9 ms·

RTO doesn't improve company value, but does make employees miserable: Study

137 points by sam_bristow 3y ago

iadas 3y ago
Color me shocked?
- yazzku 3y ago
  Done.
thegrim22 3y ago
There's obviously two sides to the issue, right? Or else there wouldn't be any debate. Or else no companies would do RTO. Why is it that in multiple years of reading HN I've never once seen an article that covers the other side's position? Why is it that the reporting is 100%, completely, always biased in one direction? It's like this across whole swaths of topics, not just about RTO. Wouldn't we prefer forums of communication that were unbiased and which fairly discussed the props/cons of each point of view? Or do we really just prefer the echo chamber / propaganda / dogpile approach?
- malfist 3y ago
  This is the both sides fallacy
- transcriptase 3y ago
  The other side of the issue is extroverts wanting to extrovert, managers worrying about losing out on the watercooler aspect of career advancement, and the collective will of companies with commercial real estate holdings not wanting to crash that particular market. Cities want it because there are plenty of businesses that rely on office workers buying food etc in downtown cores. None of those have anything to do with the quality of life of employees or benefit to the company productivity wise. That’s why nobody cares.
  - denimnerd42 3y ago
    there's also the soft-layoff side. You can encourage those pesky mothers or child caretakers to quit as well as those that don't live very close or can't stand the office for any myriad of reasons..
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    > Cities want it because there are plenty of businesses that rely on office workers buying food etc in downtown cores. So casually dismissing the fact that this provides a HUGE amount of employment and revenue and, in turn, encourages face to face socialisation which builds communities and social cohesion. Like... what's your plan for these people, this huge proportion of the population that can't work remotely, won't enjoy working remotely, don't want to work remotely etc. People enjoy socialising. That's why so many TV programs are made about work and the office environment. People enjoy the social aspect of it. It's not all 'the office' - that's a massively cynical viewpoint. Most people get something out of going to the office, date co-workers, play golf with their colleagues, you know. Society is not going to change to revolve around shut-in people haters. You're a minority. You're not normal.
    - renewedrebecca 3y ago
      nice black and white thinking there. it's not an either-or situation. people who want to go into an office should. people who don't want to, shouldn't have to. and hell, with the way you seem to think, why would anyone want to go into an office and be around people like you all day.
    - ripjaygn 3y ago
      > So casually dismissing the fact that this provides a HUGE amount of employment and revenue At this point just tax the remote workers and pay those folks to work on social or community programs, or dig holes and fill them in again, which is net positive because it means their health and fitness improves. Why force people to give up their valuable family and personal time to pollute the air and clog up roads, create more accidents, and clog up transit? Time is the one thing in life that you can never get back. You're also ignoring the fact that remote work results in stores and restaurants closer to home getting more business. > Like... what's your plan for these people, this huge proportion of the population that can't work remotely, won't enjoy working remotely, don't want to work remotely etc Here's a plan, let them... work in the office? I don't see remote advocates insist that everyone work remotely, but I do see RTO advocates like you wanting to force everyone back to the office. Why? > Society is not going to change to revolve around shut-in people haters. You're a minority. You're not normal. Yet people like you seem to be unable to socialize without forcing people to hang out near you against their will to the point of threatening their livelihood. That's not normal. I can socialize fine with people around and near me. And hang out with coworkers outside the office too.
- yazzku 3y ago
  "...examined a sample of firms on the S&P 500 list—137 of which had RTO mandates and 320 that clearly did not between June 2019 and January 2023." There are samples of both types of RTO policies in the study. So the study itself deals with the supposed bias in your question. "Overall, the analysis, released as a pre-print, found that RTO mandates did not improve a firm's financial metrics, but they did decrease employee satisfaction." Though I cannot speak to the quality of the study or its conclusion, because the damn crap is behind a login/paywall. Link to the actual study: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401#maincontent https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401#...
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    Well it's the third time this article has been posted here in the last 6 weeks.
- jdlshore 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dmitrygr 3y ago
    Absolutely NOBODY will stop YOU from working in the office, and none of us WFH proponents care about that. We only care when you are bored in the office and want to force US into it. You are welcome to work there, live there, etc, we do not care...
    - jdlshore 3y ago
      Thank you for making my point. There’s nothing in my post about forcing you to do anything. In fact, in my role as VP Eng., I’m one of the strong proponents for continuing fully remote work at my company.
      - dmitrygr 3y ago
        Thank you for making mine. I was replying to "in their dismissal of people who enjoy in-person work." Note that I did not dismiss your liking of offices. Nor does anyone else who prefers WFH. We are all indifferent to it. Like it all you want.
        jdlshore 3y ago
        Huh. You’re really not reading what I wrote, are you? (Take a second look and find the part where I said I like offices. Look real close. There’s a sentence that talks about my preferences. You’ll find it. Now quote it back to me and explain what it means.)
        drewbug01 3y ago
        You’re technically correct; they’re misreading what you literally wrote. Instead, they’re responding to the combative tone you wrote it with. If you really are the VP of Eng at a company, I hope this kind of fight-picking isn’t how you lead.
- rufus_foreman 3y ago
  >> There's obviously two sides to the issue, right? This is false.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    So there’s literally no example, anywhere on this wide planet, of a company that would be more successful with its team working together in an office?
    - yazzku 3y ago
      This is not what the study concludes or even suggests.
    - grimjack00 3y ago
      From my experience, companies are more concerned with "in an office" than "working together". Yes, when the whole team is working from a single location, there can be advantages. But that situation is uncommon. In fact, the only time I can recall being in that situation during the last 20 years is a short stint I had at a startup; about 10 people, from CEO to intern, in a single open office. And even then, they only _required_ in-office three times a week. More common, teams are split over two or more cities/states/countries. I'm currently in Colorado. I'm never going to have a water cooler chat with my colleague in Budapest.
  - undersuit 3y ago
    Thank you. I'd like the option to work from work or home and I don't want to schedule it.
- tamimio 3y ago
  The other side is all over companies’ announcements, emails, and LinkedIn posts. The debate is not between equal peers, but between the few who want to bring back the pre-pandemic norms because they need to: fill the void in their lives as their lives revolve around work, and/or satisfy the need to control others and feel it face to face, and/or justify the commercial building rents, and/or help landlords pay their debts, among other reasons. On the other side, you have the average person who discovered that they can do the same job perfectly well while saving on commute costs, time, and even rent by being far from crowded hubs, and spending more time with family, especially since they still produce the same outcome. This is not your typical debate, this is a typical power exchange dynamic between different classes, the greed versus the need.
  - chii 3y ago
    Why are those reasons for RTO any less valid than the ones presented by employees?
    - justahuman74 3y ago
      It's a bit like when a union forms. The employer's excessive demands eventually fall flat in the face of mass revolt and a steady state is found.
    - positivedialog 3y ago
      Breach of social contract. For years these companies pretended that their corporate culture was all about going out of their way to make employees happy and fulfilled. The massive WFH brought forth by the pandemic has exposed that corporate culture actually clashes with employee fulfillment and is not focused on supporting it. The rationale with their RTO mandates may have merits, the problem is this broader context. This is making an about face without ever openly admitting the longstanding hypocrisy, and this is what makes the arguments brought forth difficult to hear for most people, and I personally think that their feeling is legitimate.
      - busterarm 3y ago
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Numerical advantage. Most ICs prefer working from home. Most managers prefer teams to work in office. There are more ICs than managers.
  - boppo1 3y ago
    Good kuck getting ICs to unionize. Otherwise it's 'there's more miners than mine bosses'.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  HN is full of entrepreneurs, which by and large are more experienced, more senior people. A total beginner/junior would not be running a startup (I hope). Someone who struggles to write a function or a for loop isn't going to be hired by startups that have like... three developers total, and the success or failure of the entire company hinges upon their output! The real world is full of juniors, especially in IT and software development, where the continuing growth of the industry means that juniors can outnumber more experienced staff. I have no problem working from home solo, but I've noticed that juniors will flounder. Even if they find something useful to do, they don't get to "look over my shoulder" to see how I do things. It's the little things too, things you might not even consider to be a skill because it's so automatic for you. Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V Yes, really. Really! I've lost count of the number of times I've stopped some kid typing something (with typos) and told them to do it again using the clipboard to avoid that. Tab It's not even watching someone type out each and every character one painful keystroke at a time. It's that not using tab-complete means they don't get the implicit spell-check. They also don't get to rotate through the variants of the function names (or whatever), so there isn't that implicit act of "discovery" as they see what else is up for grabs. Etc, etc... There's a thousand things like that a junior can pick up by being present physically next to a senior. Zoom or Teams is just not the same, especially because by default these systems don't show the keyboard shortcuts used.
  - jen20 3y ago
    > Even if they find something useful to do, they don't get to "look over my shoulder" to see how I do things. This is your fault. I work remote, and have an open video call when I’m coding. Lots of people drop in for that. The keyboard is neither here nor there: I promise you can’t tell what I’m typing from looking at my keyboard, yet jetbrains solved this decades ago with the shortcut presentation mode.
    - whoopsie 3y ago
      Can’t agree more. Mob programming alternatives to Zoom like Multi are also superior to in person because they generate summaries with files edited, branches, websites viewed so the junior / new employee can relax and focus on what’s important. If you aren’t actively sharing “how to work” tips with colleagues, particularly juniors, it’s your fault not an office’s. The whole point of being an engineer is to be clever and find solutions where others couldn’t to make the world a better place.
- AndrewDucker 3y ago
  Go find some research that shows the opposite effect. Submit it. Join in the conversation. Complaining that the research doesn't support your side doesn't really seem like a useful approach.
  - Eridrus 3y ago
    A few papers I found when trying to actually look into this: Software engineers give substantially less code review feedback when not colocated (either remote or just in different buildings); https://www.nber.org/papers/w31880 https://www.nber.org/papers/w31880 People are less productive WFH, and those who self select into remote work take an even bigger hit than those who prefer the office: https://www.nber.org/papers/w31515 https://www.nber.org/papers/w31515 Previous pre-pandemic papers that I didn't save links to also found negative selection effects into WFH were significant. If you believe the mythical man month, which all software engineers seem to, then productivity hits to engineers are very bad for the project since outcomes are not linear in inputs. Anecdotally, CTOs I have talked to were all uniformly negative about remote work at their companies, basically all feeling that their teams were less productive than before the pandemic.
    - whoopsie 3y ago
      I’ll bite. Your first linked study does not say what you hope it does. In fact, it’s hopelessly lost and irrelevant. Here’s a passage that makes it clear “remote” is conflating multiple unrelated concepts and that the quantitative metrics are like Elon asking me to print out my code to determine “programs written per month”. A remote New Zealand vs Seattle worker is very different than a 1000 head site deeming two people organizationally distinct enough to plop in separate campuses. We find that distant teammates impose negative externalities on the mentorship of teammates sitting together. These externalities can explain about a third of proxim- ity’s impact. Furthermore, before COVID-19, adding a new hire in another building reduces feedback among proximate teammates (who predate the new hire), while adding a new hire in the same building has no such impact. Teams’ attempts to ac- commodate distant teammates by, for example, moving in-person meetings online, have substantial negative externalities.7 Our findings indicate that additional mentorship has an opportunity cost: engi- neers who sit near all their teammates write fewer programs. Our difference-in- differences estimate suggests that proximity reduces programs written per month by 23 percent (p-value = 0.008), with similar effects on total lines of code and total files changed. The effects on output are present for both junior and senior engineers but are particularly pronounced for senior engineers, who do most of the mentoring.
- Simulacra 3y ago
  You don't see the other side because I think mostly the media is pro labor. If company says return to the office, the media is going to say no, I side with the laborer, who does not want to return to the office. That kind of decision I think shapes the reporting. I guess you could chalk it up to general media bias and issue advocacy.
  - deprecative 3y ago
    The media is pro wealth. It's no pro labor. They operate as a clickbait factory with nothing of value desperate for eyes on ads and nothing else.
- intended 3y ago
  Which is the other side? It’s only in the past few days that I have seen 2 articles cover the same study that suggested that RTO isnt all that great. Otherwise it’s generally been about how RTO is needed or necessary.
- nottorp 3y ago
  > Drilling down, the data indicated that RTO mandates were linked to firms with male CEOs who had greater power in the company. Here, power is measured as the CEO’s total compensation divided by the average total compensation paid to the four highest-paid executives in the firm. Here's your explanation. They're compensating for something.
  - nh23423fefe 3y ago
    all the men ruining the world have tiny dicks!
- Archelaos 3y ago
  > Why is it that in multiple years of reading HN I've never once seen an article that covers the other side's position? If there were one, why didn't you submit it?
- socar 3y ago
  >omg omg french literature forum is not discussing japanese welding equipment. so biased toward one thing ok
- cbeach 3y ago
  Are you surprised that a majority of people would favour having the freedom to work in the environment that best suits them and their team? RTO mandates are simply a way to curtail freedoms that we’ve established; freedoms that we demonstrably didn’t abuse. Why would anyone (except a commercial real estate investor, or an authoritarian senior manager) defend RTO mandates, given the data shown in this study?
riffic 3y ago
but making employees miserable is the point isn't it?
- kys_now 3y ago
  [flagged]
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
[dupe] More discussion last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39191696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39191696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38982191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38982191
- effingwewt 3y ago
  This is a bot account and should be flagged as such. It also posts bullshit dupe comments like this one. They are not dupes, the two linked and this one are originals. Program your bot better.
  - acid__ 3y ago
    What gives you confidence that this is a bot account and not a frequent reader of HN that is passionate about growing the number of unique topics discussed here? And what’s up with the strong, inflammatory language?
    - effingwewt 3y ago
      Perhaps because I am a frequent lurker. I mean you can look the bot's post history yourself, no need to ask me. And I'm sorry but lol @ 'strong inflammatory language' (it was neither imho) we are supposed to be adults here.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago
  This references the same Univ. of Pittsburgh study. Same points highlighted. Same discussion threads. Don't know why ars Technica decided to run a story on it a month later. Am I a bot or am I showing you where the discussion is so I don't have to see it again?
olliej 3y ago
#gasp Seriously, this is like the “open office” obsession despite literally every study showing it is bad for employee health, morale, and productivity. This is purely executives wanting to have and demonstrate power over employees, and maybe get some people to quit rather than having to have layoffs.
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  It's much simpler than that: open offices require less space, which saves on rent. The latest fad is hot-desking, which shrinks the required space by a further 20% by noticing that only about 80% of employees are actually in the office at any moment in time on average. Of course, when occupancy is above average, everyone gets to play musical chairs, which is fun!
johnea 3y ago
Well, keeping workers miserable is enough of a reason for most management. Gotta make sure they know who's boss...
tamimio 3y ago
> Results of our determinant analyses are consistent with managers using RTO mandates to reassert control over employees I don’t think any employee didn’t know that already, employees are not kindergarten kids that you can throw in some buzz words like collaboration and they will just believe it, they are smart, or at very least, they saw their job outcomes remained the same, in fact, maybe WFH was even better in terms of productivity, so when the boss start bringing the whole “more productive” talk they knew it was all BS and just to bring back the old school way.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gundmc 3y ago
  I think in most cases it's executives and not all managers. Most managers I know don't give a damn if their team is remote or on-site and would rather be remote themselves.
pmarreck 3y ago
SOME employees. Specifically, the non-ADHD-tending employees. The latter, by and large, thrive far better with in-person work.
- samatman 3y ago
  This is truly remarkable in its ass-backwardness.
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    What's TRULY remarkable is how much BS you can spew if you don't back it with any evidence, dude. Fortunately, I have plenty. https://www.fastcompany.com/90924426/remote-work-challenges-adhd-helps https://www.fastcompany.com/90924426/remote-work-challenges-... https://adhdcollective.com/adhd-remote-work-solutions/ https://adhdcollective.com/adhd-remote-work-solutions/ 100% of these cons apply to me (although I think it was definitely worse when I had a less-important job, paradoxically) In short: 1) Lack of Structure: Remote work often lacks the external structure and routine provided by a traditional office setting. This absence of structure can be challenging for individuals with ADHD, who rely on routines to effectively manage their time and stay on track. 2) Potential for Distractions: While working from home can reduce certain distractions found in a traditional office environment, it can introduce new distractions such as household chores, family members, or personal interests. These distractions can make it difficult for individuals with ADHD to maintain focus and productivity. 3) Isolation: Remote work can lead to social isolation, which may negatively impact individuals with ADHD who thrive on interactions and external stimulation. The lack of face-to-face interactions and collaboration can affect work satisfaction and overall well-being.
- buffington 3y ago
  I have severe ADHD and know better than to assume anything about remote vs. in person preferences of other people.
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    And I've some pretty bad ADHD myself and the fact that a slew of articles I found in my research here apply to me and not to you doesn't mean you speak for all ADHD'ers https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=39506091 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=39506091 My point was that there are some people who are uniquely and arguably discriminatorily challenged by remote work which goes unacknowledged by most.
deviantbit 3y ago
There is an absolute serious flaw in this paper. See under Table 1. Their largest sample came from manufacturing. Uhm. Uh. Now time to check the rest of this garbage.
fallingfrog 3y ago
I mean that’s kinda the point right? Maintaining the power structure, keeping them in their place. “Making them miserable” is more or less the same thing, if by making them miserable you mean making them feel subordinate and powerless. But again, from the boss’s point of view that’s a positive.
rlawson 3y ago
In this case I turn to economics. As a hiring manager with remote positions I can hire devs for less money or get tons more candidates for the same money. That means employees put a real monetary value on the benefit of working remote. I trust the wisdom of the masses and concede that it is better for the employee (for the class of knowledge worker jobs that I hire for).

137 points by sam_bristow 3y ago

iadas 3y ago

Color me shocked?

yazzku 3y ago
Done.

thegrim22 3y ago

There's obviously two sides to the issue, right? Or else there wouldn't be any debate. Or else no companies would do RTO. Why is it that in multiple years of reading HN I've never once seen an article that covers the other side's position? Why is it that the reporting is 100%, completely, always biased in one direction? It's like this across whole swaths of topics, not just about RTO. Wouldn't we prefer forums of communication that were unbiased and which fairly discussed the props/cons of each point of view? Or do we really just prefer the echo chamber / propaganda / dogpile approach?

malfist 3y ago
This is the both sides fallacy
transcriptase 3y ago
The other side of the issue is extroverts wanting to extrovert, managers worrying about losing out on the watercooler aspect of career advancement, and the collective will of companies with commercial real estate holdings not wanting to crash that particular market. Cities want it because there are plenty of businesses that rely on office workers buying food etc in downtown cores. None of those have anything to do with the quality of life of employees or benefit to the company productivity wise. That’s why nobody cares.
- denimnerd42 3y ago
  there's also the soft-layoff side. You can encourage those pesky mothers or child caretakers to quit as well as those that don't live very close or can't stand the office for any myriad of reasons..
- 15457345234 3y ago
  > Cities want it because there are plenty of businesses that rely on office workers buying food etc in downtown cores. So casually dismissing the fact that this provides a HUGE amount of employment and revenue and, in turn, encourages face to face socialisation which builds communities and social cohesion. Like... what's your plan for these people, this huge proportion of the population that can't work remotely, won't enjoy working remotely, don't want to work remotely etc. People enjoy socialising. That's why so many TV programs are made about work and the office environment. People enjoy the social aspect of it. It's not all 'the office' - that's a massively cynical viewpoint. Most people get something out of going to the office, date co-workers, play golf with their colleagues, you know. Society is not going to change to revolve around shut-in people haters. You're a minority. You're not normal.
  - renewedrebecca 3y ago
    nice black and white thinking there. it's not an either-or situation. people who want to go into an office should. people who don't want to, shouldn't have to. and hell, with the way you seem to think, why would anyone want to go into an office and be around people like you all day.
  - ripjaygn 3y ago
    > So casually dismissing the fact that this provides a HUGE amount of employment and revenue At this point just tax the remote workers and pay those folks to work on social or community programs, or dig holes and fill them in again, which is net positive because it means their health and fitness improves. Why force people to give up their valuable family and personal time to pollute the air and clog up roads, create more accidents, and clog up transit? Time is the one thing in life that you can never get back. You're also ignoring the fact that remote work results in stores and restaurants closer to home getting more business. > Like... what's your plan for these people, this huge proportion of the population that can't work remotely, won't enjoy working remotely, don't want to work remotely etc Here's a plan, let them... work in the office? I don't see remote advocates insist that everyone work remotely, but I do see RTO advocates like you wanting to force everyone back to the office. Why? > Society is not going to change to revolve around shut-in people haters. You're a minority. You're not normal. Yet people like you seem to be unable to socialize without forcing people to hang out near you against their will to the point of threatening their livelihood. That's not normal. I can socialize fine with people around and near me. And hang out with coworkers outside the office too.
yazzku 3y ago
"...examined a sample of firms on the S&P 500 list—137 of which had RTO mandates and 320 that clearly did not between June 2019 and January 2023." There are samples of both types of RTO policies in the study. So the study itself deals with the supposed bias in your question. "Overall, the analysis, released as a pre-print, found that RTO mandates did not improve a firm's financial metrics, but they did decrease employee satisfaction." Though I cannot speak to the quality of the study or its conclusion, because the damn crap is behind a login/paywall. Link to the actual study: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401#maincontent https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401#...
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Well it's the third time this article has been posted here in the last 6 weeks.
jdlshore 3y ago
[flagged]
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  Absolutely NOBODY will stop YOU from working in the office, and none of us WFH proponents care about that. We only care when you are bored in the office and want to force US into it. You are welcome to work there, live there, etc, we do not care...
  - jdlshore 3y ago
    Thank you for making my point. There’s nothing in my post about forcing you to do anything. In fact, in my role as VP Eng., I’m one of the strong proponents for continuing fully remote work at my company.
    - dmitrygr 3y ago
      Thank you for making mine. I was replying to "in their dismissal of people who enjoy in-person work." Note that I did not dismiss your liking of offices. Nor does anyone else who prefers WFH. We are all indifferent to it. Like it all you want.
      - jdlshore 3y ago
        Huh. You’re really not reading what I wrote, are you? (Take a second look and find the part where I said I like offices. Look real close. There’s a sentence that talks about my preferences. You’ll find it. Now quote it back to me and explain what it means.)
        drewbug01 3y ago
        You’re technically correct; they’re misreading what you literally wrote. Instead, they’re responding to the combative tone you wrote it with. If you really are the VP of Eng at a company, I hope this kind of fight-picking isn’t how you lead.
rufus_foreman 3y ago
>> There's obviously two sides to the issue, right? This is false.
- CPLX 3y ago
  So there’s literally no example, anywhere on this wide planet, of a company that would be more successful with its team working together in an office?
  - yazzku 3y ago
    This is not what the study concludes or even suggests.
  - grimjack00 3y ago
    From my experience, companies are more concerned with "in an office" than "working together". Yes, when the whole team is working from a single location, there can be advantages. But that situation is uncommon. In fact, the only time I can recall being in that situation during the last 20 years is a short stint I had at a startup; about 10 people, from CEO to intern, in a single open office. And even then, they only _required_ in-office three times a week. More common, teams are split over two or more cities/states/countries. I'm currently in Colorado. I'm never going to have a water cooler chat with my colleague in Budapest.
- undersuit 3y ago
  Thank you. I'd like the option to work from work or home and I don't want to schedule it.
tamimio 3y ago
The other side is all over companies’ announcements, emails, and LinkedIn posts. The debate is not between equal peers, but between the few who want to bring back the pre-pandemic norms because they need to: fill the void in their lives as their lives revolve around work, and/or satisfy the need to control others and feel it face to face, and/or justify the commercial building rents, and/or help landlords pay their debts, among other reasons. On the other side, you have the average person who discovered that they can do the same job perfectly well while saving on commute costs, time, and even rent by being far from crowded hubs, and spending more time with family, especially since they still produce the same outcome. This is not your typical debate, this is a typical power exchange dynamic between different classes, the greed versus the need.
- chii 3y ago
  Why are those reasons for RTO any less valid than the ones presented by employees?
  - justahuman74 3y ago
    It's a bit like when a union forms. The employer's excessive demands eventually fall flat in the face of mass revolt and a steady state is found.
  - positivedialog 3y ago
    Breach of social contract. For years these companies pretended that their corporate culture was all about going out of their way to make employees happy and fulfilled. The massive WFH brought forth by the pandemic has exposed that corporate culture actually clashes with employee fulfillment and is not focused on supporting it. The rationale with their RTO mandates may have merits, the problem is this broader context. This is making an about face without ever openly admitting the longstanding hypocrisy, and this is what makes the arguments brought forth difficult to hear for most people, and I personally think that their feeling is legitimate.
    - busterarm 3y ago
paulddraper 3y ago
Numerical advantage. Most ICs prefer working from home. Most managers prefer teams to work in office. There are more ICs than managers.
- boppo1 3y ago
  Good kuck getting ICs to unionize. Otherwise it's 'there's more miners than mine bosses'.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jiggawatts 3y ago
HN is full of entrepreneurs, which by and large are more experienced, more senior people. A total beginner/junior would not be running a startup (I hope). Someone who struggles to write a function or a for loop isn't going to be hired by startups that have like... three developers total, and the success or failure of the entire company hinges upon their output! The real world is full of juniors, especially in IT and software development, where the continuing growth of the industry means that juniors can outnumber more experienced staff. I have no problem working from home solo, but I've noticed that juniors will flounder. Even if they find something useful to do, they don't get to "look over my shoulder" to see how I do things. It's the little things too, things you might not even consider to be a skill because it's so automatic for you. Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V Yes, really. Really! I've lost count of the number of times I've stopped some kid typing something (with typos) and told them to do it again using the clipboard to avoid that. Tab It's not even watching someone type out each and every character one painful keystroke at a time. It's that not using tab-complete means they don't get the implicit spell-check. They also don't get to rotate through the variants of the function names (or whatever), so there isn't that implicit act of "discovery" as they see what else is up for grabs. Etc, etc... There's a thousand things like that a junior can pick up by being present physically next to a senior. Zoom or Teams is just not the same, especially because by default these systems don't show the keyboard shortcuts used.
- jen20 3y ago
  > Even if they find something useful to do, they don't get to "look over my shoulder" to see how I do things. This is your fault. I work remote, and have an open video call when I’m coding. Lots of people drop in for that. The keyboard is neither here nor there: I promise you can’t tell what I’m typing from looking at my keyboard, yet jetbrains solved this decades ago with the shortcut presentation mode.
  - whoopsie 3y ago
    Can’t agree more. Mob programming alternatives to Zoom like Multi are also superior to in person because they generate summaries with files edited, branches, websites viewed so the junior / new employee can relax and focus on what’s important. If you aren’t actively sharing “how to work” tips with colleagues, particularly juniors, it’s your fault not an office’s. The whole point of being an engineer is to be clever and find solutions where others couldn’t to make the world a better place.
AndrewDucker 3y ago
Go find some research that shows the opposite effect. Submit it. Join in the conversation. Complaining that the research doesn't support your side doesn't really seem like a useful approach.
- Eridrus 3y ago
  A few papers I found when trying to actually look into this: Software engineers give substantially less code review feedback when not colocated (either remote or just in different buildings); https://www.nber.org/papers/w31880 https://www.nber.org/papers/w31880 People are less productive WFH, and those who self select into remote work take an even bigger hit than those who prefer the office: https://www.nber.org/papers/w31515 https://www.nber.org/papers/w31515 Previous pre-pandemic papers that I didn't save links to also found negative selection effects into WFH were significant. If you believe the mythical man month, which all software engineers seem to, then productivity hits to engineers are very bad for the project since outcomes are not linear in inputs. Anecdotally, CTOs I have talked to were all uniformly negative about remote work at their companies, basically all feeling that their teams were less productive than before the pandemic.
  - whoopsie 3y ago
    I’ll bite. Your first linked study does not say what you hope it does. In fact, it’s hopelessly lost and irrelevant. Here’s a passage that makes it clear “remote” is conflating multiple unrelated concepts and that the quantitative metrics are like Elon asking me to print out my code to determine “programs written per month”. A remote New Zealand vs Seattle worker is very different than a 1000 head site deeming two people organizationally distinct enough to plop in separate campuses. We find that distant teammates impose negative externalities on the mentorship of teammates sitting together. These externalities can explain about a third of proxim- ity’s impact. Furthermore, before COVID-19, adding a new hire in another building reduces feedback among proximate teammates (who predate the new hire), while adding a new hire in the same building has no such impact. Teams’ attempts to ac- commodate distant teammates by, for example, moving in-person meetings online, have substantial negative externalities.7 Our findings indicate that additional mentorship has an opportunity cost: engi- neers who sit near all their teammates write fewer programs. Our difference-in- differences estimate suggests that proximity reduces programs written per month by 23 percent (p-value = 0.008), with similar effects on total lines of code and total files changed. The effects on output are present for both junior and senior engineers but are particularly pronounced for senior engineers, who do most of the mentoring.
Simulacra 3y ago
You don't see the other side because I think mostly the media is pro labor. If company says return to the office, the media is going to say no, I side with the laborer, who does not want to return to the office. That kind of decision I think shapes the reporting. I guess you could chalk it up to general media bias and issue advocacy.
- deprecative 3y ago
  The media is pro wealth. It's no pro labor. They operate as a clickbait factory with nothing of value desperate for eyes on ads and nothing else.
intended 3y ago
Which is the other side? It’s only in the past few days that I have seen 2 articles cover the same study that suggested that RTO isnt all that great. Otherwise it’s generally been about how RTO is needed or necessary.
nottorp 3y ago
> Drilling down, the data indicated that RTO mandates were linked to firms with male CEOs who had greater power in the company. Here, power is measured as the CEO’s total compensation divided by the average total compensation paid to the four highest-paid executives in the firm. Here's your explanation. They're compensating for something.
- nh23423fefe 3y ago
  all the men ruining the world have tiny dicks!
Archelaos 3y ago
> Why is it that in multiple years of reading HN I've never once seen an article that covers the other side's position? If there were one, why didn't you submit it?
socar 3y ago
>omg omg french literature forum is not discussing japanese welding equipment. so biased toward one thing ok
cbeach 3y ago
Are you surprised that a majority of people would favour having the freedom to work in the environment that best suits them and their team? RTO mandates are simply a way to curtail freedoms that we’ve established; freedoms that we demonstrably didn’t abuse. Why would anyone (except a commercial real estate investor, or an authoritarian senior manager) defend RTO mandates, given the data shown in this study?

riffic 3y ago

but making employees miserable is the point isn't it?

kys_now 3y ago
[flagged]

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

[dupe] More discussion last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39191696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39191696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38982191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38982191

effingwewt 3y ago
This is a bot account and should be flagged as such. It also posts bullshit dupe comments like this one. They are not dupes, the two linked and this one are originals. Program your bot better.
- acid__ 3y ago
  What gives you confidence that this is a bot account and not a frequent reader of HN that is passionate about growing the number of unique topics discussed here? And what’s up with the strong, inflammatory language?
  - effingwewt 3y ago
    Perhaps because I am a frequent lurker. I mean you can look the bot's post history yourself, no need to ask me. And I'm sorry but lol @ 'strong inflammatory language' (it was neither imho) we are supposed to be adults here.
deleted 3y ago
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ChrisArchitect 3y ago
This references the same Univ. of Pittsburgh study. Same points highlighted. Same discussion threads. Don't know why ars Technica decided to run a story on it a month later. Am I a bot or am I showing you where the discussion is so I don't have to see it again?

olliej 3y ago

#gasp Seriously, this is like the “open office” obsession despite literally every study showing it is bad for employee health, morale, and productivity. This is purely executives wanting to have and demonstrate power over employees, and maybe get some people to quit rather than having to have layoffs.

jiggawatts 3y ago
It's much simpler than that: open offices require less space, which saves on rent. The latest fad is hot-desking, which shrinks the required space by a further 20% by noticing that only about 80% of employees are actually in the office at any moment in time on average. Of course, when occupancy is above average, everyone gets to play musical chairs, which is fun!

johnea 3y ago

Well, keeping workers miserable is enough of a reason for most management. Gotta make sure they know who's boss...

tamimio 3y ago

> Results of our determinant analyses are consistent with managers using RTO mandates to reassert control over employees I don’t think any employee didn’t know that already, employees are not kindergarten kids that you can throw in some buzz words like collaboration and they will just believe it, they are smart, or at very least, they saw their job outcomes remained the same, in fact, maybe WFH was even better in terms of productivity, so when the boss start bringing the whole “more productive” talk they knew it was all BS and just to bring back the old school way.

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gundmc 3y ago
I think in most cases it's executives and not all managers. Most managers I know don't give a damn if their team is remote or on-site and would rather be remote themselves.

pmarreck 3y ago

SOME employees. Specifically, the non-ADHD-tending employees. The latter, by and large, thrive far better with in-person work.

samatman 3y ago
This is truly remarkable in its ass-backwardness.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  What's TRULY remarkable is how much BS you can spew if you don't back it with any evidence, dude. Fortunately, I have plenty. https://www.fastcompany.com/90924426/remote-work-challenges-adhd-helps https://www.fastcompany.com/90924426/remote-work-challenges-... https://adhdcollective.com/adhd-remote-work-solutions/ https://adhdcollective.com/adhd-remote-work-solutions/ 100% of these cons apply to me (although I think it was definitely worse when I had a less-important job, paradoxically) In short: 1) Lack of Structure: Remote work often lacks the external structure and routine provided by a traditional office setting. This absence of structure can be challenging for individuals with ADHD, who rely on routines to effectively manage their time and stay on track. 2) Potential for Distractions: While working from home can reduce certain distractions found in a traditional office environment, it can introduce new distractions such as household chores, family members, or personal interests. These distractions can make it difficult for individuals with ADHD to maintain focus and productivity. 3) Isolation: Remote work can lead to social isolation, which may negatively impact individuals with ADHD who thrive on interactions and external stimulation. The lack of face-to-face interactions and collaboration can affect work satisfaction and overall well-being.
buffington 3y ago
I have severe ADHD and know better than to assume anything about remote vs. in person preferences of other people.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  And I've some pretty bad ADHD myself and the fact that a slew of articles I found in my research here apply to me and not to you doesn't mean you speak for all ADHD'ers https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=39506091 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=39506091 My point was that there are some people who are uniquely and arguably discriminatorily challenged by remote work which goes unacknowledged by most.

deviantbit 3y ago

There is an absolute serious flaw in this paper. See under Table 1. Their largest sample came from manufacturing. Uhm. Uh. Now time to check the rest of this garbage.

fallingfrog 3y ago

I mean that’s kinda the point right? Maintaining the power structure, keeping them in their place. “Making them miserable” is more or less the same thing, if by making them miserable you mean making them feel subordinate and powerless. But again, from the boss’s point of view that’s a positive.

rlawson 3y ago

In this case I turn to economics. As a hiring manager with remote positions I can hire devs for less money or get tons more candidates for the same money. That means employees put a real monetary value on the benefit of working remote. I trust the wisdom of the masses and concede that it is better for the employee (for the class of knowledge worker jobs that I hire for).