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I don't doubt that this happened, but what percentage of RTO efforts were about intentional attrition vs something else? The intentional attrition strategy see
by 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.
- steveBK123 2y agoThe other aspect that was/is remains "funny" is how the C-suite often makes uneconomic decisions for the company that make their own commute comfort. Notable how many companies opened HQ2 near where the CEO decided to buy a second home for tax purposes. Funny how the business case for HQ2 perfectly aligned with their personal interests.
- xhkkffbf 2y agoThere's often another reason. Some companies like Google own quite a bit of commercial real estate. Forcing people to use the office again is bolstering that investment in real estate. Is it working? Not really.
- geodel 2y agoNot sure if meeting rooms are critical part of RTO efficiencies in anyone's mind. E.g. we are being forced to come at least 4 days a week and most meeting are still through webex before or now. They are absolutely sure of their My way or highway policy. And besides groveling and whining about extra time to drop / pick kids employees are in no position to reply to management RTO mandate in language they understand.
- abeppu 2y ago> Not sure if meeting rooms are critical part of RTO efficiencies in anyone's mind. No, it's not the point people bring up -- they like to talk about being able to just walk over to someone to ask them a question, or quickly form a huddle to resolve an issue. The claim is generally that people work more efficiently in the office. Whereas my experience has been that (a) remotely, creating a slack thread is fast and easy but (b) in office sometimes when you want to huddle, there wasn't a room for it. My claim is that the office itself was often a bottleneck on productivity.
- downrightmike 2y agoRTO 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.
- Doxin 2y agoA tax break does not give the company money. "Having an office with tax breaks" is still more expensive than "Not having an office".
- jq-r 2y agoRTO is a tool. A tool which I saw works very well against even a wiff of unionization. The remaining workers suffered for couple of months, but there is no union anymore.