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I did exactly what this exec advocated - using hard data and statistics to paint a picture of what these mandates look like from a worker perspective - and was

I did exactly what this exec advocated - using hard data and statistics to paint a picture of what these mandates look like from a worker perspective - and was roundly shot down. I ended up painting a picture that, when considering just the costs of vehicular wear and tear, associated insurance costs, added food costs, lost time commuting, and lost economic opportunity in housing choice, that it would end up being approximately equivalent to a $30,000 USD pay cut (primarily due to housing and vehicle costs to preserve the existing commute, rather than searching further afield with a hybrid or remote schedule). I also added that, for the technology teams in particular, our follow-the-sun support model meant we were all incredibly scattered about anyway with no real colleagues in our local office to network with. The response was to double-down: those outside of "hubs" were increasingly passed over for promotions and growth opportunities, hubs started enforcing mandatory in-office days (dictated by the VP), and - of course - the company's promise to support minority colleagues was effectively compromised to "encourage" relocation to Texas. It wasn't really surprising when I got RIFed, just incredibly disappointing. Data alone is not enough to sway these people. They have their own agendas that have no concern for their workers' needs or goals. The solution will be collective action, rather than bargaining for basic empathy.

jimt1234 2y ago
> Data alone is not enough to sway these people. True. And, they have their own data that says workers love RTO. My company sends out employee surveys every six months. They claim that employees who work-from-the-office have higher workplace satisfaction scores, and therefore working-from-the-office must be better - the data proves it!
- codr7 2y ago
  Finally, a good use for those pesky surveys that no one answers, I'm pretty sure the goal from the start was to generate cover for whatever policies they feel like enforcing.
  - NAHWheatCracker 2y ago
    At the last place I worked I assiduously filled out those surveys. Twice a year the executives would do an all hands meeting and talk about the result of the recent survey. They would make a big deal out of all the changes they were making. After a few cycles, I noticed that the top problems from the surveys always stayed the same. Then I noticed that the changes they were claiming to make were either half-hearted or were gross misinterpretations of survey results to push their own agendas. Of course the survey results stayed the same, nothing was done to address the problems. After I noticed this, I still filled out the survey, if only because they would track me down and tell me the complete the survey (wait, I thought this was anonymous...). One year I answered 5/5 on every question. The next year I answered 0/5 on every question. The next year I quit.
    - stego-tech 2y ago
      This employer had similar surveys, and the results plummeted after a huge RIF and never really recovered. I was asked to join focus groups for more detailed feedback, and as soon as we gave it, they silently dismantled said groups rather than update us on how the powers that be would be acting on that feedback. All-hands meetings where questions about RTO, attendance policies, and flexible working arrangements were regularly diverted and ignored. That doesn’t even get into the technical concerns I was also fielding as an Engineer, these were areas solely focused on trying to contribute a sense of objective direction to the company like the executives repeatedly bragged about inviting us to do, to “be different” than other businesses. No business is different than the others, not really. Absent accountability, the executives will always act in their own self-interest; since their compensation is mostly stock, that means they will sacrifice the future of tomorrow for the stock bump of today, every single time.
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        > the executives will always act in their own self-interest; Yes, and so does everyone else, including me, including you. > since their compensation is mostly stock, that means they will sacrifice the future of tomorrow for the stock bump of today, every single time. When investors discover that a company is eating its seed corn for short term gain, the stock crashes.
- nazgul17 2y ago
  I wonder whether they adjusted for commute length. I imagine that IF you live close to the office, the RTO is not bad. Plus, if you're close maybe you live in a small apartment and maybe you are single, so the office is also a social place, and having no family means you don't have pressure from other duties.
  - oooyay 2y ago
    I lived near an office for a good portion of my career when I was single. The office was definitely not a social spot. Most of the people that liked RTO when HN has been polled were married people with kids. If you're married with kids and live near a tech campus in a major city then I think it's safe to say that you're very wealthy.
- bratbag 2y ago
  I'm one of those people who is happier when spending some time in the office each week and have said that when surveyed. Don't assume survey results that run counter to your anecdotal experience have been fabricated.
  - freehorse 2y ago
    They did not say the results were fabricated, but that they were misinterpreted. If you like being in the office, then your are gonna be more in the office than those who don’t like. It’s not being in the office that causes you liking being in the office, and thus if we force those who are not going in the office to go they will like it.
- scott_w 2y ago
  I’ve seen employee satisfaction surveys show certain unhappy groups getting happier over time. Which, of course they did, the unhappy ones left!
nine_zeros 2y ago
> Data alone is not enough to sway these people. They have their own agendas that have no concern for their workers' needs or goals. The solution will be collective action, rather than bargaining for basic empathy. Yes, because they don't NEED or WANT to do anything that jeopardizes their position in the executive group-think. Remember that every year they survive, they are going to get 10s of millions. The cost of sticking out for their own reports is too high. They'd much rather their reports kill themselves and their own lives than forego the 10s of millions coming this year. Short term. Also remember that they see their current position as a reward for sacrificing a lot in life. They feel entitled to boss people. People should bow to their command because they reached the top org chart positions. How dare people below them propose anything but loyalty to whatever they want?
- try_the_bass 2y ago
  The irony in this comment is thick enough you could cut it with a knife. Like many of the other responses in this thread, you're generalizing a small set of experiences to every company, and not even acknowledging that other companies may not work this way I suspect this is due to not wanting "to do anything that jeopardizes [your] position in the [anti-]executive group-think." I have worked for multiple companies that looked for feedback from employees, and claimed to use that information to better the company for those employees. Some actually did, and others did not. Not all of them are the same, and many actually seek feedback in earnest. Meanwhile, you would have me believe that some of the companies I have worked for didn't exist.
  - nine_zeros 2y ago
    The irony of your rant is that you are pointing to the other extreme. > Not all of them are the same, and many actually seek feedback in earnest. And many actually seek to retaliate on feedback - as evidence by the parent post. We can both be right but you cannot deny other's experiences and insight. You yourself are aware and have seen other execs who are more interested in self-preservation. So they exist, and are not a rarity. So yeah, nOt EvErY eXeC iS lIkE tHaT - but plenty are and that's what my post intends to highlight to the avid reader. My intent is to highlight the truth and present the reality of what exec position is. And that, leadership is not to be expected by default.
null0pointer 2y ago
They do not use data as a decision making tool. They use data as post-hoc justification for decisions already made.
holografix 2y ago
But you see, you were trying to convince them of entirely the wrong thing. In fact you ended up providing solid reasons to reinforce their belief in RTO. Leadership wants attrition. They want people to quit and if they don’t have to make you redundant and pay you out, fantastic. You just gave them good data points to indicate that a portion of people are likely to do just that. If you upend your whole life and move to a hub then that means you need this job very badly. Guess when you’re getting promoted next? Not soon.
WalterBright 2y ago
If you're correct that WFH is more efficient than work in the office, over time the work in the office companies will be replaced by the WFH ones. Forcing things through collective action that prevent market forces from working are deleterious in the long run. See Europe's moribund economy. > They have their own agendas that have no concern for their workers' needs or goals. That's right. > The solution will be collective action, rather than bargaining for basic empathy. A business is not a jobs program. It's there to create wealth, and if it does not, it goes bankrupt and everyone loses their job. You are always free to quit and join another company more to your liking, or you can quit and start your own business and run it as you please. It happens all the time, and this message board is run by a venture capital firm, looking for startups to fund.
- intelVISA 2y ago
  Is the market really free enough for WFH vs RTO to be visible?
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    As far as I know, there aren't any regulations about WFH vs RTO.
    - harimau777 2y ago
      Regulation isn't the only thing that can make a market unfree. For example, some of the players in the market could be big enough to exert market power.
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        The history of business is that companies rise to dominance, are characterized as having unstoppable monopolies, and then they fall. The US business history is full of examples. Like IBM. Walmart. RCA. GE. Cisco Systems. Intel. Ford. AT&T. The only way dominance can be sustained is by using the government to throttle the competition.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
I think there are two things going on, and while I think the Twitter post does a good job of highlighting this core issue, I think it's going to be overshadowed by the "execs can get all this support because they're rich" talk (which is true, just not what I think is the core issue). For some subset of people, work is the most important thing in their lives and it is largely how they identify themselves. As the tweet points out, the vast majority of execs are in this bucket. This is almost by definition - despite what has been popular talk in some corners of the Internet, most execs do work extremely hard, as do most people who get to the upper echelons of their profession. These people essentially want to work more. FWIW, while I'm not an exec, I would put myself in this bucket. On the other side are basically the "work to live" people. While this is a pretty broad bucket (some people may want to spend as little time working as possible, but I think most people in this bucket care about their careers and want to do well, but they still fundamentally see work as a means to an end to achieve goals outside of work), these folks are much more likely to not be execs. They want to do a good job, get paid well, and then go home. So I think both sides talk past each other because they fundamentally have different goals. For people in the first bucket (again, that was definitely me), I grew to hate full-time remote work. I felt incredibly disconnected from my work and my colleagues over time, and my motivation definitely waned over time, and as someone who really identified myself in the context of my profession, that was really tough. But I also don't have kids, and not a lot of responsibilities outside of work, so I can definitely understand the other side of it. I don't think there are any easy answers, but saying "data alone is not enough to sway these people" I think misses the point, because you're only showing data that pushes the viewpoint of your "second bucket" group. Again, to emphasize, not a bad thing, but it doesn't encompass all of the concerns that are in play of the first bucket group.
- HeavyStorm 2y ago
  First bucket guy here! Work 12 hours days, use a significant amount of my free time to study/learn. I love remote because it saves me 100+ minutes of my life every day. Minutes better spent working. I do miss joining me peers for lunch and Watercooler talk but not worth it.
  - 2y ago
Spooky23 2y ago
I love remote work. It made me 20x more productive when I was managing a distributed team of almost 1000 people during COVID - all of our metrics improved. 5 years later I am in a different role, and it’s the exact opposite. Executives represent the company and its interests, and there are some significant issues with the real problem - hybrid. Grift and fraud. Nobody likes to talk about this, but many people are running grifts, from doing nothing, meetings in the supermarket or on vacation, to running multiple jobs. I had a couple working 5-6 different full time jobs together. Another was working offshore using a family member as “remote hands” to keep a device connected in the US. It’s difficult and expensive to police. Hybrid decreases effectiveness. A remote only unit is great, a on-prem unit is great. “Permanent” hybrid is the worst of all worlds. Remote people rely on tools more and they don’t work as well with people in site. Meeting transcripts rely on the different clients to identify speakers, and work poorly in conference rooms, for example. It’s also easy for bad patterns to develop where remote people get cut out by people talking off the cuff in office, or vice versa. The majority of the quality of life improvements are really about time freedom. You’d get most of it by giving employees sufficient paid time and allowing them to use it. Remote first by business unit makes sense too, but I think that the risk is the remote workers become like the folks in “provincial” branch offices.
- draebek 2y ago
  Thanks for your comment. I agree with a lot of what you said, in particular that trying to have it both ways (hybrid) often ends up with everyone being frustrated, in my experience. I want to say very clearly that I don't doubt that "grift and fraud" happens. What percentage of the workforce are engaged in this grift? If you have 100 remote workers in your average IT shop at BigCo, how many of them do you think are truly running a scam that would never pass if they were in person? My guess is 3 or less, but that's just a guess. In case it's not obvious, what I'm working towards is: If 3% of your workforce is engaged in grift, but a lot of the other 97% are happier and more productive, is it worth pissing off a substantial portion of that 97% just to shut down the 3%? > The majority of the quality of life improvements are really about time freedom. You’d get most of it by giving employees sufficient paid time and allowing them to use it. This leaves out one of the main things to like about WFH for many (most?) Americans, at least: I get to avoid wasting 30–90 minutes of my day in a stressful commute that comes with its own share of expenses.
bigs 2y ago
This remote colleagues problem is my issue. I don’t mind coming back in (except the cost) but it is very irritating and pointless as I’m a project manager with dispersed teams all across the country (and some in other countries). I come into the office, say hi to a few people I know, get on Teams calls all day in an open plan office with less privacy than at home, then commute home again.
- stego-tech 2y ago
  I know exactly how you feel. I brought up the prior success my team had with a yearly meetup for a week of good, solid, complex work and planning, and suggested teams try to achieve that using the cost savings associated with real estate reductions. That was also promptly shutdown, in favor of two new tech hubs in cheaper countries and a smattering of MSPs.
e40 2y ago
That’s because the reason for return to office is to get people to quit. Simple as that. Soft layoffs.
neilwilson 2y ago
The fix is increased competition or legislation. Just as it is with racial, age or sex discrimination. And before that child labour, slavery and indenture. To learn they have to be beaten in the market place, or the floor of the legislature.
dumbledoren 2y ago
It does look like the exec class has become a new aristocracy that lives in a world separate from the rest of the society - new technofeudal lords. The best solution to this is to create employee-owned private corporations like Huawei: All its shares are owned by its employee union, and the union democratically decides how much dividends to distribute to the employees every year. Easiest worker-ownership setup.

jimt1234 2y ago

> Data alone is not enough to sway these people. True. And, they have their own data that says workers love RTO. My company sends out employee surveys every six months. They claim that employees who work-from-the-office have higher workplace satisfaction scores, and therefore working-from-the-office must be better - the data proves it!

codr7 2y ago
Finally, a good use for those pesky surveys that no one answers, I'm pretty sure the goal from the start was to generate cover for whatever policies they feel like enforcing.
- NAHWheatCracker 2y ago
  At the last place I worked I assiduously filled out those surveys. Twice a year the executives would do an all hands meeting and talk about the result of the recent survey. They would make a big deal out of all the changes they were making. After a few cycles, I noticed that the top problems from the surveys always stayed the same. Then I noticed that the changes they were claiming to make were either half-hearted or were gross misinterpretations of survey results to push their own agendas. Of course the survey results stayed the same, nothing was done to address the problems. After I noticed this, I still filled out the survey, if only because they would track me down and tell me the complete the survey (wait, I thought this was anonymous...). One year I answered 5/5 on every question. The next year I answered 0/5 on every question. The next year I quit.
  - stego-tech 2y ago
    This employer had similar surveys, and the results plummeted after a huge RIF and never really recovered. I was asked to join focus groups for more detailed feedback, and as soon as we gave it, they silently dismantled said groups rather than update us on how the powers that be would be acting on that feedback. All-hands meetings where questions about RTO, attendance policies, and flexible working arrangements were regularly diverted and ignored. That doesn’t even get into the technical concerns I was also fielding as an Engineer, these were areas solely focused on trying to contribute a sense of objective direction to the company like the executives repeatedly bragged about inviting us to do, to “be different” than other businesses. No business is different than the others, not really. Absent accountability, the executives will always act in their own self-interest; since their compensation is mostly stock, that means they will sacrifice the future of tomorrow for the stock bump of today, every single time.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      > the executives will always act in their own self-interest; Yes, and so does everyone else, including me, including you. > since their compensation is mostly stock, that means they will sacrifice the future of tomorrow for the stock bump of today, every single time. When investors discover that a company is eating its seed corn for short term gain, the stock crashes.
nazgul17 2y ago
I wonder whether they adjusted for commute length. I imagine that IF you live close to the office, the RTO is not bad. Plus, if you're close maybe you live in a small apartment and maybe you are single, so the office is also a social place, and having no family means you don't have pressure from other duties.
- oooyay 2y ago
  I lived near an office for a good portion of my career when I was single. The office was definitely not a social spot. Most of the people that liked RTO when HN has been polled were married people with kids. If you're married with kids and live near a tech campus in a major city then I think it's safe to say that you're very wealthy.
bratbag 2y ago
I'm one of those people who is happier when spending some time in the office each week and have said that when surveyed. Don't assume survey results that run counter to your anecdotal experience have been fabricated.
- freehorse 2y ago
  They did not say the results were fabricated, but that they were misinterpreted. If you like being in the office, then your are gonna be more in the office than those who don’t like. It’s not being in the office that causes you liking being in the office, and thus if we force those who are not going in the office to go they will like it.
scott_w 2y ago
I’ve seen employee satisfaction surveys show certain unhappy groups getting happier over time. Which, of course they did, the unhappy ones left!

nine_zeros 2y ago

> Data alone is not enough to sway these people. They have their own agendas that have no concern for their workers' needs or goals. The solution will be collective action, rather than bargaining for basic empathy. Yes, because they don't NEED or WANT to do anything that jeopardizes their position in the executive group-think. Remember that every year they survive, they are going to get 10s of millions. The cost of sticking out for their own reports is too high. They'd much rather their reports kill themselves and their own lives than forego the 10s of millions coming this year. Short term. Also remember that they see their current position as a reward for sacrificing a lot in life. They feel entitled to boss people. People should bow to their command because they reached the top org chart positions. How dare people below them propose anything but loyalty to whatever they want?

try_the_bass 2y ago
The irony in this comment is thick enough you could cut it with a knife. Like many of the other responses in this thread, you're generalizing a small set of experiences to every company, and not even acknowledging that other companies may not work this way I suspect this is due to not wanting "to do anything that jeopardizes [your] position in the [anti-]executive group-think." I have worked for multiple companies that looked for feedback from employees, and claimed to use that information to better the company for those employees. Some actually did, and others did not. Not all of them are the same, and many actually seek feedback in earnest. Meanwhile, you would have me believe that some of the companies I have worked for didn't exist.
- nine_zeros 2y ago
  The irony of your rant is that you are pointing to the other extreme. > Not all of them are the same, and many actually seek feedback in earnest. And many actually seek to retaliate on feedback - as evidence by the parent post. We can both be right but you cannot deny other's experiences and insight. You yourself are aware and have seen other execs who are more interested in self-preservation. So they exist, and are not a rarity. So yeah, nOt EvErY eXeC iS lIkE tHaT - but plenty are and that's what my post intends to highlight to the avid reader. My intent is to highlight the truth and present the reality of what exec position is. And that, leadership is not to be expected by default.

null0pointer 2y ago

They do not use data as a decision making tool. They use data as post-hoc justification for decisions already made.

holografix 2y ago

But you see, you were trying to convince them of entirely the wrong thing. In fact you ended up providing solid reasons to reinforce their belief in RTO. Leadership wants attrition. They want people to quit and if they don’t have to make you redundant and pay you out, fantastic. You just gave them good data points to indicate that a portion of people are likely to do just that. If you upend your whole life and move to a hub then that means you need this job very badly. Guess when you’re getting promoted next? Not soon.

WalterBright 2y ago

If you're correct that WFH is more efficient than work in the office, over time the work in the office companies will be replaced by the WFH ones. Forcing things through collective action that prevent market forces from working are deleterious in the long run. See Europe's moribund economy. > They have their own agendas that have no concern for their workers' needs or goals. That's right. > The solution will be collective action, rather than bargaining for basic empathy. A business is not a jobs program. It's there to create wealth, and if it does not, it goes bankrupt and everyone loses their job. You are always free to quit and join another company more to your liking, or you can quit and start your own business and run it as you please. It happens all the time, and this message board is run by a venture capital firm, looking for startups to fund.

intelVISA 2y ago
Is the market really free enough for WFH vs RTO to be visible?
- WalterBright 2y ago
  As far as I know, there aren't any regulations about WFH vs RTO.
  - harimau777 2y ago
    Regulation isn't the only thing that can make a market unfree. For example, some of the players in the market could be big enough to exert market power.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      The history of business is that companies rise to dominance, are characterized as having unstoppable monopolies, and then they fall. The US business history is full of examples. Like IBM. Walmart. RCA. GE. Cisco Systems. Intel. Ford. AT&T. The only way dominance can be sustained is by using the government to throttle the competition.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

I think there are two things going on, and while I think the Twitter post does a good job of highlighting this core issue, I think it's going to be overshadowed by the "execs can get all this support because they're rich" talk (which is true, just not what I think is the core issue). For some subset of people, work is the most important thing in their lives and it is largely how they identify themselves. As the tweet points out, the vast majority of execs are in this bucket. This is almost by definition - despite what has been popular talk in some corners of the Internet, most execs do work extremely hard, as do most people who get to the upper echelons of their profession. These people essentially want to work more. FWIW, while I'm not an exec, I would put myself in this bucket. On the other side are basically the "work to live" people. While this is a pretty broad bucket (some people may want to spend as little time working as possible, but I think most people in this bucket care about their careers and want to do well, but they still fundamentally see work as a means to an end to achieve goals outside of work), these folks are much more likely to not be execs. They want to do a good job, get paid well, and then go home. So I think both sides talk past each other because they fundamentally have different goals. For people in the first bucket (again, that was definitely me), I grew to hate full-time remote work. I felt incredibly disconnected from my work and my colleagues over time, and my motivation definitely waned over time, and as someone who really identified myself in the context of my profession, that was really tough. But I also don't have kids, and not a lot of responsibilities outside of work, so I can definitely understand the other side of it. I don't think there are any easy answers, but saying "data alone is not enough to sway these people" I think misses the point, because you're only showing data that pushes the viewpoint of your "second bucket" group. Again, to emphasize, not a bad thing, but it doesn't encompass all of the concerns that are in play of the first bucket group.

HeavyStorm 2y ago
First bucket guy here! Work 12 hours days, use a significant amount of my free time to study/learn. I love remote because it saves me 100+ minutes of my life every day. Minutes better spent working. I do miss joining me peers for lunch and Watercooler talk but not worth it.
- 2y ago

Spooky23 2y ago

I love remote work. It made me 20x more productive when I was managing a distributed team of almost 1000 people during COVID - all of our metrics improved. 5 years later I am in a different role, and it’s the exact opposite. Executives represent the company and its interests, and there are some significant issues with the real problem - hybrid. Grift and fraud. Nobody likes to talk about this, but many people are running grifts, from doing nothing, meetings in the supermarket or on vacation, to running multiple jobs. I had a couple working 5-6 different full time jobs together. Another was working offshore using a family member as “remote hands” to keep a device connected in the US. It’s difficult and expensive to police. Hybrid decreases effectiveness. A remote only unit is great, a on-prem unit is great. “Permanent” hybrid is the worst of all worlds. Remote people rely on tools more and they don’t work as well with people in site. Meeting transcripts rely on the different clients to identify speakers, and work poorly in conference rooms, for example. It’s also easy for bad patterns to develop where remote people get cut out by people talking off the cuff in office, or vice versa. The majority of the quality of life improvements are really about time freedom. You’d get most of it by giving employees sufficient paid time and allowing them to use it. Remote first by business unit makes sense too, but I think that the risk is the remote workers become like the folks in “provincial” branch offices.

draebek 2y ago
Thanks for your comment. I agree with a lot of what you said, in particular that trying to have it both ways (hybrid) often ends up with everyone being frustrated, in my experience. I want to say very clearly that I don't doubt that "grift and fraud" happens. What percentage of the workforce are engaged in this grift? If you have 100 remote workers in your average IT shop at BigCo, how many of them do you think are truly running a scam that would never pass if they were in person? My guess is 3 or less, but that's just a guess. In case it's not obvious, what I'm working towards is: If 3% of your workforce is engaged in grift, but a lot of the other 97% are happier and more productive, is it worth pissing off a substantial portion of that 97% just to shut down the 3%? > The majority of the quality of life improvements are really about time freedom. You’d get most of it by giving employees sufficient paid time and allowing them to use it. This leaves out one of the main things to like about WFH for many (most?) Americans, at least: I get to avoid wasting 30–90 minutes of my day in a stressful commute that comes with its own share of expenses.

bigs 2y ago

This remote colleagues problem is my issue. I don’t mind coming back in (except the cost) but it is very irritating and pointless as I’m a project manager with dispersed teams all across the country (and some in other countries). I come into the office, say hi to a few people I know, get on Teams calls all day in an open plan office with less privacy than at home, then commute home again.

stego-tech 2y ago
I know exactly how you feel. I brought up the prior success my team had with a yearly meetup for a week of good, solid, complex work and planning, and suggested teams try to achieve that using the cost savings associated with real estate reductions. That was also promptly shutdown, in favor of two new tech hubs in cheaper countries and a smattering of MSPs.

e40 2y ago

That’s because the reason for return to office is to get people to quit. Simple as that. Soft layoffs.

neilwilson 2y ago

The fix is increased competition or legislation. Just as it is with racial, age or sex discrimination. And before that child labour, slavery and indenture. To learn they have to be beaten in the market place, or the floor of the legislature.

dumbledoren 2y ago

It does look like the exec class has become a new aristocracy that lives in a world separate from the rest of the society - new technofeudal lords. The best solution to this is to create employee-owned private corporations like Huawei: All its shares are owned by its employee union, and the union democratically decides how much dividends to distribute to the employees every year. Easiest worker-ownership setup.