this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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I've never really accepted the theory that return to office pushes are driven by office maintenance costs, or whatever. Hell, those expenses go UP when everyone is back. Working from home takes away electrical usage, and mitigates janitorial demand. If productivity is up or equal, and building maintenance costs are down, then wtf is it really about?
A lot of companies are stuck in long term leases so they're paying rent whether the buildings are being used or not. When out of touch upper management sees cubicles laying fallow they get pissed
Yup, classic sunk cost. We're paying for this, why aren't we using it?
This should get interesting in the next few years when those leases come up due and companies decide they can shrink their office substantially.
That's still weird though. You could still generate more savings from the utilities costs if you don't have your people return to work. The company I worked for actually reduced office space because of the savings.
Imagine what would happen if a bunch of huge fully-remote companies with no office space were told by the government that they now had to buy a building for workers to work in.
Imagine how fast their opinion would switch.
The boss has to feel like he's doing stuff.
It's for the bad boss' ego. Or the boss lives in fear that he adds no value to the organization and wants to hide that from his boss.
Hehe, how is he going to self-promote if there is nobody to see him boss people around?
I'm surprised people aren't aware of the real estate mob. It's the oligarchy who are pushing for return to offices. They have valuable investments in both big companies and the real estate, and they don't want to see the values of their assets going down.
Don't worry, they will divest now while it's propped up. When they are divested and it's suckers holding the bag, they will be fine with wfh.
The dam is broken, there is no going back. It will be different by company and industry but it's not going away.
It's about ego. The boss doesn't know how to make the company perform better, they're all out of ideas. They have to change something to make it look like they're doing something, so RTO is the low hanging fruit.
There's really no more justification needed than that. Looking at practical benefits to explain RTO pushes won't get you answers because the practical benefits are so slim and conditional relative to the strain it creates.
It's all about ego. They self-identity as the hardcore alpha boss that deserves high pay because they "earn" it. So to massage that ego, they go into the office even though they dont need to, and are meeting with nobody there. It's pointless but it feeds their ego.
So they feel alone at the office...and in that worldview they are hardworking (an assumed condition), and nobody else is there, therefore everyone else is not hardworking (regardless of how much work they're actually doing).
I just don't get it. That money has already been spent or guaranteed for the current leases. It's a sunk cost either way. If they end up not needing it that office space then, once those leases are up, that become a cost saving and improve the bottom line of corporate profits right?
Only thing I can think of is that a a considerable percentage of upper management are getting kick backs by property owners who can see what WFH policies mean to their business model, or there are a lot of managers that don't know how to evaluate employee performance based on their deliverables.