17 ms·

The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

100 points by bluefishinit 3y ago

rednerrus 3y ago
The problems with voluntary layoffs like that is the most competent people are always the first ones to quit.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  > The problems with voluntary layoffs like that is the most competent people are always the first ones to quit. Rather, the ones who have the easiest time finding a new job will often be the first ones to quit. These are not necessarily the most competent ones because, for example, people who are better at self-promotion often do have it easier to find a new job, without necessarily being more competent.
  - Pet_Ant 3y ago
    > Rather, the ones who have the easiest time finding a new job will often be the first ones to quit. Doesn't that mean the layoff is as humane as possible? It means you inflict the least amount of suffering you could.
    - rednerrus 3y ago
      It definitely leaves the people who are competent in the org in a lurch.
      - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
        Indeed: it leaves those people who are competent, but not good self-promoters in the lurch.
- nh23423fefe 3y ago
  Is this new information that CEOs dont know? Or just oft-repeated pablum?
  - gumby 3y ago
    The whole “article” is based on a surmise. Its basically a blog post.
- addicted 3y ago
  That may be a possibility with regular mass layoffs, because it indicates a company in trouble. However, that’s probably not the case for companies that were laying off people earlier this year despite making record profits (I think most people understood that many of the more profitable companies had overhired over the pandemic) and unlikely to be a driver in RTO driven “layoffs” since they’re not layoffs in the first place and say nothing about employees job security. RTO driven “layoffs” would be the people who don’t live near the office.
  - rednerrus 3y ago
    Or competent people who have grown comfortable working from home.
linkjuice4all 3y ago
"My advice to the many CEOs tasked with this decision? Just own it." It would be nice if we could get this level of honesty from CEOs - but let's not pretend that firing people is the only driver for RTO. Some other motivations include: - We took a tax break that specifies some level of in-office time per employee and we already spent the money - We're getting pressured from local governments to bring customers into the city to spend money at local businesses - We've sunk cost into our little in-person fiefdom and upper management needs the powertrip to justify the headache that is working in upper management Obviously this is not an exhaustive list - but it's annoying to deal with the deception when looking for jobs or trying to determine if a company is going to pull the rug out for the purposes of "business". So yes - the CEOs should just own "it", but so should the politicians and real estate owners/investors who are also concerned that their tax base or investment value don't hold up to this new model of working.
- tenebrisalietum 3y ago
  > We took a tax break that specifies some level of in-office time per employee and we already spent the money > We're getting pressured from local governments to bring customers into the city to spend money at local businesses Extremely interested in any examples if you have them handy. If I'm in the office simply because of a tax break, then I feel I'm productive and revenue-generating by doing absolutely nothing while in said office. I mean they could hire homeless people to do that and solve a lot of problems at once.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    Don’t have an example with citation handy, but anecdote that I’ve seen such programs used at small businesses, with tax advantages tied to having employees within the city limits or in a certain district, and I’ve seen bigger bespoke incentive plans to draw larger businesses include similar language. X jobs at Y location, that kind of thing.
- MaxHoppersGhost 3y ago
  Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? Especially if you’re a big company and have a lot of new grads/inexperienced hires that are harder to train up remotely?
rs999gti 3y ago
> The problem is, in 2020, employees took these remote-work policy changes as an "implied" promise. And that's where employees 'dun goofed. Unless they got permanent remote work in a written contract, this was all a temporary measure until the pandemic was over.
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  I agree. We were supposed to go back after 1 month, then 3 months, than 1 year, than 18 months, and then it was "we give up, work wherever you want - but for taxes and insurance purposes you MUST stay inside the state". And now our office lease is up; CEO recently announced where the new office will be. It will be extremely close to his new house and will have desks for even more people than we have now. You'd have to be delusional to think that RTO isn't coming next year after the move is finished. I moved to a new house during the pandemic and am now feeling very vindicated knowing that I focused my search on an area that assumed we'd go back to the office and that the office would eventually move closer to the CEO's house (there is published research about this). It's going to end up saving me about 45 minutes of commuting per day!
  - taylodl 3y ago
    Nobody likes an ass-kisser. That's the best career advice I can give you.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
      In my experience, ass-kissing leads to better career outcomes than the opposite. Not many people like being challenged. Life lessons from a too-blunt guy who just wants to work without the politics.
      - taylodl 3y ago
        In my 40 year work experience, ass-kissing is good for the short-term, it fails for the long-term. Ever hear of the Peter Principle? That's what happens to ass-kissers. They're not liked and as such can't lead. Because they can't lead they will get promoted beyond their capability. I've seen this happen so many times over the course of my career I've lost count. The people who tell people what they need to hear? They may not do as well in the short-term, in fact they often don't, but over the long haul they have the most success and make the best leaders. Of course these are just overall trends, there are always exceptions.
Justsignedup 3y ago
Um every big company RTO hard announcement was followed by mass layoffs. Their hope was to get a chunk out before the announcement to lower the severance numbers. In any case, I personally like being at the office with lots of WFH flexibility.
throwaway9274 3y ago
The problem with this idea is that the highest performers are the group most likely to quit.
- t0mas88 3y ago
  Well... Those that are best at interviewing and selling themselves are the most likely to quit after finding a new position. That doesn't necessarily correlate with the highest performers. Might actually correlate more with those that also spend a lot of time on internal politics, which are good for their performance reviews but not for the companies actual performance. Especially in the more technical roles most of the real top performers I've seen were not very good at politics or interviewing.
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    The good interviewers are the first to jump ship, but then they talk the top performers into joining them at the new place.
  - throwaway9274 3y ago
    The really talented technical people I know have what I call “eff you skills.” They literally walk away over minor inconveniences like “you can’t use your own mouse here” or “you have to use VS Code and not your Vim setup.” Don’t like something management does? “Eff you.” Last place I was at did one day in the office, and they all left without new jobs. All are now employed again, most a level up.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  Bonus when you realize the employee that just quit after the layoffs spent the last six months looking for a job instead of working.
rfwhyte 3y ago
The real reason CEOs want people back in office is 100% because they are broadly part of the same socio-economic class that owns the vast majority of commercial real estate around the world. They and their friends and family own all the commercial real estate, and high vacancy rates are are hurting their bottom lines and reducing the rate at which their property values increase, so they want people back in the office to prop up their property values and keep the commercial real estate graving train flowing.
- slantedview 3y ago
  I'd say there are many reasons, but I agree this is one of them.
- snapcaster 3y ago
  I've heard this before, but would the actual collusion mechanics be to make this happen? Like, my landlord buddy golfing just won't stop pestering me about getting my company to return to office so I convince the board of my company to do it?
  - rconti 3y ago
    There's probably no real mechanism, it's just that the circles they all run in agree "yes, yes, office life is important", the same way you're more likely to support some social issue if your friends do.
  - notatoad 3y ago
    having money invested in some entity that owns commercial real estate would probably be plenty of motivation.
  - TuringNYC 3y ago
    Most executives have major real estate holdings in their pension plans. If the employer owns the building, the employer and equity-owning executives have yet more real estate holdings, albiet indirectly. Because of ZIRP, pensions have been reaching for yield by doing anything they can, and that has often been CMBS, CRE equity, CRE bank loans, etc.
lulznews 3y ago
Yes it’s been known as a stealth layoff program for some time now.
lnsru 3y ago
I am really confused when I think about all the big bosses praising cooperation in the office. And when a group meetings occur they call in from home while peasants sit in the windowless conference room with poor ventilation. I just quit a company who did full return to the office. I don’t mind 2-3 days in the office, but not 5.
- emgeee 3y ago
  IMO executives who expect everyone to RTO but don't themselves is the worst kind of hypocrisy.
lapcat 3y ago
You can speculate about various external reasons, but I suspect the real explanation is less rational and more psychological, instinctive, primal: managers enjoy the physicality and immediacy of management. They love to survey their domain, as if a lord, to be able to watch their underlings, to stand over their shoulders or get in their face, force them to acknowledge and respond to you. With WFH, a lot of that is lost, especially if as a natural consequence the communication workflow becomes more async than sync.
- oblio 3y ago
  Possibly, and also crab bucket mentality extracts more labor and more sacrifices from workers.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- futureshock 3y ago
  I think this is exactly right. Also I think that control over the bodies of others is a big point as well. You are talking about power and physical power to dominate the body of another is a very pure form of this power. So telling people where to sit, when they come and go, having them gather in this room and that room, it fulfills a primal need.
- enumjorge 3y ago
  I've seen this attribution of RTO to "managers" before but it doesn't ring true in my experience. Managers is too broad of a group of people. Every manager I've had since the beginning of the pandemic has loved working from home and said they don't want to go back. If this [1] story from a few weeks ago is to be believed these directives are coming from the people at the top: executives, high level management, and investors. That story is about Microsoft specifically, but I don't see anything in there that would indicate the same couldn't have happened at other tech companies. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37643608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37643608
  - Spoom 3y ago
tawayobviously 3y ago
[flagged]
gliese1337 3y ago
The promise wasn't "implied", for many people it was *explicit*. And CEOs have now gone back on their word. Don't sugarcoat it!
gumballindie 3y ago
And that’s why folks office work is the factory work of yesterday. You are meant to sit at your assembly line and not complain. Corpo-communism have killed small businesses and moved everyone into offices just like cattle to a barn. Fight back with all you’ve got. The more good people they lose the lower the quality of their products the more clients switching back to small businesses.
EEMac 3y ago
Counterpoints: social bonding in sharing a physical space, lots of nonverbal communication in face-to-face meetings. Don't get me wrong, I love remote work. And Zoom meetings have made it way easier to pull together groups of people on different schedules. But there are significant benefits to being in-office too.
phendrenad2 3y ago
I don't think so. I think they honestly believe that RTO will make employees more productive. Productivity has been trending downward since 2010 or thereabouts and nobody knows why, so they're willing to try anything.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

100 points by bluefishinit 3y ago

rednerrus 3y ago

The problems with voluntary layoffs like that is the most competent people are always the first ones to quit.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> The problems with voluntary layoffs like that is the most competent people are always the first ones to quit. Rather, the ones who have the easiest time finding a new job will often be the first ones to quit. These are not necessarily the most competent ones because, for example, people who are better at self-promotion often do have it easier to find a new job, without necessarily being more competent.
- Pet_Ant 3y ago
  > Rather, the ones who have the easiest time finding a new job will often be the first ones to quit. Doesn't that mean the layoff is as humane as possible? It means you inflict the least amount of suffering you could.
  - rednerrus 3y ago
    It definitely leaves the people who are competent in the org in a lurch.
    - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
      Indeed: it leaves those people who are competent, but not good self-promoters in the lurch.
nh23423fefe 3y ago
Is this new information that CEOs dont know? Or just oft-repeated pablum?
- gumby 3y ago
  The whole “article” is based on a surmise. Its basically a blog post.
addicted 3y ago
That may be a possibility with regular mass layoffs, because it indicates a company in trouble. However, that’s probably not the case for companies that were laying off people earlier this year despite making record profits (I think most people understood that many of the more profitable companies had overhired over the pandemic) and unlikely to be a driver in RTO driven “layoffs” since they’re not layoffs in the first place and say nothing about employees job security. RTO driven “layoffs” would be the people who don’t live near the office.
- rednerrus 3y ago
  Or competent people who have grown comfortable working from home.

linkjuice4all 3y ago

"My advice to the many CEOs tasked with this decision? Just own it." It would be nice if we could get this level of honesty from CEOs - but let's not pretend that firing people is the only driver for RTO. Some other motivations include: - We took a tax break that specifies some level of in-office time per employee and we already spent the money - We're getting pressured from local governments to bring customers into the city to spend money at local businesses - We've sunk cost into our little in-person fiefdom and upper management needs the powertrip to justify the headache that is working in upper management Obviously this is not an exhaustive list - but it's annoying to deal with the deception when looking for jobs or trying to determine if a company is going to pull the rug out for the purposes of "business". So yes - the CEOs should just own "it", but so should the politicians and real estate owners/investors who are also concerned that their tax base or investment value don't hold up to this new model of working.

tenebrisalietum 3y ago
> We took a tax break that specifies some level of in-office time per employee and we already spent the money > We're getting pressured from local governments to bring customers into the city to spend money at local businesses Extremely interested in any examples if you have them handy. If I'm in the office simply because of a tax break, then I feel I'm productive and revenue-generating by doing absolutely nothing while in said office. I mean they could hire homeless people to do that and solve a lot of problems at once.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  Don’t have an example with citation handy, but anecdote that I’ve seen such programs used at small businesses, with tax advantages tied to having employees within the city limits or in a certain district, and I’ve seen bigger bespoke incentive plans to draw larger businesses include similar language. X jobs at Y location, that kind of thing.
MaxHoppersGhost 3y ago
Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? Especially if you’re a big company and have a lot of new grads/inexperienced hires that are harder to train up remotely?

rs999gti 3y ago

> The problem is, in 2020, employees took these remote-work policy changes as an "implied" promise. And that's where employees 'dun goofed. Unless they got permanent remote work in a written contract, this was all a temporary measure until the pandemic was over.

Kon-Peki 3y ago
I agree. We were supposed to go back after 1 month, then 3 months, than 1 year, than 18 months, and then it was "we give up, work wherever you want - but for taxes and insurance purposes you MUST stay inside the state". And now our office lease is up; CEO recently announced where the new office will be. It will be extremely close to his new house and will have desks for even more people than we have now. You'd have to be delusional to think that RTO isn't coming next year after the move is finished. I moved to a new house during the pandemic and am now feeling very vindicated knowing that I focused my search on an area that assumed we'd go back to the office and that the office would eventually move closer to the CEO's house (there is published research about this). It's going to end up saving me about 45 minutes of commuting per day!
- taylodl 3y ago
  Nobody likes an ass-kisser. That's the best career advice I can give you.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
    In my experience, ass-kissing leads to better career outcomes than the opposite. Not many people like being challenged. Life lessons from a too-blunt guy who just wants to work without the politics.
    - taylodl 3y ago
      In my 40 year work experience, ass-kissing is good for the short-term, it fails for the long-term. Ever hear of the Peter Principle? That's what happens to ass-kissers. They're not liked and as such can't lead. Because they can't lead they will get promoted beyond their capability. I've seen this happen so many times over the course of my career I've lost count. The people who tell people what they need to hear? They may not do as well in the short-term, in fact they often don't, but over the long haul they have the most success and make the best leaders. Of course these are just overall trends, there are always exceptions.

Justsignedup 3y ago

Um every big company RTO hard announcement was followed by mass layoffs. Their hope was to get a chunk out before the announcement to lower the severance numbers. In any case, I personally like being at the office with lots of WFH flexibility.

throwaway9274 3y ago

The problem with this idea is that the highest performers are the group most likely to quit.

t0mas88 3y ago
Well... Those that are best at interviewing and selling themselves are the most likely to quit after finding a new position. That doesn't necessarily correlate with the highest performers. Might actually correlate more with those that also spend a lot of time on internal politics, which are good for their performance reviews but not for the companies actual performance. Especially in the more technical roles most of the real top performers I've seen were not very good at politics or interviewing.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  The good interviewers are the first to jump ship, but then they talk the top performers into joining them at the new place.
- throwaway9274 3y ago
  The really talented technical people I know have what I call “eff you skills.” They literally walk away over minor inconveniences like “you can’t use your own mouse here” or “you have to use VS Code and not your Vim setup.” Don’t like something management does? “Eff you.” Last place I was at did one day in the office, and they all left without new jobs. All are now employed again, most a level up.
Gibbon1 3y ago
Bonus when you realize the employee that just quit after the layoffs spent the last six months looking for a job instead of working.

rfwhyte 3y ago

The real reason CEOs want people back in office is 100% because they are broadly part of the same socio-economic class that owns the vast majority of commercial real estate around the world. They and their friends and family own all the commercial real estate, and high vacancy rates are are hurting their bottom lines and reducing the rate at which their property values increase, so they want people back in the office to prop up their property values and keep the commercial real estate graving train flowing.

slantedview 3y ago
I'd say there are many reasons, but I agree this is one of them.
snapcaster 3y ago
I've heard this before, but would the actual collusion mechanics be to make this happen? Like, my landlord buddy golfing just won't stop pestering me about getting my company to return to office so I convince the board of my company to do it?
- rconti 3y ago
  There's probably no real mechanism, it's just that the circles they all run in agree "yes, yes, office life is important", the same way you're more likely to support some social issue if your friends do.
- notatoad 3y ago
  having money invested in some entity that owns commercial real estate would probably be plenty of motivation.
- TuringNYC 3y ago
  Most executives have major real estate holdings in their pension plans. If the employer owns the building, the employer and equity-owning executives have yet more real estate holdings, albiet indirectly. Because of ZIRP, pensions have been reaching for yield by doing anything they can, and that has often been CMBS, CRE equity, CRE bank loans, etc.

lulznews 3y ago

Yes it’s been known as a stealth layoff program for some time now.

lnsru 3y ago

I am really confused when I think about all the big bosses praising cooperation in the office. And when a group meetings occur they call in from home while peasants sit in the windowless conference room with poor ventilation. I just quit a company who did full return to the office. I don’t mind 2-3 days in the office, but not 5.

emgeee 3y ago
IMO executives who expect everyone to RTO but don't themselves is the worst kind of hypocrisy.

lapcat 3y ago

You can speculate about various external reasons, but I suspect the real explanation is less rational and more psychological, instinctive, primal: managers enjoy the physicality and immediacy of management. They love to survey their domain, as if a lord, to be able to watch their underlings, to stand over their shoulders or get in their face, force them to acknowledge and respond to you. With WFH, a lot of that is lost, especially if as a natural consequence the communication workflow becomes more async than sync.

oblio 3y ago
Possibly, and also crab bucket mentality extracts more labor and more sacrifices from workers.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
futureshock 3y ago
I think this is exactly right. Also I think that control over the bodies of others is a big point as well. You are talking about power and physical power to dominate the body of another is a very pure form of this power. So telling people where to sit, when they come and go, having them gather in this room and that room, it fulfills a primal need.
enumjorge 3y ago
I've seen this attribution of RTO to "managers" before but it doesn't ring true in my experience. Managers is too broad of a group of people. Every manager I've had since the beginning of the pandemic has loved working from home and said they don't want to go back. If this [1] story from a few weeks ago is to be believed these directives are coming from the people at the top: executives, high level management, and investors. That story is about Microsoft specifically, but I don't see anything in there that would indicate the same couldn't have happened at other tech companies. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37643608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37643608
- Spoom 3y ago

tawayobviously 3y ago

[flagged]

gliese1337 3y ago

The promise wasn't "implied", for many people it was *explicit*. And CEOs have now gone back on their word. Don't sugarcoat it!

gumballindie 3y ago

And that’s why folks office work is the factory work of yesterday. You are meant to sit at your assembly line and not complain. Corpo-communism have killed small businesses and moved everyone into offices just like cattle to a barn. Fight back with all you’ve got. The more good people they lose the lower the quality of their products the more clients switching back to small businesses.

EEMac 3y ago

Counterpoints: social bonding in sharing a physical space, lots of nonverbal communication in face-to-face meetings. Don't get me wrong, I love remote work. And Zoom meetings have made it way easier to pull together groups of people on different schedules. But there are significant benefits to being in-office too.

phendrenad2 3y ago

I don't think so. I think they honestly believe that RTO will make employees more productive. Productivity has been trending downward since 2010 or thereabouts and nobody knows why, so they're willing to try anything.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]