit?

kidgorgeous 3y ago
commercial real estate obligations. "culture"
hash07e 3y ago
Because the banks and local govt bet a lot on commercial leases. Banks says they are solvent because they have "hard" assets to borrow against. Govts promises the paradise with future taxes. Got to the office? Pay toll Got a coffee? Pay taxes Consume more petrol/gas for your car? Pay taxes. More electricity? pay taxes. You can't expect they let you out so easy right?
- chandler767 3y ago
  Yeah, but why would the startup I work for care about that?
  - hash07e 3y ago
    Becase the fund that invest on your startup does. because the board members have leases nearby. because someone that is invested want you to go there, spend money or create expenses (consume food from cafeteria,etc.) If the student does not go in person to a university how valuable is the commercial lease at the university?
    - shyn3 3y ago
      Its amazing how banks are offering reduced interest rates and more money if you are willing to rent out a building at a loss. If it's happening here, it's happening everywhere.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    Because they have no idea of what they are doing. At best they are copying others but most likely they are afraid you will not be working without someone looking over your shoulder. A lot of times they do it as staging theater for investors (look at my team working in a cool hub) others to impressive customers (having an address in a locale is part of branding). No one does it for better ideas. Cheaper to fly everyone for a retreat if that was the case.
    - chandler767 3y ago
      "We don't know what we're doing so we are copying you" - Explains most weird startup behaviors.
VirusNewbie 3y ago
Some of it is culture. I worked for a large F50 company pre-pandemic that was remote friendly (at least in our org) and all communication was async, all serious discussion happened on mailing lists and the internal github, ad-hoc meetings were generally discouraged. I have joined a FAANG recently and by comparison their culture is painful for remote, despite them having 2 years to refine during the pandemic. It is slowly getting better this last year, but culturally they are still years away from being effective at remote. For those who say Real Estate is the reason, that math doesn't add up there. Apple doesn't give a shit about 5 billion dollars in real estate that is wasted if they think it will make employees less productive. That's a rounding error on most of their products. They genuinely believe it's at worst neutral to demand RTO.
- chandler767 3y ago
  Do you think it's important for a companies culture to evolve as the environment changes? With your FAANG example I have to wonder what else may be stuck that's blocking the organization from doing more. Are they bad at evolving in general or is there something unique about RTO?
mikece 3y ago
Don't underestimate the paranoia of useless middle management who cannot justify their existence by Teams meetings alone and cannot easily brown-nose from home.
- chandler767 3y ago
  Wouldn’t it easier for management of this kind to hide? You can’t see that they are not actually doing anything if they are working from home. In the office they have to justify themselves because otherwise they’re just sitting there.
  - mindwok 3y ago
    In large organisations, these kinds of managers get to where they are by maximising visibility and building their brand. That can be hard to do remotely unless they’re used to it.
  - muzani 3y ago
    It's usually the opposite. People who accomplish little often do a lot. You can see ineffective managers multitasking in meetings all the time, then they're at home responding to messages until midnight. A lot of managing might also be wikis and such, but it's easier to schedule 1-1s every week and then have a meeting about when the next meeting is.
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  If that's the case, why aren't companies firing them, saving on their salaries AND saving on leases?
fullshark 3y ago
Not only can you do fine, but you can save a ton of money on office operations. The economics will win out in the end, I don't doubt it. A lot of executives and managers are simply in denial.
- chandler767 3y ago
  "The economics will win out in the end". This is what frustrates me. It seems so obvious. Sunk-cost fallacy is a terrible reason to mess with a workers employment.
lostdog 3y ago
Lots of execs and managers believe that groups of people are more innovative and productive when they discuss things in-person. You may think they are wrong. You may not like that they believe this. But they really do believe that in-person is better for getting stuff done, and that's why they want it.
- chandler767 3y ago
  I'm concerned that execs and managers believe discussing thing in-person is more productive when there's lots of evidence that suggests wfh or hybrid is comparable or better. Two years ago there's wasn't enough data to know what would work long term. There is now.
  - paulcole 3y ago
    A mistake a lot of people make is thinking that which is “better” or “more productive” matters in every situation. All that matters is what the current decision makers want to do — and of course that depends on their motivations. Unless you understand their motivations, how can you say what is “better”?
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Why does it happen in big orgs where most meetings are virtual meetings between different offices?
  - lostdog 3y ago
    They still believe that being in-person with a handful of peers helps productivity. For example, you might not work directly with Karl, but he could still give some suggestions for using git that could be helpful.
- dyeje 3y ago
  I think this is the biggest factor, but also important to note that commercial leases tend to be long and very difficult / expensive to break.
2rsf 3y ago
> the consensus is that you can do just fine Consensus where? many managers quote the Microsoft study that Remote work is making productivity and innovation harder for example
jchnxu 3y ago
My 2 cents, If I need to push a project I'd really love to work face to face, it takes me 5 min to spot the problem or to slip in a conversation easily. Or even just observing what's happening is fun and educating. But in large corps I understand the dilemma, even if you go to the office your job is to hop in remote meetings, that sucks. Then the office might just be cancelled.
jones1618 3y ago
Our CEO's decision was based entirely on "Elon Musk revoked WFH so it must be genius." End-of-argument. When pressed, he also suggested that new hires need hands-on, one-on-one mentorship to grow and learn the business. At least that's a legitimate reason. But for mature, distributed teams who already work remotely (COVID or not), return to office is a huge drain of employees time and attention, IMO.

bruce511 3y ago

I'm guessing most people on HN are employees, not employers. It's therefore not surprising that the "concensus" seems to revolve around "employee think". When I've responded in the past, with an employer point of view, I get down-voted. That's OK. You may not like what i have to say. Of course companies are different. There are many reasons for office work. Many of them bad. You may work for a company with many layers of useless management. I commiserate with you, and clearly my experience, and answer, isn't relevant to you. I can only speak to my situation. I only have a short commute, so I go into the office about 3 days a week. I usually work from home a couple days as well. When I'm in the office, people ask me questions. When I'm at home they don't. For me this is good, I'd like people to ask rather than waste time. Those who are never in the office never ask. Which brings me to the next observation. People in the office are growing faster than those at home. Or perhaps my perception is that those in the office are growing. Peoplecat home seem to "do their thing", which includes making the same mistakes, and taking longer to do things. Equally people at home are not challenged with questions, they are not pushed out of their comfort zones. They are not helping others along. All of this plays out when folk are being promoted. For some I can see their evolution. For others their stagnation. Long-term it'll be interesting to see if this progresses. For the record, we all come to the office on Wednesday, for the rest they're free to choose. Their has been un uptick in morale since we started coming back for that. I think some folk get very lonely and isolated being permanently at home. Ultimately full-remote is not actually ideal for either party, but YMMV depending on pretty much every other part of the business culture.

codegeek 3y ago
Do what works for you best as an employer. As an employer, it is not easy to have remote teams especially if you are not designed to work remotely. Junior folks need more in person collaboration as well in my experience. So it really depends and there is no one size fits all answer. Most proponents of remote work take an extreme position and that is a problem.