9 ms·

Employers used return-to-office to make workers quit

195 points by LordNibbler 2y ago

bourbonjuggler 2y ago
Of course they did. Companies are looking to cut costs to appease shareholders, and this is an effective method for pushing people to leave rather than layoffs.
- black_13 2y ago
  [dead]
- mdgrech23 2y ago
  these same bastards get government money to build new factories and buildings. If you're taking handouts you shouldn't be allowed to cut workers just to boost the stock price.
porcoda 2y ago
I think we sort of knew this was the goal for some of these RTO orders: making the workplace unpleasant is a way to do a reduction in workforce without having a scary layoff. Management just shifts the decision to employees. Scummy, but not exactly a new strategy for trying to shed people without generating a ton of bad PR.
- reginald78 2y ago
  Also should let you disproportionately lay off working parents and people with long term health problems (who have higher healthcare costs on average) without technically running afoul of any laws.
teeray 2y ago
Constructive dismissal is apparently only legal if you do it at enormous scale.
- vehemenz 2y ago
  Yes, but constructive dismissal is only relevant if returning to the office constitutes a hostile work environment, which it wouldn't if the original terms of employment included office attendance. Inconvenience isn't an argument.
  - dingnuts 2y ago
    WFH has been normal for almost half a decade now. I changed jobs and stipulated remaining remote in that time, and I suspect my employer doesn't care. They have begun talking about RTO. Here's the thing: it's not JUST inconvenient. It's a pay cut, full stop. I have to pay to commute, one way or the other, in both time and money. Acting like this only has to do with convenience is some real bootlicker shit
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
      It is also the most dangerous thing I do in a day. Nearly every single day, there is a traffic accident on my route. Through no fault of my own, someday that could be me smeared on the road.
    - teeray 2y ago
      > it's not JUST inconvenient. It's a pay cut, full stop. Never mind the ongoing state income tax implications of being forced to work in a physical location, which can greatly impact the amount of take-home pay you have.
    - vehemenz 2y ago
      I'm considering the employer's position. If a bunch of my employees were working six-hour days and communication was suffering at the office, then I would feel justified to institute RTO. As long as it's not meant as an indirect layoff AND the employees were hired for on-site work originally, I genuinely do not see the problem. Of course, one might argue that employers should "know" that employees will quit, but honestly, are employers supposed gauge the level of WFH cultishness before making a routine business decision? It's ridiculous. Yes, one can argue that it's a "pay cut, full stop" just as the employer can argue that they are getting less effective employees during WFH, or that one's unearned "raise" during COVID is being rescinded. I'm not a cultist, so these are positions that need to be argued for and earned. No foot-stomping. The employers should get a say.
csours 2y ago
"We need team players" feels like a pill being used purposely for it's unpleasant side effects.
luxuryballs 2y ago
This is kinda smart, maybe employees can be kinda smart too and try to call the bluff until they get moved into the place to make sure the office actually exists?
- persnickety 2y ago
  The problem is that the business has a centralized coordination structure, and for the employees, there isn't any apart from the business that connected them. Maybe a union is what could help.
  - luxuryballs 2y ago
    the employees are private individuals though, they only have to coordinate themselves, not everyone will be willing to say “ok I’ll come into the office” and actually do it while job hunting, but it could be a way to call their bluff if you had in mind something that could benefit from that kind of evidence (though I think legal action is very rarely the first, or even 10th best option)
downrightmike 2y ago
[flagged]
rincebrain 2y ago
...duh? Whenever an employer implements policies that unpopular, you can safely assume trying to force attrition without paying severance is a goal, whether primary or secondary. Of course, this has a cascade effect, where the people who have the most prospects and valued that policy not being true are going to leave, and then that has an outsized effect on organizational health, which pushes other people into leaving. I heard it said once that someone on The Dana Carvey Show knew it was cancelled when they found the free food container in the break room, which they'd never seen anything but overflowing, was empty. I suspect that a number of executives are now discovering they have had similarly not-obviously-critical absences become the canaries in the coal mine for others, as well as how hard it is to change perception of whether people want to work for you.
wcunning 2y ago
The General Motors CFO basically said as much on an investor call in 2022 or 2023. That didn't get rid of enough people, so now they've implemented stack ranking because that worked so well at MSFT. That said, they get a "free" 5% workforce reduction every year that they want it, no severance, no buyout, just let go. There will be more of that coming, particularly in US automotive after the UAW deal and the current sad state of vehicle sales and the write downs on EVs.
- drewcoo 2y ago
  > stack ranking because that worked so well at MSFT Rank and yank originated at GE to the best of my knowledge. Where it also "worked well." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve
  - downrightmike 2y ago
    Neutron Jack was a terrible manager, he just got lucky and because GE was so big, it was nearly impossible to sink
- myworkinisgood 2y ago
  How come no severance? Despite of how you're being fired, you should be entitled to severance right?
  - persedes 2y ago
    in the US at least, I'd be surprised if you entitled to anything, especially in a "right to work" state. It's mostly goodwill.
  - SR2Z 2y ago
    Severance is a "we'll pay you to leave quietly" deal, not an entitlement. If the company plans to be continually laying people off (kind of a stupid idea because it makes your other employees nervous) they can find other ways to ensure silence from their victims.
more_corn 2y ago
That’s a great strategy if you want workers to quit. But if you’re hiring, (like for instance if having employees makes you more money than the employees cost) what you want is the opposite. The key insight is going to be: when they’re hiring again will those same companies continue to offer remote options. The answer is probably some will some won’t.
- danudey 2y ago
  Theoretically it thins out the workforce by triggering resignations in the people who are the least invested in your company; the ones who really "get it" will stick with the company and RTO. In reality, it thins out the workforce by triggering resignations in people who think they're going to have an easy time getting a job elsewhere at a remote-friendly company, which is typically your best people. On the balance sheet it looks great because they're often the top earners, but in reality you're losing some of the best talent you have. It also thins out the workforce by removing anyone who can't return to the office, or for whom doing so is untenable; people with disabilities or health issues, single parents, and so on, regardless of how well those people perform or what they bring to the company. Theoretically those positions can then be filled by people who are more talented or more interested in or passionate about the role, but in reality they'll be filled by people who don't mind RTO or who need the job bad enough that they'll put up with it.
  - siamese_puff 2y ago
    I think it also kills morale while dismissing the fact that the majority of people don’t or can’t opt into finding a new job very easily. This leads to a slow culture death which affects sales much more IMO
    - fcatalan 2y ago
      Hard to measure the quiet quitters, but they are there, sullenly drawing their check in exchange for their minimum viable productivity.
      - 2y ago
resource_waste 2y ago
As a biz owner, this kind of decision making would stress me out. No one knows what the quality of the people will be. The people okay with driving 2+ hours are going to stick around. What kind of person is that? A hard worker? Maybe. A dedicated worker? Maybe... Or is it the people so untalented, they cannot find another job, and do this for survival? I don't know the answer, and I'd be horrified to roll the dice on that. I'm unsure what the packages look like to cut your lowest performers, but at least you aren't rolling dice. Side note: I can get nation wide talent way way way cheaper when I offer remote/flexible schedule. I kind of appreciate the big companies arent sucking this labor market, leaves me room.
- zer00eyz 2y ago
  You're taking a pretty black and white look at this. You make the policy and then hand out exceptions (quietly) to the MVP's. I have managed a few dev teams inside more "traditional" companies and you would be remisss to think the the corporate policy you set cause you have a CS team is going to get applied to engineers.
  - isoprophlex 2y ago
    Great way to breed resentment, giving some people exceptional treatment. Why not treat everyone fairly?
    - csa 2y ago
      > Why not treat everyone fairly? Lots to unpack here. 1. Why is “not the same” equal to “not fair”? Genuine question. 2. It’s human nature to give favor to those that you think are “on your side” — this can mean various things in a manager’s case. 3. I would counter “why don’t all ICs contribute equally?” They don’t, and usually it’s not even close. Overall, I understand and appreciate your sentiment, especially in a large org in which most folks are effectively replaceable cogs in the wheel. That said, as a business owner who uses sub-contractors, I would not be happy if I had to treat all of my sub-contractors equally since they often add vastly different amounts of value to my business (even in the same type of work).
amatecha 2y ago
Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal
FredPret 2y ago
Usually stack ranking is aimed at culling the bottom of the stack, no? Wonder how getting rid of the employees with the most agency and options will turn out for the office-heads.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Knowing stack ranking is in effect completely changes the work dynamics. Should I help my coworker through a problem? End of the month, my KPIs might be negatively impacted, whereas theirs were boosted. Performance now becomes singularly competitive where you would rather have some chaff losers on the team. Work becomes even more performance art where you need to make the boss value you the most. All gameable metrics will be gamed.
  - FredPret 2y ago
    This is exactly why the House That Jack Built (GE) was made out of cards. To be fair, running a huge megacorp is really hard and there seems to be no easy answer to getting thousands of people to perform optimally, together, over the long term.
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      >To be fair, running a huge megacorp is really hard and there seems to be no easy answer to getting thousands of people to perform optimally, together, over the long term. It's only hard when you're constantly trying to squeeze more money out and trying to cut wages and make people work multiple peoples' jobs.
  - englishspot 2y ago
    > Should I help my coworker through a problem? End of the month, my KPIs might be negatively impacted, whereas theirs were boosted. I feel like helping a coworker should be factored into your performance. "force-multiplier", or however the industry calls it. but then, I've never worked at a toxic, hyper-competitive rank-and-yank..
ramon156 2y ago
In some companies, this is a silent layoff. Especially in west europe, its easier to say "well if you don't like it, quit yourself"
- favorited 2y ago
  The side-effect is that the people who will be most willing to leave are those who are the most confident about their job prospects in the market. You could be silently laying off your top performers, while people with less knowledge or experience stay around because finding a new job will be harder for them.
abeppu 2y ago
I don't doubt that this happened, but what percentage of RTO efforts were about intentional attrition vs something else? The intentional attrition strategy seems like it only makes sense if you have a lot of dead weight on your staff but are stable as a business. If the business is in really dire financial straits, I think you actually fire people. If overall you have a healthy business and a revenue per employee is significantly above costs per employee (and if you previously observed that growing the team helped you grow revenue), boosting attrition will probably hurt you, right? You may improve margins in the next few quarters but eventually your decreased ability to build/sell will cut into your revenue growth. But I think there have been plenty of companies that seemed to be healthy and succeeding who didn't have a clear reason to want attrition, and who still pushed RTO, which seems like probably a bad move? I do believe a fair share of execs did earnestly buy into the idea that employees are more productive from the office, and if employees were ok with working from the office 5 years ago and they're being paid more now, they would just accept it -- i.e. execs hoped they could mostly retain their staff but get more value out of them. And I further continue to believe that these execs were biased by largely isolated from inefficiencies in the open-plan-office / too-few-meeting-rooms before times. - The CEO never had to scramble to find another room when an important conversation went long -- whoever had the room next was forced to scramble. - If the COO felt that a meeting needed to be scheduled last minute, people around them made it happen ... meanwhile 3 levels down the org-chart, a design doc review meeting involving 3 teams can't be scheduled until the week after next because we need the 12-seat conference rooms in 2 offices to be free at the same time. - The head of HR has an office with a door that closes -- for good reason! But for this reason they did not suffer reduced productivity when listening to music through their headphones for 8 hours a day simultaneously caused tinnitus and failed to fully drown out the sale bro one row of desks away.
- gosub100 2y ago
  > If the business is in really dire financial straits, I think you actually fire people. Then it must be reported to investors who might think your business is in trouble. But if you hire contractors (who do everything a full timer does, just with fewer rights) or have high attrition you can fly under the radar.
- 2y ago
olliej 2y ago
No shit, that was always the goal. Unless the employees came on under remote work it’s very hard for them to say the work policy is a change in working conditions, even if it fundamentally is. For instance I now have to drive to work where previously transit was an option, so my commute has changed from work time to just an additional 12 hours of uncompensated labour and thousands of dollars in fuel, maintenance, and tolls. Hooray!
Vecr 2y ago
I'm kind of confused about this, can't you just get yourself fired (without doing anything illegal) instead of quitting? Are people concerned with the civil law risk?
- pjmlp 2y ago
  In countries with strong labor law, you really need to do something that will taint your CV, and kill the chances of a proper recommendation letter. So not really.
- usefulcat 2y ago
  You could, but the advantage of quitting is that it's on your terms--you can potentially line up another job prior to quitting.
- mariusor 2y ago
  I'm doing exactly this at the moment. I'm in Europe. My lawyer says that there's probably not going to be any gain in it for me unless the company will cave and agree to some sort of severance. I don't have my hopes up, but I'm willing to take them to court just to expose their bullshit in front of the other people still working there in good faith.
  - ohnoitsahuman 2y ago
    Here is the states, it's pretty common to search the public court records for civil suits. Be careful.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  It's often preferable to find a new job when you still have one than to be randomly dismissed and need to scramble.
- advisedwang 2y ago
  Potential downsides to getting fired vs quitting: * Company may deem you ineligible for future re-hire * You may have lost the opportunity to have a good reference * Lack of control of timing * Embarrassing call with manager/HR I don't see what upside there is to getting fired deliberately? In my location you aren't eligible for unemployment benefits if you are fired for cause.
adfm 2y ago
I'm surprised that there hasn't been a class action lawsuit against companies implementing RTO given that many offices workers are returning to are shells of their former selves. Seems like companies still pushing RTO are using it to cover up issues, only some of which are HR.
- ReptileMan 2y ago
  Class action on what basis? Unless you were hired with explicitly work from home clause, I don't see reasons to sue.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Yeah, there's a difference between "getting screwed generally" versus "getting screwed against a contract." Maybe if you had an employment contract stating that all commutes would be reimbursed at $X/hr you could sue for the missing money, but even that (on its own) wouldn't prevent the company from simply ending the arrangement.
mkl95 2y ago
Leadership at my former place publicly despised remote work. Only senior engineers were allowed to work remotely, and the rest had to work at one of those nasty startup coworking spaces 4x per week. During my tenure, that policy didn't have the effect the CEO desired, and it led to the tech department shrinking, despite the headcount more than doubling. It was tremendously hard to find good engineers that were willing to put up with the CEO's antics, despite offering them above market average comp. If your startup is uncool, one of the first few things you should review is your remote work policy. Some really crappy businesses might be having an easier time hiring competent employees just because they allow WFH.
- duxup 2y ago
  Senior Engineers able to WFH but nobody else sets a nasty "rules for thee but not for me" kinda vibe. I can imagine legit situations where the Senior Engineers work well from home, but the vibe doesn't change...
  - mkl95 2y ago
    According to the CEO, the only reason was that he struggled to attract senior engineers in the area. Eventually that didn't just happen in the area, though...
    - duxup 2y ago
      Kinda strange too as having senior folks in contact with non-seniors regularly I would think is sorta a positive of in office work. This system kinda blows that apart.
      - mkl95 2y ago
        Most middling startup CEOs are like that. They do just good enough for the board not to hate them while making a bunch of strange top-down decisions.
ffhhj 2y ago
On top of the sad state of the job market, there is a trend now on companies posting fake jobs: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/27/4-in-10-companies-say-theyve-posted-a-fake-job-this-year-what-that-means.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/27/4-in-10-companies-say-theyve...
from-nibly 2y ago
> This suggests that these departures are not just numerical losses but also qualitative ones, affecting team dynamics, institutional knowledge, and overall performance. No crap Copernicus. Why does management insist on believing that their workforce is made up of interchangeable cogs is it because the reality is just too uncomfortable?
janalsncm 2y ago
If what the article says is true, it seems they rolled back about a decade and a half of diversity in tech initiatives. It also speaks to how little power those organizations have. Since I can remember there have been nonstop “women in tech” clubs to encourage women to advance their career even if it’s not easy. And it’s not easy if you have to take care of a child. The company might have a monthly zoom call and schedule a female senior manager to give a speech about her career. Wonderful. And then RTO hits. And some of those same senior managers are requiring their teams to commute to an office and sit at a desk for vague, unspecified, or otherwise underjustified reasons. The result is predictable. People resign. But some people are more likely to leave than others. Single men with no other obligations are less likely to mind leaving at 8:30 and getting back at 6:30. Women may not be able to. It turns out, those zoom calls were largely useless. It’s not a mindset issue. It’s a labor issue. Women in tech initiatives were tolerated as long as they positioned themselves as mindset or career growth within the company, and didn’t encourage organizing or asking anything of the company. But a truly effective movement would have gave employers pause before mandating RTO.
- duxup 2y ago
  I'm not sure I buy into this super connected WFH and diversity argument. Folks working to 8:30 are working to 8:30 from home or work, both are going to hit people of different backgrounds differently depending on their personal situation as much as anything else.
  - janalsncm 2y ago
    It’s not my argument, I am just repeating the results discussed in the article. Perhaps there are unrelated factors, but diversity did decrease after RTO. Just as an example of how it plays out in practice, commute time is an externality the company just pushes onto employees. If you’re salaried, you aren’t paid for it despite it being required. This is time which could be used for other things. Of course this affects people more if they have responsibilities outside of their job. My broader point is that these meetings effectively reframed collective problems, where many women (and men) had shared labor interests, into an individual “grindset” issue. Therefore an RTO mandate which should have been a major dispute was never really questioned.
UweSchmidt 2y ago
What's overlooked is that today's workforce is not ruled by a cadre of hardcore company people any more. Work from home is generally enjoyed on every level of the hierarchy. Likewise, even your boss's boss will have a family and share childcare responsibilities, which creates strong demands for flexibility and autonomy that are hard to argue against. This means, leadership doesn't want to, and can't really enforce return-to-office all that well. So, unless I am missing something big, heavy-handed measures mandated from the CEO ultimately won't change modern workplace culture. (If you like WFH though please do your part: Be productive and communicative from home and argue against return-to-office at any occasion to the full extent of your influence within the organization)
- Terr_ 2y ago
  That kinda assumes those CEOs will become subject to the same rules (and punishments) as the rank-and-file employees... Moral suasion is nice to have, but plenty of corporate policies still get implemented without it. In other words, I think you're overestimating the extent you which "bosses like it and do it" trickles down, especially when it's perceived as not enhancing the company's quarterly profits.
erikerikson 2y ago
The real problem is that those which leave are those who have [better] options. So by utilizing this kind of strategy you select for the employees you least want.
- yimmothathird 2y ago
  > So by utilizing this kind of strategy you select for the employees you least want. Unless the employees you want are those that can be easily controlled.
wnolens 2y ago
It's curious to me that so many companies have so many low value employees that if a ton of them quit then that is good for the company. It's not unbelievable - I've worked at a few mediocre places before - but what a strange world we live in.
- RoyalHenOil 2y ago
  This is likely only true for very poorly run companies — but a LOT of companies, especially big companies, are very poorly run. It would be a disaster if such a high percentage of employees at my company quit. But my company is very lean and mean. The productivity of each employee is extremely high, and a big reason for that is most employees have been around a long time (10+ years). They know their jobs extremely well and the team is very tight-knit. The company has to pay for that low turnover — we all get big raises every year without having to ask, bonuses, etc. — but they can afford it handily because the company is well run.
edem 2y ago
what i don't understand is why do they expect the dead weight to leave as opposed to the top talent leaving, since they have more options?
dfxm12 2y ago
Trying to get a mass of workers to quit should be illegal. At least in the US, this is done to get around the WARN act and to potentially weasel out of paying severances that may be required or dealing with unemployment claims.
djaouen 2y ago
Step 1 of Slavery: Train employees to follow your every stupid whim lol
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
deskamess 2y ago
Gov of Canada RTO is creeping up just fine. Now at 3 days for some groups. Got to support your restaurant businesses and parking lot donors. Never mind the insufficient capacity at the offices when it was just 2 days (they sold a bunch of buildings first!). Never mind the poor public transport in the capital (esp after LRT; instead of 1 bus, its bus-train-bus) - and it performs really well in the winter - its gonna be great. Never mind the people who now have to drive in traffic inconveniencing themselves and those who actually have to be on the road. Never mind the eco-footprint of their decisions - given how much they cry about how 'Canada should do more to fight climate change' (so virtue signalling at its best). Cant wait for winter when overcrowded offices causes illness that we can take back to our spouses, kids, and grandparents - I guess this should cause some natural attrition (the deadly kind).
- mcsniff 2y ago
  The way ouf of authoritarianism isn't to comply and hope it stops... If you're at an organisation and they implement or try to enforce something you disagree with, the answer is simple -- don't comply.
- downrightmike 2y ago
  RTO is a tax scheme, the local governments give tax breaks to companies on their real estate in return employees are expected to spend money to commute and eat. It is just a tax transfer from corporations to employees. That's it. Well, that and the need to keep the working class under the thumb of tyrants.
guywithahat 2y ago
Maybe, but the reality is remote workers aren’t as productive and don’t contribute to company culture enough (at least in the organizations I’ve worked for). And frankly, if we’re going to hire someone remote, why would we not hire someone in India for $15 an hour? Or someone in Europe for $35? Remote work doesn’t make sense for most software positions
- travisb 2y ago
  Productivity is a mixed bag. Some people do better, some worse. Some companies are missing small but important systems to enable productivity with remote work. My anecdote is that my in-office colleagues are less productive than they used to be when they were WFH. Mostly less motivated to do the asynchronous communication parts of the job, like code reviews, and scrolling their phones at their desk more. Also cutting work hours short, often through long breaks with their jacket hanging on their chair. As for why not India or Europe, that's been tried and failed for coming on thirty years now. Timezones, language, culture all make it much less cost efficient than it sounds like.
- RoyalHenOil 2y ago
  If a company is attractive to employees and they are motivated to do well there, I would not expect WFH to have this issue. Where I work, it's entirely up to us whether to work from home or go into the office. People who choose the office are generally more productive in the office (e.g., because they are getting away from a crowded, noisy home) and people who choose to work from home are generally more productive at home (e.g., because they'd otherwise have a stressful commute that puts them on a bad footing every morning). In practice, most people choose a mixture based on what they feel like doing that day and whether they need to have meetings, training, etc. My supervisor strongly encourages working from home during crunch periods in particular because he has found that most employees are more productive if we take several exercise breaks throughout the day, and our office is not a great environment for that compared to our homes (for most of us). He also likes WFH because employees have way fewer sick days. They instead have "sick hours" and then get back to work as soon as they feel up to it.
  - 2y ago
prirun 2y ago
"Young talent, more inclined toward flexible work arrangements, may view federal employment as an unattractive option, leading to a significant loss of fresh perspectives and innovative ideas." Yeah, unlike in the House, Senate and White House, where we have 85 year-olds running the country.
- yimmothathird 2y ago
  [dead]
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
"A study presented to the National Capital Planning Commmission adds to this growing body of evidence, showing that mandated returns to the office in the federal sector will lead to a workforce that skews older and less diverse. The study highlights the risk of the federal workforce becoming out of touch with the dynamic, diverse society it aims to serve." The largest demographic in that "dynamic, diverse" society is not people who make noise online about how they do not want to work in an office. It is older folks who have worked in offices for most or all of their working lives. Who is serving who? The concern should be about becoming out of touch with working in an office or other place of work and the generations of Americans who did it and continue to do it. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-national-detail.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2...

195 points by LordNibbler 2y ago

Of course they did. Companies are looking to cut costs to appease shareholders, and this is an effective method for pushing people to leave rather than layoffs.

black_13 2y ago
[dead]
mdgrech23 2y ago
these same bastards get government money to build new factories and buildings. If you're taking handouts you shouldn't be allowed to cut workers just to boost the stock price.

porcoda 2y ago

I think we sort of knew this was the goal for some of these RTO orders: making the workplace unpleasant is a way to do a reduction in workforce without having a scary layoff. Management just shifts the decision to employees. Scummy, but not exactly a new strategy for trying to shed people without generating a ton of bad PR.

reginald78 2y ago
Also should let you disproportionately lay off working parents and people with long term health problems (who have higher healthcare costs on average) without technically running afoul of any laws.

teeray 2y ago

Constructive dismissal is apparently only legal if you do it at enormous scale.

vehemenz 2y ago
Yes, but constructive dismissal is only relevant if returning to the office constitutes a hostile work environment, which it wouldn't if the original terms of employment included office attendance. Inconvenience isn't an argument.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  WFH has been normal for almost half a decade now. I changed jobs and stipulated remaining remote in that time, and I suspect my employer doesn't care. They have begun talking about RTO. Here's the thing: it's not JUST inconvenient. It's a pay cut, full stop. I have to pay to commute, one way or the other, in both time and money. Acting like this only has to do with convenience is some real bootlicker shit
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
    It is also the most dangerous thing I do in a day. Nearly every single day, there is a traffic accident on my route. Through no fault of my own, someday that could be me smeared on the road.
  - teeray 2y ago
    > it's not JUST inconvenient. It's a pay cut, full stop. Never mind the ongoing state income tax implications of being forced to work in a physical location, which can greatly impact the amount of take-home pay you have.
  - vehemenz 2y ago
    I'm considering the employer's position. If a bunch of my employees were working six-hour days and communication was suffering at the office, then I would feel justified to institute RTO. As long as it's not meant as an indirect layoff AND the employees were hired for on-site work originally, I genuinely do not see the problem. Of course, one might argue that employers should "know" that employees will quit, but honestly, are employers supposed gauge the level of WFH cultishness before making a routine business decision? It's ridiculous. Yes, one can argue that it's a "pay cut, full stop" just as the employer can argue that they are getting less effective employees during WFH, or that one's unearned "raise" during COVID is being rescinded. I'm not a cultist, so these are positions that need to be argued for and earned. No foot-stomping. The employers should get a say.

csours 2y ago

"We need team players" feels like a pill being used purposely for it's unpleasant side effects.

luxuryballs 2y ago

This is kinda smart, maybe employees can be kinda smart too and try to call the bluff until they get moved into the place to make sure the office actually exists?

persnickety 2y ago
The problem is that the business has a centralized coordination structure, and for the employees, there isn't any apart from the business that connected them. Maybe a union is what could help.
- luxuryballs 2y ago
  the employees are private individuals though, they only have to coordinate themselves, not everyone will be willing to say “ok I’ll come into the office” and actually do it while job hunting, but it could be a way to call their bluff if you had in mind something that could benefit from that kind of evidence (though I think legal action is very rarely the first, or even 10th best option)

downrightmike 2y ago

[flagged]

rincebrain 2y ago

...duh? Whenever an employer implements policies that unpopular, you can safely assume trying to force attrition without paying severance is a goal, whether primary or secondary. Of course, this has a cascade effect, where the people who have the most prospects and valued that policy not being true are going to leave, and then that has an outsized effect on organizational health, which pushes other people into leaving. I heard it said once that someone on The Dana Carvey Show knew it was cancelled when they found the free food container in the break room, which they'd never seen anything but overflowing, was empty. I suspect that a number of executives are now discovering they have had similarly not-obviously-critical absences become the canaries in the coal mine for others, as well as how hard it is to change perception of whether people want to work for you.

wcunning 2y ago

The General Motors CFO basically said as much on an investor call in 2022 or 2023. That didn't get rid of enough people, so now they've implemented stack ranking because that worked so well at MSFT. That said, they get a "free" 5% workforce reduction every year that they want it, no severance, no buyout, just let go. There will be more of that coming, particularly in US automotive after the UAW deal and the current sad state of vehicle sales and the write downs on EVs.

drewcoo 2y ago
> stack ranking because that worked so well at MSFT Rank and yank originated at GE to the best of my knowledge. Where it also "worked well." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve
- downrightmike 2y ago
  Neutron Jack was a terrible manager, he just got lucky and because GE was so big, it was nearly impossible to sink
myworkinisgood 2y ago
How come no severance? Despite of how you're being fired, you should be entitled to severance right?
- persedes 2y ago
  in the US at least, I'd be surprised if you entitled to anything, especially in a "right to work" state. It's mostly goodwill.
- SR2Z 2y ago
  Severance is a "we'll pay you to leave quietly" deal, not an entitlement. If the company plans to be continually laying people off (kind of a stupid idea because it makes your other employees nervous) they can find other ways to ensure silence from their victims.

more_corn 2y ago

That’s a great strategy if you want workers to quit. But if you’re hiring, (like for instance if having employees makes you more money than the employees cost) what you want is the opposite. The key insight is going to be: when they’re hiring again will those same companies continue to offer remote options. The answer is probably some will some won’t.

danudey 2y ago
Theoretically it thins out the workforce by triggering resignations in the people who are the least invested in your company; the ones who really "get it" will stick with the company and RTO. In reality, it thins out the workforce by triggering resignations in people who think they're going to have an easy time getting a job elsewhere at a remote-friendly company, which is typically your best people. On the balance sheet it looks great because they're often the top earners, but in reality you're losing some of the best talent you have. It also thins out the workforce by removing anyone who can't return to the office, or for whom doing so is untenable; people with disabilities or health issues, single parents, and so on, regardless of how well those people perform or what they bring to the company. Theoretically those positions can then be filled by people who are more talented or more interested in or passionate about the role, but in reality they'll be filled by people who don't mind RTO or who need the job bad enough that they'll put up with it.
- siamese_puff 2y ago
  I think it also kills morale while dismissing the fact that the majority of people don’t or can’t opt into finding a new job very easily. This leads to a slow culture death which affects sales much more IMO
  - fcatalan 2y ago
    Hard to measure the quiet quitters, but they are there, sullenly drawing their check in exchange for their minimum viable productivity.
    - 2y ago

resource_waste 2y ago

As a biz owner, this kind of decision making would stress me out. No one knows what the quality of the people will be. The people okay with driving 2+ hours are going to stick around. What kind of person is that? A hard worker? Maybe. A dedicated worker? Maybe... Or is it the people so untalented, they cannot find another job, and do this for survival? I don't know the answer, and I'd be horrified to roll the dice on that. I'm unsure what the packages look like to cut your lowest performers, but at least you aren't rolling dice. Side note: I can get nation wide talent way way way cheaper when I offer remote/flexible schedule. I kind of appreciate the big companies arent sucking this labor market, leaves me room.

zer00eyz 2y ago
You're taking a pretty black and white look at this. You make the policy and then hand out exceptions (quietly) to the MVP's. I have managed a few dev teams inside more "traditional" companies and you would be remisss to think the the corporate policy you set cause you have a CS team is going to get applied to engineers.
- isoprophlex 2y ago
  Great way to breed resentment, giving some people exceptional treatment. Why not treat everyone fairly?
  - csa 2y ago
    > Why not treat everyone fairly? Lots to unpack here. 1. Why is “not the same” equal to “not fair”? Genuine question. 2. It’s human nature to give favor to those that you think are “on your side” — this can mean various things in a manager’s case. 3. I would counter “why don’t all ICs contribute equally?” They don’t, and usually it’s not even close. Overall, I understand and appreciate your sentiment, especially in a large org in which most folks are effectively replaceable cogs in the wheel. That said, as a business owner who uses sub-contractors, I would not be happy if I had to treat all of my sub-contractors equally since they often add vastly different amounts of value to my business (even in the same type of work).

amatecha 2y ago

Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal

FredPret 2y ago

Usually stack ranking is aimed at culling the bottom of the stack, no? Wonder how getting rid of the employees with the most agency and options will turn out for the office-heads.

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Knowing stack ranking is in effect completely changes the work dynamics. Should I help my coworker through a problem? End of the month, my KPIs might be negatively impacted, whereas theirs were boosted. Performance now becomes singularly competitive where you would rather have some chaff losers on the team. Work becomes even more performance art where you need to make the boss value you the most. All gameable metrics will be gamed.
- FredPret 2y ago
  This is exactly why the House That Jack Built (GE) was made out of cards. To be fair, running a huge megacorp is really hard and there seems to be no easy answer to getting thousands of people to perform optimally, together, over the long term.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >To be fair, running a huge megacorp is really hard and there seems to be no easy answer to getting thousands of people to perform optimally, together, over the long term. It's only hard when you're constantly trying to squeeze more money out and trying to cut wages and make people work multiple peoples' jobs.
- englishspot 2y ago
  > Should I help my coworker through a problem? End of the month, my KPIs might be negatively impacted, whereas theirs were boosted. I feel like helping a coworker should be factored into your performance. "force-multiplier", or however the industry calls it. but then, I've never worked at a toxic, hyper-competitive rank-and-yank..

ramon156 2y ago

In some companies, this is a silent layoff. Especially in west europe, its easier to say "well if you don't like it, quit yourself"

favorited 2y ago
The side-effect is that the people who will be most willing to leave are those who are the most confident about their job prospects in the market. You could be silently laying off your top performers, while people with less knowledge or experience stay around because finding a new job will be harder for them.

abeppu 2y ago

I don't doubt that this happened, but what percentage of RTO efforts were about intentional attrition vs something else? The intentional attrition strategy seems like it only makes sense if you have a lot of dead weight on your staff but are stable as a business. If the business is in really dire financial straits, I think you actually fire people. If overall you have a healthy business and a revenue per employee is significantly above costs per employee (and if you previously observed that growing the team helped you grow revenue), boosting attrition will probably hurt you, right? You may improve margins in the next few quarters but eventually your decreased ability to build/sell will cut into your revenue growth. But I think there have been plenty of companies that seemed to be healthy and succeeding who didn't have a clear reason to want attrition, and who still pushed RTO, which seems like probably a bad move? I do believe a fair share of execs did earnestly buy into the idea that employees are more productive from the office, and if employees were ok with working from the office 5 years ago and they're being paid more now, they would just accept it -- i.e. execs hoped they could mostly retain their staff but get more value out of them. And I further continue to believe that these execs were biased by largely isolated from inefficiencies in the open-plan-office / too-few-meeting-rooms before times. - The CEO never had to scramble to find another room when an important conversation went long -- whoever had the room next was forced to scramble. - If the COO felt that a meeting needed to be scheduled last minute, people around them made it happen ... meanwhile 3 levels down the org-chart, a design doc review meeting involving 3 teams can't be scheduled until the week after next because we need the 12-seat conference rooms in 2 offices to be free at the same time. - The head of HR has an office with a door that closes -- for good reason! But for this reason they did not suffer reduced productivity when listening to music through their headphones for 8 hours a day simultaneously caused tinnitus and failed to fully drown out the sale bro one row of desks away.

gosub100 2y ago
> If the business is in really dire financial straits, I think you actually fire people. Then it must be reported to investors who might think your business is in trouble. But if you hire contractors (who do everything a full timer does, just with fewer rights) or have high attrition you can fly under the radar.
2y ago

olliej 2y ago

No shit, that was always the goal. Unless the employees came on under remote work it’s very hard for them to say the work policy is a change in working conditions, even if it fundamentally is. For instance I now have to drive to work where previously transit was an option, so my commute has changed from work time to just an additional 12 hours of uncompensated labour and thousands of dollars in fuel, maintenance, and tolls. Hooray!

Vecr 2y ago

I'm kind of confused about this, can't you just get yourself fired (without doing anything illegal) instead of quitting? Are people concerned with the civil law risk?

pjmlp 2y ago
In countries with strong labor law, you really need to do something that will taint your CV, and kill the chances of a proper recommendation letter. So not really.
usefulcat 2y ago
You could, but the advantage of quitting is that it's on your terms--you can potentially line up another job prior to quitting.
mariusor 2y ago
I'm doing exactly this at the moment. I'm in Europe. My lawyer says that there's probably not going to be any gain in it for me unless the company will cave and agree to some sort of severance. I don't have my hopes up, but I'm willing to take them to court just to expose their bullshit in front of the other people still working there in good faith.
- ohnoitsahuman 2y ago
  Here is the states, it's pretty common to search the public court records for civil suits. Be careful.
steveBK123 2y ago
It's often preferable to find a new job when you still have one than to be randomly dismissed and need to scramble.
advisedwang 2y ago
Potential downsides to getting fired vs quitting: * Company may deem you ineligible for future re-hire * You may have lost the opportunity to have a good reference * Lack of control of timing * Embarrassing call with manager/HR I don't see what upside there is to getting fired deliberately? In my location you aren't eligible for unemployment benefits if you are fired for cause.

adfm 2y ago

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a class action lawsuit against companies implementing RTO given that many offices workers are returning to are shells of their former selves. Seems like companies still pushing RTO are using it to cover up issues, only some of which are HR.

ReptileMan 2y ago
Class action on what basis? Unless you were hired with explicitly work from home clause, I don't see reasons to sue.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Yeah, there's a difference between "getting screwed generally" versus "getting screwed against a contract." Maybe if you had an employment contract stating that all commutes would be reimbursed at $X/hr you could sue for the missing money, but even that (on its own) wouldn't prevent the company from simply ending the arrangement.

mkl95 2y ago

Leadership at my former place publicly despised remote work. Only senior engineers were allowed to work remotely, and the rest had to work at one of those nasty startup coworking spaces 4x per week. During my tenure, that policy didn't have the effect the CEO desired, and it led to the tech department shrinking, despite the headcount more than doubling. It was tremendously hard to find good engineers that were willing to put up with the CEO's antics, despite offering them above market average comp. If your startup is uncool, one of the first few things you should review is your remote work policy. Some really crappy businesses might be having an easier time hiring competent employees just because they allow WFH.

duxup 2y ago
Senior Engineers able to WFH but nobody else sets a nasty "rules for thee but not for me" kinda vibe. I can imagine legit situations where the Senior Engineers work well from home, but the vibe doesn't change...
- mkl95 2y ago
  According to the CEO, the only reason was that he struggled to attract senior engineers in the area. Eventually that didn't just happen in the area, though...
  - duxup 2y ago
    Kinda strange too as having senior folks in contact with non-seniors regularly I would think is sorta a positive of in office work. This system kinda blows that apart.
    - mkl95 2y ago
      Most middling startup CEOs are like that. They do just good enough for the board not to hate them while making a bunch of strange top-down decisions.

ffhhj 2y ago

On top of the sad state of the job market, there is a trend now on companies posting fake jobs: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/27/4-in-10-companies-say-theyve-posted-a-fake-job-this-year-what-that-means.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/27/4-in-10-companies-say-theyve...

from-nibly 2y ago

> This suggests that these departures are not just numerical losses but also qualitative ones, affecting team dynamics, institutional knowledge, and overall performance. No crap Copernicus. Why does management insist on believing that their workforce is made up of interchangeable cogs is it because the reality is just too uncomfortable?

janalsncm 2y ago

If what the article says is true, it seems they rolled back about a decade and a half of diversity in tech initiatives. It also speaks to how little power those organizations have. Since I can remember there have been nonstop “women in tech” clubs to encourage women to advance their career even if it’s not easy. And it’s not easy if you have to take care of a child. The company might have a monthly zoom call and schedule a female senior manager to give a speech about her career. Wonderful. And then RTO hits. And some of those same senior managers are requiring their teams to commute to an office and sit at a desk for vague, unspecified, or otherwise underjustified reasons. The result is predictable. People resign. But some people are more likely to leave than others. Single men with no other obligations are less likely to mind leaving at 8:30 and getting back at 6:30. Women may not be able to. It turns out, those zoom calls were largely useless. It’s not a mindset issue. It’s a labor issue. Women in tech initiatives were tolerated as long as they positioned themselves as mindset or career growth within the company, and didn’t encourage organizing or asking anything of the company. But a truly effective movement would have gave employers pause before mandating RTO.

duxup 2y ago
I'm not sure I buy into this super connected WFH and diversity argument. Folks working to 8:30 are working to 8:30 from home or work, both are going to hit people of different backgrounds differently depending on their personal situation as much as anything else.
- janalsncm 2y ago
  It’s not my argument, I am just repeating the results discussed in the article. Perhaps there are unrelated factors, but diversity did decrease after RTO. Just as an example of how it plays out in practice, commute time is an externality the company just pushes onto employees. If you’re salaried, you aren’t paid for it despite it being required. This is time which could be used for other things. Of course this affects people more if they have responsibilities outside of their job. My broader point is that these meetings effectively reframed collective problems, where many women (and men) had shared labor interests, into an individual “grindset” issue. Therefore an RTO mandate which should have been a major dispute was never really questioned.

UweSchmidt 2y ago

What's overlooked is that today's workforce is not ruled by a cadre of hardcore company people any more. Work from home is generally enjoyed on every level of the hierarchy. Likewise, even your boss's boss will have a family and share childcare responsibilities, which creates strong demands for flexibility and autonomy that are hard to argue against. This means, leadership doesn't want to, and can't really enforce return-to-office all that well. So, unless I am missing something big, heavy-handed measures mandated from the CEO ultimately won't change modern workplace culture. (If you like WFH though please do your part: Be productive and communicative from home and argue against return-to-office at any occasion to the full extent of your influence within the organization)

Terr_ 2y ago
That kinda assumes those CEOs will become subject to the same rules (and punishments) as the rank-and-file employees... Moral suasion is nice to have, but plenty of corporate policies still get implemented without it. In other words, I think you're overestimating the extent you which "bosses like it and do it" trickles down, especially when it's perceived as not enhancing the company's quarterly profits.

erikerikson 2y ago

The real problem is that those which leave are those who have [better] options. So by utilizing this kind of strategy you select for the employees you least want.

yimmothathird 2y ago
> So by utilizing this kind of strategy you select for the employees you least want. Unless the employees you want are those that can be easily controlled.

wnolens 2y ago

It's curious to me that so many companies have so many low value employees that if a ton of them quit then that is good for the company. It's not unbelievable - I've worked at a few mediocre places before - but what a strange world we live in.

RoyalHenOil 2y ago
This is likely only true for very poorly run companies — but a LOT of companies, especially big companies, are very poorly run. It would be a disaster if such a high percentage of employees at my company quit. But my company is very lean and mean. The productivity of each employee is extremely high, and a big reason for that is most employees have been around a long time (10+ years). They know their jobs extremely well and the team is very tight-knit. The company has to pay for that low turnover — we all get big raises every year without having to ask, bonuses, etc. — but they can afford it handily because the company is well run.

edem 2y ago

what i don't understand is why do they expect the dead weight to leave as opposed to the top talent leaving, since they have more options?

dfxm12 2y ago

Trying to get a mass of workers to quit should be illegal. At least in the US, this is done to get around the WARN act and to potentially weasel out of paying severances that may be required or dealing with unemployment claims.

djaouen 2y ago

Step 1 of Slavery: Train employees to follow your every stupid whim lol

deleted 2y ago
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deskamess 2y ago

Gov of Canada RTO is creeping up just fine. Now at 3 days for some groups. Got to support your restaurant businesses and parking lot donors. Never mind the insufficient capacity at the offices when it was just 2 days (they sold a bunch of buildings first!). Never mind the poor public transport in the capital (esp after LRT; instead of 1 bus, its bus-train-bus) - and it performs really well in the winter - its gonna be great. Never mind the people who now have to drive in traffic inconveniencing themselves and those who actually have to be on the road. Never mind the eco-footprint of their decisions - given how much they cry about how 'Canada should do more to fight climate change' (so virtue signalling at its best). Cant wait for winter when overcrowded offices causes illness that we can take back to our spouses, kids, and grandparents - I guess this should cause some natural attrition (the deadly kind).

mcsniff 2y ago
The way ouf of authoritarianism isn't to comply and hope it stops... If you're at an organisation and they implement or try to enforce something you disagree with, the answer is simple -- don't comply.
downrightmike 2y ago
RTO is a tax scheme, the local governments give tax breaks to companies on their real estate in return employees are expected to spend money to commute and eat. It is just a tax transfer from corporations to employees. That's it. Well, that and the need to keep the working class under the thumb of tyrants.

guywithahat 2y ago

Maybe, but the reality is remote workers aren’t as productive and don’t contribute to company culture enough (at least in the organizations I’ve worked for). And frankly, if we’re going to hire someone remote, why would we not hire someone in India for $15 an hour? Or someone in Europe for $35? Remote work doesn’t make sense for most software positions

travisb 2y ago
Productivity is a mixed bag. Some people do better, some worse. Some companies are missing small but important systems to enable productivity with remote work. My anecdote is that my in-office colleagues are less productive than they used to be when they were WFH. Mostly less motivated to do the asynchronous communication parts of the job, like code reviews, and scrolling their phones at their desk more. Also cutting work hours short, often through long breaks with their jacket hanging on their chair. As for why not India or Europe, that's been tried and failed for coming on thirty years now. Timezones, language, culture all make it much less cost efficient than it sounds like.
RoyalHenOil 2y ago
If a company is attractive to employees and they are motivated to do well there, I would not expect WFH to have this issue. Where I work, it's entirely up to us whether to work from home or go into the office. People who choose the office are generally more productive in the office (e.g., because they are getting away from a crowded, noisy home) and people who choose to work from home are generally more productive at home (e.g., because they'd otherwise have a stressful commute that puts them on a bad footing every morning). In practice, most people choose a mixture based on what they feel like doing that day and whether they need to have meetings, training, etc. My supervisor strongly encourages working from home during crunch periods in particular because he has found that most employees are more productive if we take several exercise breaks throughout the day, and our office is not a great environment for that compared to our homes (for most of us). He also likes WFH because employees have way fewer sick days. They instead have "sick hours" and then get back to work as soon as they feel up to it.
- 2y ago

prirun 2y ago

"Young talent, more inclined toward flexible work arrangements, may view federal employment as an unattractive option, leading to a significant loss of fresh perspectives and innovative ideas." Yeah, unlike in the House, Senate and White House, where we have 85 year-olds running the country.

yimmothathird 2y ago
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1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

"A study presented to the National Capital Planning Commmission adds to this growing body of evidence, showing that mandated returns to the office in the federal sector will lead to a workforce that skews older and less diverse. The study highlights the risk of the federal workforce becoming out of touch with the dynamic, diverse society it aims to serve." The largest demographic in that "dynamic, diverse" society is not people who make noise online about how they do not want to work in an office. It is older folks who have worked in offices for most or all of their working lives. Who is serving who? The concern should be about becoming out of touch with working in an office or other place of work and the generations of Americans who did it and continue to do it. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-national-detail.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2...