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Return-to-office orders look like a way for elite, work-obsessed CEOs to grab power back from employees
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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I think this speculative take is so popular because it gets a rise out of people, but it's much more likely that corporate real estate is just a real big asset on corporate balance sheets, and if everyone panic sells their offices at the same time that market will crash leaving corporations to hold the bag.
I know we want to believe that every senior manager on the planet is fragile masochist who needs to see their employees to feel big and strong and in control, but it's much more likely that this is related to finances.
It can be multiple things.
Real estate costs that they are stuck with. For example, my employer committed to a 20 year lease shortly before the pandemic. They don't have a good exit clause so either those office towers are going to be empty or used, but either way, my employer is paying for them, might as well get use out of them.
Managers that have such a poor understanding of the work that they can't comfortably tell if the work output from their employees is good or slacking. At least being able to see them in person they feel more comfortable that the employee looks more likely to be engaged. It's still possible a slacker is conning them, but at least they aren't as obviously doing so. They may not be masochistic as much as they hired people that know more than they do, and are therefore at a severe disadvantage when evaluating an employee.
As others have pointed out, one mans annoying distraction is another employee's great help. A new hire that needed mentorship. A colleague stuck on a little thing without going out of their way to ask for help in a remote context.
Realistically, having some work from home for morale/better work life balance, and focused individual work and some in person time is probably the most productive scenario.
They get tax breaks from the city to maintain a minimum occupancy. The cities were waiving those requirements during covid, and now they're not. It's that simple. The government and the corpos want their extra money from your pocket and they're insisting on behavior that will get it for them.
Agreed. #1 advice from anyone is "invest in real estate because it's the only thing they're not making any more of." So even if a huge corporation owns nothing and just rents every inch of office space, most likely their investment strategy includes commercial real estate.
Anecdotally, I happen to know of some people who threw a ton of money into local commercial buildings pre-pandemic, because that was the way the investor-class herd was going. These are people that I consider very wealthy, but are small potatoes compared to most of these big corporate CEO types. Now that they own all these buildings, they're squawking because they can't rent them.
I think it can be both commercial real estate holdings, seeing what Big Tech and other prominent CEOs are doing and following their lead, and a way to cutt staff without official layoffs. (Since many people will quit rather than RTO since they no longer live close.to the office, or because they are close to retirement, or they take another position that is WFH or hybrid. I day this because those of some of the reasons my coworkers have quit rather than come in 2 or 3 days a week.)
Very good point about forcing attrition, my only counter argument (for lack of a better word) would be that it's more dangerous than traditional layoffs since you don't get to choose which or exactly how many employees leave, and my guess is that there's reason to believe you'd lose a large number of senior employees who would have an easier time finding a different remote position.
However the benefits of not having to admit to actual layoffs might outweigh these cons for a lot of companies for sure.
Except that work is more than just tech companies and there are other industries with retention issues and they are still trying to get people back into the office because of coordination and training issues. In some cases, they have been far more aggressive than tech companies in this regard.
is there any meaningful difference? why should the lives of millions be worse because execs made fucking bets on office buildings?
I don't think it's ok to post and share inflammatory bullshit to further your agenda, regardless of whether or not I agree with that agenda.
Unfortunately in this case yes, there is a meaningful difference. At a very high level, jobs and the economy are tied to markets. A major upset like a crash in one sector can cause a domino effect as debt goes uncollected and collateral becomes worthless, remember the 2008 housing/financial crisis? Now I'm speculating here, but given that even the US federal government has a vested interest in employees returning to the office, I'm willing to bet that there's a lot more tied up in there than we realize. Corporations and financial institutions fuck up and the working class pays for it.
Don't mistake logical thinking for apathy though, it is bullshit and you should be mad, but without understanding the actual working mechanics you're just giving ragebait articles more clicks. Without spreading the actual source of the problem it'll never be fixed. I'm personally not content with just shouting "eat the rich" over and over on the internet and hoping something changes.
Corporations don't hold real estate unless they are real estate corporations. This theory is a conspiracy theory.
Lol lots of corporations own entire campuses dude.