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And this right here is why you keep hearing RTO pushes from C-Levels and corporate boards. Those folks all have investments in commercial real estate that they

And this right here is why you keep hearing RTO pushes from C-Levels and corporate boards. Those folks all have investments in commercial real estate that they would like to not become worthless. What's wasting your employee's life time on a commute compared to that?

bravetraveler 3y ago
If not investment, I know for certain there are "deals" on number of asses in seats They get cheap rent because the business "guarantees" foot traffic by having people come in No foot traffic, no discount
hd4 3y ago
We've (workers, non-CRE owners) collectively known this all along. What I don't understand is how the green/net-zero lobby is relatively quiet about fewer people using transport to go to work. It makes far more sense for WFH to have been the default long before the covid lockdowns, frankly I'm sad that that's what it took to get us here. It shows how much hypocrisy there is about all the climate efforts if those same people aren't clamoring for WFH
- rwmj 3y ago
  The calculation is not entirely straightforward because of the efficiency of heating or cooling private homes during the day vs doing the same for offices.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  Is WFH automatically greener than an office? It means heating/cooling many buildings rather than a few, many individuals cooking alone etc. It seems it is better in the USA [1] and the UK [2] though there is considerable variance when comparing several European countries [3]. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/working-remotely-can-more-than-halve-an-office-employees-carbon-footprint/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/working-remotely-... [2] https://circularecology.com/news/the-carbon-emissions-of-homeworking-and-office-working https://circularecology.com/news/the-carbon-emissions-of-hom... [3] https://www.vodafone-institut.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/CT_Homeworking-report-June-2021.pdf https://www.vodafone-institut.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/...
  - sph 3y ago
    Are you forgetting the enormous amount of carbon emissions from commuting?
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      You could read the first part of any of the three links I provided to answer that.
    - Melting_Harps 3y ago
      > Are you forgetting the enormous amount of carbon emissions from commuting? Or the large scale logistics to service, maintain, supply, and feed these metropolis': it's a centralized relic of a bygone era, and the sooner we accelerate WFH and actually frame it as way to counter-act climate change this will never gain traction. Succumbing to the landed gentry's will has been a story as old as feudalism itself, but this has to be something that must be collectively fought for. I've lived in commercial buildings in a city cental, and at night or on Sundays when I was there entirely on my own all the heaters/ac heat pumps would still be going all day/night: and all the lighting and electronic devices plugged in were still whirring away. I got really drunk one night and lost my keys walking up the stairs (the elevator was still on just not accessible from my side of the building at night) and while trying to retrace my steps I realized how deafening how the sound of so many devices can be if you actually pay attention to it with no other ambient/background noise is there to mute it.
  - citrin_ru 3y ago
    Even if an office is more energy efficient to get overall energy saving an office worker should switch power at home off going to the office. Which not always happening for couple reasons: a family member staying at home, lack of remote controlled thermostat which allows to start cooling/heating one hour before coming back home, in wet climate one have to run heating 24x7 to avoid mold growth (because of water condensed on cold surfaces). AFIK it is common to have AC or heating running at home even if all occupants are at the office.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  The same people are clamouring for WFH, but their efforts aren't reported. Green politics are still considered fringe by the media, so the only net zero announcements you see are from Big Dog politicians - who probably aren't particularly committed, but are saying the words because they know it's going to be someone else's problem 25 years from now. Also, a real estate crash would nuke the economy. This is fine if you think a property-first economy - which is pretty much what we have - is insane and unsustainable. But it would still come with huge collateral damage. A soft landing/winding down/repurposing would make more sense, but the people who make the big decisions don't have the motivation or the insight to make that likely.
Ferret7446 3y ago
I suspect most of the people here have investments in commercial real estate, in the form of various diversified funds.
ytch 3y ago
Local government, small business owner are have a tendency to against WFH too: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/amazon-tax-incentives-in-new-york-city-virginia-and-nashville.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/amazon-tax-incentives-in-new... > This includes up to $1.2 billion worth of refundable tax credits through New York State’s Excelsior Program based on a percentage of salaries Amazon expects to pay employees there for the next 10 years. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/25/facebook-free-lunch-banned-silicon-valley-restaurants https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/25/facebook-... > Tech firms are known for their lavish meals, but city says it damages local businesses
koreth1 3y ago
I keep hearing this explanation (executives want to keep commercial real estate values up) but it has yet to make sense to me. Can someone lay out an example scenario? "Having investments in commercial real estate" isn't sufficient explanation on its own, IMO. It's certainly true that a lot of executives have commercial real estate investments. It would be weird if they didn't, because real estate is a pretty common thing to have in an investment portfolio. But those investments are going to be diversified across a bunch of commercial real estate, little or none of which has any relationship to the executive's company (because otherwise it wouldn't be very well diversified).
- Solvency 3y ago
  It's not about their company and the building they reside in. Wealthy people operate as a hive mind. A network. A dive in commercial real estate is a hive problem. They're all panicking for each other because they affect each other.
  - Fluorescence 3y ago
    I like this line of reasoning. It's crazy that so many still try to explain human behaviour as if it's rigidly rational. Have we learned nothing? There are an awful lot of social and political factors at play especially when it's about power and group identification. Something I note from interviews from RTO advocates is that the managerial class has an emotional reaction to WFH. I believe it wounds their sense of status and hierarchy - they resent the "unearned" freedom and comfort of people they have power over. They are not acting for business advantage but from a compulsion for their inferiors to know their place. It's very human sadly.
    - munksbeer 3y ago
      > Something I note from interviews from RTO advocates is that the managerial class has an emotional reaction to WFH. I believe it wounds their sense of status and hierarchy - they resent the "unearned" freedom and comfort of people they have power over. They are not acting for business advantage but from a compulsion for their inferiors to know their place. It's very human sadly. I don't know if this is actually true or not, but it is exactly how I feel (about the mangerial class).
aurareturn 3y ago
And this right here is why you keep hearing RTO pushes from C-Levels and corporate boards. Perhaps the office environment is genuinely more productive for many companies. I'm going to guess that most management, Director or C-level does not own any commercial real-estate and that the well being of their company is far more important to their wealth than whatever indirect investment they have in commercial real estate.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  The suits probably want the social control that comes with physical presence. Like they want cogs that don't see themself as cogs. If all you have to do change employer is to login to a different Teams account in the morning they lose alot of their power. I.e. they want you to leave a notice in person which might end in you being humiliated by some "security" parade to the door. A higher threshold to quit. The biggest difference I noticed with WFH is that "soft intimidation" and nagging more or less is ineffective without physical presence.
sargun 3y ago
Can you point me to an RTO that was board driven? Or by some group of people whose wealth was so concentrated in commercial real estate that it would make a greater dent than their knowledge work investments taking a massive efficiency hit from RTO?

bravetraveler 3y ago

If not investment, I know for certain there are "deals" on number of asses in seats They get cheap rent because the business "guarantees" foot traffic by having people come in No foot traffic, no discount

hd4 3y ago

We've (workers, non-CRE owners) collectively known this all along. What I don't understand is how the green/net-zero lobby is relatively quiet about fewer people using transport to go to work. It makes far more sense for WFH to have been the default long before the covid lockdowns, frankly I'm sad that that's what it took to get us here. It shows how much hypocrisy there is about all the climate efforts if those same people aren't clamoring for WFH

rwmj 3y ago
The calculation is not entirely straightforward because of the efficiency of heating or cooling private homes during the day vs doing the same for offices.
Symbiote 3y ago
Is WFH automatically greener than an office? It means heating/cooling many buildings rather than a few, many individuals cooking alone etc. It seems it is better in the USA [1] and the UK [2] though there is considerable variance when comparing several European countries [3]. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/working-remotely-can-more-than-halve-an-office-employees-carbon-footprint/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/working-remotely-... [2] https://circularecology.com/news/the-carbon-emissions-of-homeworking-and-office-working https://circularecology.com/news/the-carbon-emissions-of-hom... [3] https://www.vodafone-institut.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/CT_Homeworking-report-June-2021.pdf https://www.vodafone-institut.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/...
- sph 3y ago
  Are you forgetting the enormous amount of carbon emissions from commuting?
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    You could read the first part of any of the three links I provided to answer that.
  - Melting_Harps 3y ago
    > Are you forgetting the enormous amount of carbon emissions from commuting? Or the large scale logistics to service, maintain, supply, and feed these metropolis': it's a centralized relic of a bygone era, and the sooner we accelerate WFH and actually frame it as way to counter-act climate change this will never gain traction. Succumbing to the landed gentry's will has been a story as old as feudalism itself, but this has to be something that must be collectively fought for. I've lived in commercial buildings in a city cental, and at night or on Sundays when I was there entirely on my own all the heaters/ac heat pumps would still be going all day/night: and all the lighting and electronic devices plugged in were still whirring away. I got really drunk one night and lost my keys walking up the stairs (the elevator was still on just not accessible from my side of the building at night) and while trying to retrace my steps I realized how deafening how the sound of so many devices can be if you actually pay attention to it with no other ambient/background noise is there to mute it.
- citrin_ru 3y ago
  Even if an office is more energy efficient to get overall energy saving an office worker should switch power at home off going to the office. Which not always happening for couple reasons: a family member staying at home, lack of remote controlled thermostat which allows to start cooling/heating one hour before coming back home, in wet climate one have to run heating 24x7 to avoid mold growth (because of water condensed on cold surfaces). AFIK it is common to have AC or heating running at home even if all occupants are at the office.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
The same people are clamouring for WFH, but their efforts aren't reported. Green politics are still considered fringe by the media, so the only net zero announcements you see are from Big Dog politicians - who probably aren't particularly committed, but are saying the words because they know it's going to be someone else's problem 25 years from now. Also, a real estate crash would nuke the economy. This is fine if you think a property-first economy - which is pretty much what we have - is insane and unsustainable. But it would still come with huge collateral damage. A soft landing/winding down/repurposing would make more sense, but the people who make the big decisions don't have the motivation or the insight to make that likely.

Ferret7446 3y ago

I suspect most of the people here have investments in commercial real estate, in the form of various diversified funds.

ytch 3y ago

Local government, small business owner are have a tendency to against WFH too: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/amazon-tax-incentives-in-new-york-city-virginia-and-nashville.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/amazon-tax-incentives-in-new... > This includes up to $1.2 billion worth of refundable tax credits through New York State’s Excelsior Program based on a percentage of salaries Amazon expects to pay employees there for the next 10 years. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/25/facebook-free-lunch-banned-silicon-valley-restaurants https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/25/facebook-... > Tech firms are known for their lavish meals, but city says it damages local businesses

koreth1 3y ago

I keep hearing this explanation (executives want to keep commercial real estate values up) but it has yet to make sense to me. Can someone lay out an example scenario? "Having investments in commercial real estate" isn't sufficient explanation on its own, IMO. It's certainly true that a lot of executives have commercial real estate investments. It would be weird if they didn't, because real estate is a pretty common thing to have in an investment portfolio. But those investments are going to be diversified across a bunch of commercial real estate, little or none of which has any relationship to the executive's company (because otherwise it wouldn't be very well diversified).

Solvency 3y ago
It's not about their company and the building they reside in. Wealthy people operate as a hive mind. A network. A dive in commercial real estate is a hive problem. They're all panicking for each other because they affect each other.
- Fluorescence 3y ago
  I like this line of reasoning. It's crazy that so many still try to explain human behaviour as if it's rigidly rational. Have we learned nothing? There are an awful lot of social and political factors at play especially when it's about power and group identification. Something I note from interviews from RTO advocates is that the managerial class has an emotional reaction to WFH. I believe it wounds their sense of status and hierarchy - they resent the "unearned" freedom and comfort of people they have power over. They are not acting for business advantage but from a compulsion for their inferiors to know their place. It's very human sadly.
  - munksbeer 3y ago
    > Something I note from interviews from RTO advocates is that the managerial class has an emotional reaction to WFH. I believe it wounds their sense of status and hierarchy - they resent the "unearned" freedom and comfort of people they have power over. They are not acting for business advantage but from a compulsion for their inferiors to know their place. It's very human sadly. I don't know if this is actually true or not, but it is exactly how I feel (about the mangerial class).

aurareturn 3y ago

And this right here is why you keep hearing RTO pushes from C-Levels and corporate boards. Perhaps the office environment is genuinely more productive for many companies. I'm going to guess that most management, Director or C-level does not own any commercial real-estate and that the well being of their company is far more important to their wealth than whatever indirect investment they have in commercial real estate.

rightbyte 3y ago
The suits probably want the social control that comes with physical presence. Like they want cogs that don't see themself as cogs. If all you have to do change employer is to login to a different Teams account in the morning they lose alot of their power. I.e. they want you to leave a notice in person which might end in you being humiliated by some "security" parade to the door. A higher threshold to quit. The biggest difference I noticed with WFH is that "soft intimidation" and nagging more or less is ineffective without physical presence.

sargun 3y ago

Can you point me to an RTO that was board driven? Or by some group of people whose wealth was so concentrated in commercial real estate that it would make a greater dent than their knowledge work investments taking a massive efficiency hit from RTO?