Why Companies NEED People Back In The Office
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2023
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#career #business #workfromhome
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According to study after study, working from home leads to more efficient workers, less staff turnover, higher quality work, it’s cheaper for workers AND it’s cheaper for the business.
Before Covid-19 high tech companies were already experimenting with the advantages of remote work.
A peer reviewed report from an unidentified NASDAQ listed company ran a trial where half of their call center workforce was randomly selected to work from home and the other half would remain in the office. The group given the opportunity to work from home had higher customer satisfaction, took thirteen percent more calls and suffered fifty percent less staff attrition which is a big issue for call centers which typically struggle with high staff turnover. A follow up study done on workers in a wider selection of roles including finance, marketing and software development had similar results. They compared staff working full time from the office with staff working hybrid schedules from home and the office. That study found that hybrid workers were eight percent more efficient at their jobs and had turnover rates thirty five percent lower than staff working in the office full time. If businesses want to get the most out of their workers the results are clear, more work from home is more better… Working from home is also cheaper for the business.
Office space is expensive to rent or buy. Companies that want all their workers in the office will pay more for utilities like electricity, maintenance, security and internet that workers would happily pay for themselves if they were allowed to work from home. It’s rare that companies turn down better results for less money but in this case there are four reasons that more are demanding their staff come back to the office.
The first reason is that a lot of companies are not doing so well right now, interest rates are high, investors are not throwing money around like they were in 2020 and companies need to make cuts. The easiest and largest ongoing expense for most companies are their employees. If a business is getting less work that usual laying off staff is a prudent business decision.
If a business can cut expenses at the same rate as lost revenue then it may be able to maintain profits to keep shareholders happy. If a business is making less revenue then it also means there’s less work to do so it just won’t need as many staff. The problem is that laying off staff signals to the market that the company is struggling which can affect the share price, make it harder to generate new business, and make it harder to hire new staff in the future. Nobody wants to work for a company that lays off a lot of people on a whim and customers don’t want to work with a company that looks like it might go out of business. What companies really need is a way to get rid of staff without formally laying them off… Business leaders have already seen the studies and they know that forcing people to work from the office leads to higher staff turnover which in this case is exactly what they want.
Investment banks like J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs which have seen declining revenues from less corporate deal activity are forcing all of their staff to return to the office full time. Their official communications stressed the importance of face to face interactions with clients and co-workers. Senior investment bankers from both firms (who love to talk about how much harder they worked when they were analysts) accidentally said the quiet part out loud when journalists contacted them about their firms decision to bring everybody back. A senior manager at Goldman declared to the Financial times that “Goldman does not want to hire people for whom the most important thing is how many days they have to spend in the office.”
At the moment this plan could backfire for businesses. Unemployment is still low and it’s easy for high performing employees to find a new job so managers using this tactic need to be careful or they will be left with nothing but their worst employees… An easy way to get rid of staff without the bad publicity is just the first reason.
So it’s time to learn How Money Works to find why you are going to be forced back into the office even if it makes no business sense.
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You alluded to the idea, but maybe add the distinction of what investors consider profits compared to what we think of as profits? Profits is not really the money made, it's the increased amount of money made compared to the year prior. >stock increases. The companies can and are likely still profitable, but not >as< profitable, so it's a loss on potential revenue.
And also to kill creactivity.
most of these motivations rely on being career focused. the idea of a career is dead for anyone under the age of 30.
Hey man... since I have to go to the office twice a week, I managed my time so I get my 2 days as busy as I could... meaning if I have a task on monday, I would wait for it for the next day... this is the nonsense that Return to Office is all about...
It's not about productivity, it's about control.
As well as justifying owning the office.
Respect mah authoritah.
It's always been about control. A bunch of male Boomers in leadership who hate their wives and children can't stand the idea of the younger people enjoying their home life, so they pull the "I can come in, you have to too" . Once those male boomers are out and there is fresher and more diverse leadership, you won't see this garbage as much.
@@Lonovavir You'd think not having to own an office would cut down on costs...
@@dx-ek4vr Problem is it's sunk cost. They payed for it already. So they want to pretend it's useful.
So basically, managers with the fear of being exposed as being redundant have ruined something good.
Don't all redundant people do that?
That would be accurate.
No, managers with a fear of doing work are ruining everything because they can go back to having employees overhear important information instead of the manager having to use their brain and figure out who needs to know stuff and actually actively communicate it.
Sounds about right
Exactly... gotta pay for the business school ^^
My last company wanted us back in the office after the pandemic even though they knew we were more productive at home. When I asked several times why, the answer always was "we are an office based company". They didn't even try to justify it. Found a job where the company actually asked the employees if they want to continue working from home. Full time remote worker now and couldn't be happier. ❤
That's what I did. We are responsible for our happiness and wellbeing. Do the right thing. Extroverted management is ineffective and is a disease. These people are not taught in "higher education" how to think ....yet that is what they claim.
I don't fully buy into the productivity story. It's true that people who have a certain amount of experience with the company can do very well when working from home. But turnover is a thing even in good times. Some people just want to move on, some retire, some go into parental leave. New people entering have a pretty hard time finding their way when they cannot really learn from example, plus, there are quite a lot of jobs where social control is necessary because the work is just so mind numbing. I think 3 days in plus 2 days out really is a sensible compromise.
many people are willing to take a pay cut to WFH.
The pay cut would probably even out anyway with the amount of money spent on transportation anyway
@@GameFuMaster
$50 in gas per week
$60 in reduced car insurance per month
Mental health improvement is priceless.
I took a pay cut to WFH and never been happier.
"we are an office based company"? What a bullshit non-answer! LMFAO! Why didn't management simply say "because we said so"? That would've been straight foward.
I used to spend at least 2 hrs a day in traffic. Work from home has been life changing. Wasting so much of my time was seriously depressing that the week before COVID hit and our offices were forced to be WFH I contemplated ending it. Now I actually feel happy about my life.
I feel the same way. Covid actually saved my life in a few different ways
@@bpnation37it really feels horrible to say, but my work situation from commute to pay has gone so much better thanks to covid
2 hours? Bay Area? 😢
The elite don't care.
They literally don't care how much meat is fed into the grinder, as long as it keeps shitting money out the other end.
When is enough enough?
Damn. Your life ain’t worth much, the next personal crisis and you’ll well on your way to the other side.
The main reason is that if we keep working from home the shareholders will finally realize that 70% of all managers are useless waste of company resources.
No. This is the lie we need to stop spreading.
Middle managers aren't forcing almost all media outlets to write articles condemning WFH. Middle managers don't make much more than you, how are they gonna take over the media?!!
It's billionaires with real estate heavy portfolios. They are gaslighting the shit out of us and comments like yours just turn coworkers against each other.
The elite that doesn't want to sacrifice anything and that wants the poorest of us to make all the sacrifices... they are the true enemy and NEVER FORGET IT!
Or maybe you just dont realise how bad you are at organizing yourselves and your stupid "agile" methods...
I'v found at my two jobs since the lockdowns that at both, the CEO/CFO (and a small few higher ups like controller, directors, ect) were the ones pushing for office and the remaining mid and lower level employees wanted WFH. I think it has to do with control and image.
Yep, it's a lot harder to quietly blow company money on useless expenses when everybody is at home.
Bingo !!!
I love how all the interviews with executives about forcing people back to the office, have them in calling in from home.
I retire in 4 years. The plan is working better than expected. I will lick boots and save every penny while bowing for my final encore with these corporate masters. Young people will rise up.
My company's head of HR (who's become the primary spokesperson for forcing employees back into the office) works remotely from 4 states away
During the pandemic I was working a retail job and nothing pissed me off more than having company execs calling us back to work as "essential workers" in a video recorded from their home office
@@BrandonGiordanoI agree
@@KS-qq7mrtell them you will go in when they go in
I work for a major insurance company, and we're definitely not being forced to go back to the office. Not only have the top execs repeatedly said that they're fully committed to in-person work being optional for like 99% of people, but they've actually sold some of their former office real estate and consolidated the remaining buildings into unassigned seating. Nice to be in a company that has its head screwed on straight.
I can't imagine how much money that company saved by downsizing their real-estate, and making that fall on their employees. Also not having to pay as high of a premium for insurance for the potential slip and falls.
Our company did the same thing. It's doing better than ever.
Hmmm seems times are changing. I work for the Hartford and they dropped a bombshell on the company, basically if your 25 miles from an office, your being forced back into office 3 days a week. Doesn't matter if you where hired full remote no say so at all! People are FURIOUS for good reason. Their reponse was "flowing with market trends" yea what a load of shit. I suspect they had this plan since last year or more. What company you work for? Your about to get a lot of Hartford folks applying for sure!
@@jmabs5096that is evil. It shouldn't be a requirement to come in the office at all. But if you live within 5-10 miles of the office, there can be optional perk-day events once a week if you WANT to come in to meet your coworkers in person, like if you have to know they are flesh and blood human beings and not some chatGPT persona slacker running 10 minimal-effort side gigs from the shadows of a VPN.😂 I imagine most jobs who require a human element will want to do proof-of-life check-ins, but forcing people into an office is outdated and boorish.
I believe eventually all company will have to get into line, but maybe it will takes for decades because of a few egoists.
A lot of managers are extrovert who get energized by being with people. They go nuts sitting at home alone. If they don’t have life outside of corporate ladder climbing. Introverts get inner peace being home alone. Covid really highlighted this polar difference. I loved not going to work so much that so retired early. It has been 2 years and I still don’t do much daily.
Bingo. I'm back working retail temporarily and hate it because it's a bunch of extroverts, some of which literally never stop talking.
If they get energized by being around people, then they should work at a fast food restaurant.
They also power trip hard on having a position of power over others, so losing out on that daily is a hit to their egos.
❤
Interesting theory
Underrated aspect of WFH is less lawsuits for the company. For example, sexual harassment goes down since all online chat is easily tracked by writing.
Not that any company in which sexual harassment lawsuits are a noticable expense should even exist in the first place
Only ones complaining are the ones needing to handle these kind of things which are managers and HR. Most of the time those people are also the friends and family of the boss/ceo/board members
Yep, not gonna talk your way out of it when you're on Teams chat typing in, "Hey, baby! I need some sugar!! But first, how about taking that top off?!"
*fewer, not less :P
Sure, but most disputes go to arbitration anyways bc the employee signed the right to sue away when they were hired. That’s assuming this even gets to that level. HR is not your friend and there are some great videos on this topic you should search. HR has a huge conflict of interest I don’t think people really consider
My company is located in an expensive city that no one but the partners can afford to live in. We used to commute in every day, but during the pandemic we stopped and our lease ran out. The partners rented a new office deeper in the core so that they could walk to work, but now it's 90 minutes commuting for the closest non-partner to come in. The money could've paid a raise to everyone, but instead it's being spent on a tree fort with a 'no poors allowed' sign on the front. Sometimes it all comes down to ego.
If by sometimes you mean 90% of the time then I'm with you on that
Not a “tree fort”…😂😂😂😂😂
Sounds like it's time for non-partners to vote with their feet...
Aww
That must be some REALLY good pay to put up with a 90+ minute commute.
There have to be competitors you can work at.
Working from home has completely changed my life for the better. If my company, which I truly enjoy and appreciate, forced a return to office I would immediately start looking for a remote job, even if it meant a pay cut.
That is a sentiment echoed by many MANY people these days and companies are aware of it. That's why some are forcing RTO because they WANT people to quit. The smarter companies that can offer roles which can be done remotely will be wise to keep it that way moving forward. The rest will simply force a RTO knowing full well that many will quit and that's the plan.
If mine insisted I would retire
nice
I would not be surprised if the Federal Government imposes in-office work for the private sector. Either that, or tax breaks for in-office work. One way or another, the government is going to punish people for not being dependent on commuting, parking, restaurants, fuel, all those taxable events that are avoided while working from home.
Same
I have social anxiety and when I was working from home I had 2 promotions. I excelled so much when someone wasn’t on me, watching my back 24/7
Can you blame them? You are a looker. ❤
@@strategygalactic creep
Working from home = working
Working at the office = spending 50% of my time talking to colleagues and management and being dragged into random conversations that don't benefit the company.
In the end that's their loss so I'm fine with that.
However.
When I work from home I am more productive and I can do chores in between work effectively giving me more free time when I'm done working meaning I experience more freedom and less stress. That's a big win for me. So I much prefer working from home.
Also saves you commute and prep for work time. Can be 3-4h a day that you are not paid for.
Doing chores in between work it isn’t more efficient for employer, it is for you, the time you spend doing chores is supposed to be time spent working for the company - that’s exactly why they want back to office - ppl are taking advantage.
@@20-NYC you don't get breaks at your job 😮
Jokes aside: I'm more productive while doing these things. In my 15 minute breaks I can do some mild cleaning / doing some dishes. Instead of wasting half an our getting coffee (because you know how that works at the office) I can prep some small tasks at home.
It's also proven that humans are pretty bad at working on issues for an extended time. It's recommended to get up and walk every hour / two hours even if it's just for a minute to get a little bit of rest. A lot of people take "cigarette breaks" at the office. As a non-smoker instead of standing outside and smoking for 10 minutes I'll spend 2 minutes prepping my 3D printer and starting prints and every hour or something I'll do a physical check on it. That way I both get some movement and do something productive for myself and it's a heck of a lot faster than the things my colleagues do at the office.
Working yourself to the point of a burnout ultimately is much more expensive to the business. Well at least here in the Netherlands where we have laws that protect workers.
@@SyntheticFuturecompletely agree. In my work I'll often have time where I'd just be sat watching my computer compile and run some code I've written - rather than sit there watching it I'll go and hang some clothes out to dry or start dinner cooking.
These are small things that free up so much of my time for the evenings and weekends - it gives a much better work/life balance and means I'm less likely to burn out. Better for me and the company.
@@20-NYC > ppl are taking advantage
Problem is that's just straight up misperception. When you work from home you take 5 minutes to load the dishwasher after having to get up to take a leak. When you're at the office you spend 15 minutes talking to a coworker about the game last night. So now you've "taken advantage" of even more time while accomplishing even less.
Oh and you still have to load the dishwasher, so that's another 5 minutes you may have otherwise worked overtime or started early. In addition to all the wasted commute time.
People fuck around just as much - perhaps more - at the office than they do at home. (Well, most people anyway. There's always the exception when we're talking about "everybody" but there's the exception in the other direction too - people who can focus great at home but are eternally distracted at the office.)
This is why data is important. We have assumptions, biases and fear on the "taking advantage" side of the argument, and actual real-world evidence showing WFH is even more productive overall. Your fear-based ideological approach is costing your company money. (Probably. Again, this is a generalization but the data doesn't lie and your company is far more likely to be average than one of the outliers.)
I think one of the reasons is psychological. Managers want to feel respected and in a more powerful position than everyone else and when people are at home, they can't really see the subordinates step on egg shells around them, or see the look of distress, fear, and uncomfortableness in their eyes, so managers wanted the workers back on site to give them that ego boost
Absolutely
Y’all have some terrible managers. A good manager makes a world of difference, they shield workers from bullshit, coordinate their team and by extension increase productivity.
But I guess it’s cool to hate on managers.
@@HenryChewings lol found the useless middle manager
@@darkhobo I had a great manager at my current job, he went to bat for his employees, gave us the support needed and encouragement, and we as a team did some amazing work. After 20 years+ with the company his manager, who came from a small acquisition decided he could lay him off because his success was making the other managers look bad. Now im stuck with a petty tyrant of a manager whose understanding of the business and his employees work is rudimentary at best. I am now looking for a new job. Management does make a difference.
well, what about the poor managers? they're people too, ya inconsiderate ass.
I love not having the unnecessary commute. I love being able to control the temperature in my space. I'm introverted and extremely productive when I'm not interrupted for idle non-work related chit-chat.
High five! 😉😆
It's like a bird that flies out of the cage into the garden or the forest. It never wants to come back to the cage again. The truth is, people hate commuting, gas costs, parking, being late due to traffic, flat tires, bad A/C in the summer, road rage, driving, they want to grab a snack when they are hungry and they enjoy just waking up, working and getting paid without all the other annoyances found in offices.
I work in labs. I have to go in because that's where the equipment is.
If you can work from home, chances are you don't really do anything. You're going to bitch and moan when your work is moved to India, or a chatbot starts doing it.
@@aluisious How disingenuous this is... I also used to work in wet labs but now I do research that can mostly be done remotely in a different field. Is that "not really doing anything?" Also would you similarly argue that the armchair scientists analyzing GenBank and other repositories are "doing nothing?" GTFO here.
Btw when you are writing a research paper, guess what, THAT WORK CAN BE DONE REMOTELY. Your "specialized equipment" is your computer.
Something no one ever talks about is how remote work is more accessible to those with disabilities. I mean, I'm not surprised no one talks about it, but a huge portion of the population has some kind of disability and that's a large pool of talent left out of the workforce just so upper management can feel like they're wearing their big boy pants. Maybe we should make company turn-over rates more accessible so job seekers and investors can have a more accurate view of how a company is doing.
Yes! This is so true. It also applies to carers and parents. It really bothers me when companies spend huge amounts of time and money on diversity training and then force people to return to the office. It clearly demonstrates that they don't care about diversity or about supporting their workforce.
@@kristinagorkovskaya3412 Of course not! It's all about the money.
You raise a good point. Many of these employees likely have their homes set up very well for their needs. And their caregivers are with them. Even if their employer does a good job of providing accommodations, it's still not the same as the resources they have at home.
Exactly my boyfriend has a disability he can't stand up without help & he has a high fall risk. He used to take a bus & uber just to get to work & sometimes he would fall but there would be someone to pick him up passing by. The company didn't allow him to get help from other coworkers so he had to learn to get up from his cubicle on his own. Then Covid happened & he stopped going to work & found a remote job, & has been doing remote jobs ever since. It's way easier for him & since his condition is progressive meaning he can't even get up on his own anymore, I have to help him out at home so luckily I was able to get a remote job in my field. These companies don't think about that.
My disability makes office spaces a living nightmare for me, to the point that if I'm in office I can only manage part time work. When we moved to WFH, suddenly I could handle 40 hour weeks. I am eternally bitter that people want me to ruin my life again just to be petty tyrants in person.
Given various comments made by CEOs and politicians, I'm pretty sure #1 is managers feeling they're not successful if they can't wander the halls lording over employees like a 19th century mill owner
Whaaaaaat's happeniiiing... I'm going to have to have you come in on Saturday...
And this spotlight points straight up to the top. Eventually people will start to recognize their CEO's dont actually do anything of value either, just take all the credit while they golf on a Wednesday at 1pm and have their assistant plan the steakhouse dinner that same night before booking a first class flight to a partner's city to do the same thing all over again.
@@ticenits1926 so true!
@@constantineblinkov2972 Yyyyyeahhh if you could put the cover on the TPS reports that'd be greeeeaaaaat.
As a manager, I can assure you that’s the last thing I want to do. Not sure what put this “managers want to spend their time coming after us” story in your head, but that’s the only place it’s at…in your head.
I'm an American living in Japan and this explains exactly what is happening here; companies requiring employees to return to the offices. And a lot of it is that the managers wanting to be important. When I worked at Toyota the required their contractors to be close their factories or their headquarters. One exception to this was Hitachi. It has an automotive department that is located on the east side of Tokyo even though none of the car companies are located there. When Suburu people have to meet with them, they have to travel to Suburu's offices in western Tokyo. Toyota people have to take a 4 hour train trip and usually end spending the night there. They could disperse their offices to be near their clients, but then the managers wouldn't have less control. Japan is the master of managers being in control!
(It really is sad. My co-workers were so happy during pandemic. Before they would have to get up at 6 am to get on the train and get to work before 8 am and couldn't leave before their manager so they ended up staying in the office often until 9 or 10 pm. Working at home, they got up around 7:30, we on the computer at 8, and stopped working at 5 or 6 pm. No commuting, crowded trains, and more freedom to do what they wanted to do. Some signed up for online classes. All that is gone now).
Perhaps no work force on planet Earth could benefit more from WFH than the Japanese office workers. Thanks for sharing!
@Jalreal was going to day basically the same thing, it p4obably is the only solution to their messed up work culture.
Never underestimate the need for people to make themselves feel important by looking out at a sea of people who have to do what you tell them to do...especially when one of your purposes for hiring them was to have someone to do all the menial tasks you've decided you're too important for. Really hard to get someone to run an errand for you when they're far away.
Like the boss asking one of their underlings to buy a scarf for his wife when it's actually for his favorite secretary with big knockers. The 9 to 5 movie knew how full of BS working at an office is.
I always want to hire people to do the menial tasks that I don't want to do. Fuck menial tasks!
In a nutshell: the system wants the little guy to make the sacrifice, not the other way around.
Always. When is the last time you heard of a company doing layoffs where the corporate leadership was the first to volunteer to go. Nope. Front line gets the boot and c-suite gets the bonus for cutting costs.
@@jamessessions5374 I think there was a Japanese company (maybe it was Nintendo) where the CEO took the financial hit for the company's under-performance a few years back...
True.
If your employer is a publicly traded company, look at the top shareholders (holders that have the most shares) and you will see a list of companies that matter more than the employees. You know, the employees that do the actual work and generate the profit. Companies will cut and run their employees ragged if it means squeezing out 1% more profit for their shareholders.
It's time for things to change. Workers need to have more control in the workplace. It ain't the shareholders placing orders, emptying boxes, fixing system errors, quoting parts, updating drawings, or packing boxes. It's us, the workers.
Fuck the shareholders.
@@Jakster840I agree
FINALLY the guy who gets it.
The ones that live in luxury truly will do anything, not just to maintain their luxury. They will never lose it, EVER.
No, they actually expect us to sacrifice more and more so they can actually continue INCREASING their wealth forever.
It's disgusting and they need to be stopped. By force if necessary.
My company sold a bunch of their buildings and gave away a ton of furniture to our employees. They make sure to let us know that they're never planning on sending us back to office. They have kept a couple of buildings for certain things, but I'm safe and won't go anywhere.
Awesome company
@@jameskeefe1761 Absolutely. They gave us two raises in the past year. First raise was the regular one, then they came back and gave us more because they did research and found out they were paying us less than the market.
@@MyReviews_karkanWow how's the turnover rate
@@Castleton. I have only heard of one coworker quitting. It was too hard and she couldn't handle the tech
@@MyReviews_karkanwhich company is that
I was hired during the pandemic and my job was WFH. Then it changed to hybrid and my level of stress and anxiety immediately increased. I lost 2 hours a day to a stressful commute. I left that job in August, started my own virtual practice (I'm a therapist), and am now 100% WFH again. I love it! My quality of life is so much better and my mental health has improved a lot. I can't ever imagine having a boss or sitting in an office again. Never gonna happen. If you can go into business for yourself, take the leap and do it.
At one point, people were afraid of incorporating email into the work force. They were afraid emails could get tapped into and have information stolen. Its the same thing here. Companies are afraid to modernize.
I mean, it was a valid concern AT THE TIME. I think more companies in the past sent out detailed memos. Nowadays, important messages are transmitted via calls, not official, well-written memos. If we still did memos, I'd be more concerned about leaks
My company had a WFH policy for two years, during which they hired almost non-stop. When they told everyone to come back, there was inadequate parking and not enough desks to sit at. The traffic patterns for my commute changed for the worse. Fortunately I was in a position where I could resign. Working from home had saved gas, commute time and allowed flexibility. It improved quality of life which is worth something to me. My last performance review was above average, but my manager informed me their were no WFH policy exceptions. I couldn't see sitting in traffic five days a week, dealing with finding a parking spot or searching for a desk in their "open office" setting.
Yeah, not worth it mate. 1 life, don't give it to some asshole corporation.
No parking, expensive city so everyone has to commute 1.5hrs/day.
No more offices.. now "hotel offices" since they're cramming so many more people in. And this is a non-profit research institute. The researchers aren't making tons of cash here..
Everyone I know is much more productive from home without having to use fossil fuels to get their job done.
Same, my job is requiring 3 days a week now. I live quite far away, my commute is nearly 2 hours, and when I show up there’s not even enough desks for me to sit at 🤷🏻♂️ I can’t sit on a little futon all day and actually get anything done…
@@ajmarion let that bite the company in the butt
A little Malicious compliance never hurt nobody
We must never give these things up. We will never get them back again once we do.
OMG everyone I talk to at my place does NOT want to go back into the office. Only the higher ups do. For everyone else, it means hours of travel + costs and less efficiency. And for those with kids, they need to go from being able to help their kids all day long to only seeing them for a few hours a day. How is that good for society???
of course no one want to go back to office, you have eyes on you while in office. and you can do whatever you want at home. if people can be productive as in office, no employers will ask you to come back to office.
It’s not good for society. It is a benefit only for senior and upper management. Study after study has shown that workers are more productive and stay at a company longer if they work from home, but then how can your micromanaging boss bully you?
@@jackli6592 right at the beginning the video said that productivity is up lol
@@jackli6592 I can do nothing just as well in the office, as i can at home, that's no argument. At the end of the day I still have to have something to show for my work. So if I do nothing at home, I have nothing to show, so... no, you can't do whatever you want at home.
- I am more relaxed and awake, because I can sleep longer and have more free time by cutting out the commute.
- I am way more incentivized to work longer hours, and they are not as hard to do, because I am at home when I finish, and don't have a commute in front of me.
- I am less stressed about having those eyes on me every time. Surveillance is not strictly a good thing, for a big portion of people....
- I am more focused, because I don't have colleagues talking behind me. Or interrupting me in the middle of my work.
- It WAY better for the environment. If you'd cut out all the commuters, that could work from home, from traffic, you'd get pretty empty streets like at the start of the pandemic, less cars on the street are a good thing!
... as someone that was a lot more productive at home, your argument is not a valid one. It might be that some people can not work from home, but that should not affect those that could.
@@cheers9430 you can anything you want but it won't change the fact productivity is much much lower to the point where companies are willing to spend more money on rent, utilities, etc together people back to office. Unless you think all the CEOs are just dumb.
My company went 100% remote during the pandemic. Probably the best decision they could have made. They can hire people from all over the country and were able to sell their corporate office building, which someone turned into an automotive museum.
Your company will go bankrupted soon
It really does open up a companies talent pool when they do that if they can.
It’s again a non rational decision that humans make to get people to come in.
The portion of the video talking about career motivation made me snort. You can do the jobs of 2-3 people and not even get a raise, let alone a promotion. I've seen so many of my seniors and managers leave their jobs because the company keeps hiring new people instead of promoting anyone. At least in my industry the corporate ladders has had all its rungs removed.
Yeah, I lived my entire life with that same BS premise. "Put in the work! Get noticed! You'll go far!" and all I ever saw was more work, doing the roles of 2-3 people for 1 person's salary, and though I was known by name at some of the highest levels of the organization (for the right reasons) I never got a promotion. Ever. Just more work. Don't fall for the hype. The more you do for your solo wage, the more they'll give you to do and you'll never see any benefit other than a "Hey! Good job!" which doesn't now nor will it ever pay the bills.
Yep. Anyone reading this-don’t let them take advantage of you. All the promises and insinuations mean nothing. They blow smoke up your ass to keep you chasing that big promotion that will never come. They’ll just dangle it in front of you as long as you let them. Words and promises mean nothing. If they’re not taking action or “putting pen to paper”, they’re blowing smoke up your ass.
At my last job, I put in 70-80 hours a week-every week-for years. I missed family get-togethers, birthdays, holidays, funerals, etc. I worked with some of our biggest clients (such as the US Air Force), went on-location, and consistently delivered positive results that made the company boatloads of cash. I built countless internal tools, implemented processes, and defined procedures that the company still uses/has in-place today and heavily relies on. All the while, the Founder & CEO promising me promotions, bonuses, raises, etc-none of which ever materialized.
Instead, one day out of the blue, my laptop was suddenly cut off, followed by a call from my boss (Founder & CEO) letting me know he was terminating my employment. He didn’t even offer any explanation whatsoever. Just said, “I’m letting you know that you are no longer employed with [company], effective immediately. Take care.” That was literally all he said and then hung up. This was during the pandemic and he knew my wife had lost her job a week prior and that we were down to a single income. After everything I had done, the man had the audacity to fire me without explanation, knowing full-well my wife and I would have no income-or health insurance-to support us or our child during a fucking pandemic.
Bosses do not give a single shit about you. Period.
exactly this.
Word got out in my old job that, after inflation, instead of giving everyone raises to match inflation... they just increased the base pay for NEW HIRES.
a bunch of us left within weeks of finding out and confirming
I've worked remotely for the past 11 years (at the same company). The company has never paid for office space so they can afford to pay us a home office stipend and good bonuses. Granted they are privately owned so they are not under pressure to please the board and shareholders with quarterly profits and can do right by their employees. Modern company management is trash and the economic system incentivizes this.
Getting rid of the offices increases profits and Lowers overhead, and also productivity and morale. I think the problem is that some people have interests in commercial real estate and want to force people back into them even though it lowers profits, makes everyone miserable, lowers productivity, hurts employee health, leads to emotional fatigue and burnout, etc
Do you mind if I ask where you work? Currently looking for a remote job as well but haven’t had much luck.
There are obviously some occupations that benefit from some in person/office collaboration. Like others have mentioned some company management to justify job security needs to present the illusion they are needed and/or important. They manipulate upper management into believing that productivity can be raised with their direct oversight. Only going to happen with certain types of employees and probably not sustainable for long.
Employees are key to the companies success. The time is here for change and companies need to respect and appreciate the people responsible for allowing executives to get paid well.
Capitalism is both an economic *and* political system. The system is the sickness.
yes, if everyone did this the real estate business will plummett and they dont want that ha, also the control and redundancy of high paying nepotistic positions.
I love how one of the major reasons is literally the sunk costs fallacy. The money they spent for the office is already gone, so what good does it do to come back to office if productivity lowers? You're just gonna lose even more money!
I think it goes to show just how shallow companies are. They could capitalise on the increased productivity of their employees, but no the work of their employees is secondary to "the image" of productivity (i.e. how some bigshot CEO justifies their next raise to their peers).
I already paid for the gasoline, so I may as well use it to burn my money.
Exactly, they should let ppl continue to work from home and let the small amount of ppl who enjoy in office work, work in office
No. That's not so simple. The point is that not only they have already paid, but that if they don't "utilize" the assets, they will lose more. So, it's not about money paid in past, it's about preventing a "future loss" and that's NOT the sunk cost fallacy.
@@muhammadsiddiqui2244 But assets don't lose value just because they aren't being used? Sure, if nobody uses commercial real estate it's obvious that it falls in value, but it's not about a single company not using office space anymore. So it is indeed sunk costs fallacy because A. You are less productive. B. You have to pay the bills for electricity, maintenance, etc... And just using it won't increase its value. As the video explained, the reason managers don't want to sell offices is to not take a loss on the asset sell compared to evaluation. So, as explained in the video, they hide the problem by saying they actually need offices, thus force people back to work to not realize the loss on the asset value of the office space.
I program for a living and work from home 100% of the time. My company isn't even based in my state, and a very large percentage of us are based out of the state, so there won't be any "calls to bring us all in". THANK GOD! They ask me to get work done at a certain time, I do it, everyone is happy. My wife and I already have our house, but if I was single, I would SERIOUSLY consider simply leaving the country altogether. Why not work in Costa Rica or Medellin Colombia or somewhere in Panama, where the weather is great and you can live like a king for a fraction of the cost and save more?
I personally feel that is the reason why companies want employees to come back into the office. If you've been able to save extra from the time you're 24 until 54 and you have the option of retiring at 54, they no longer have you by the balls. Desperate employees are ones who will do what they're told. But if you're 54 and you have $1.3M saved for retirement and your boss is demanding more from you, you might just say, - you know what? - why don't I hang out in Ecuador for the next six months? Maybe I've retired, who knows. But I have "fuck you" money at this point and don't need to take shit from a boss who keeps demanding more and more and more. It's a lot harder to get to that point when you're spending $500 a month for your train ticket and buying lunches and maintaining your wardrobe.
Especially that “companies are not doing well” i’ve experienced it many times because suddenly shareholders and management start looking for reasons where to improve while they are out of touch with the actual company day to day
Nope. I can't get falsely accused when I work from home and all my communication is via e-mail. Begone! And they can't force me into doing their job for them.
But-but we got a new ping pong table!
Falsely accused of what?
I think that "falsely accused" goes beyond the sexual conotation (at least i thought that). For efficiency, work ethic or even "lazying around".
There is a lot of people with stories of their managers, coworkers or even non-emploees falsefuly accusing them just to be prejudicial
@@joaop4585 don't forget accusations to make wagetheft easier
@@woodside4life Yeah, that's another reason :D I hate the corporate kindergarten culture.
To shareholders: “we achieved excellent results as we maintained efficiencies during remote work”
To employees: “we require everyone back in office due to lack of efficiency from remote work.”
We all know it’s just a power play/protecting your personal real estate investments ya hypocrites 🙃
Yup. It’s literally about the real estate
And control. All the managers pushing for all staff to return are quite frankly crap managers. They cannot control what they cannot see because they do not really know how to lead. They do not really care about what work is done or done well, it is about being able to see a butt in a seat and ultimately control all the time.
A lot of mostly empty office buildings out there. I was in one a few weeks ago, it was 3 stories tall and had room for 150 employees. Myself included there were ten people in the office.
@@Lonovavir My job mostly hired people that aren't even in the city, so when they announced earlier this year that we'd have to work in the office two days of the week, there's only about five of us, usually. Two days out of five isn't too horrible, and there's a lot of other perks with the job that I've ot had before, but if it becomes 5 days a week, I sadly will be looking for remote employment anywhere I can.
@James Goodman My company built a 25 story office right before COVID. I visited last year before RTO and I think there were 10 people in the entire building 😂
It's pretty simple. Middle management has to justify their existence. If you got your assignments and did your work, cheaply and effectively from home, why would they need to have people who specialize in roaming around the cubical farms asking "So, that thing we had you working on, how's it coming?" all day long?
I worked for a company that wanted everyone back in the office 3 days a week. Management said being in the office was important for "collaboration". In reality, pre-pandemic, most people were chained to the desks. There was a small cafe in the building, but even so almost everyone would get lunch and eat at their desk while working. This company was also filled with managers who couldn't assess your productivity unless they saw your butt in a cubicle.
It was a complete joke.
From my experience it's just a power move. Back in 2021 my manager wanted us to come in mostly because he didn't have anything to do except watch us work. It was so obvious to us that he really brought no value to the company
it is already value added when he doesn't try to create drama in the office to create his own importance.
this is usually when you try to find a new company to work for.
@@boyblue3270 Bro his employees probably don't even know he's gone cause they've never even met him 😂😂
@@GamingSkeptic how does someone even get a manager role or that type of position if they dont do anything or arent good at the role?? I'm about to enter the work force later this year and im stressing out so much because i didn't have any internships or related field experience
@@ShawnFX you can get promotions when you switch jobs. Most companies claim to promote internally on paper but never actually do it irl
Also, people forget about coworker comiseration. Working alongside your coworkers in person allows you to more easily vent and complain to each other, causing a decline in mood/attitude. Working from home there's less chance of that as you're focused on your work, and not conversing with a coworker. There's too many distractions in office, especially if it's an open floor plan and your job is 90% online customer meetings. I'm sure the customers don't appreciate the background noise.
This is absolutely a significant part of it. My team itself was fine but there's a big team that sits right next to us where I'm pretty sure 80% of the staff had left since we started coming back to the office last year. Why? Because it got easier to see (from the rest of us on the floor) just how badly they were getting underpaid relative to their work and contribution.
I've had experience talking with the office dullard. I rather spend the time getting a root canal than hear my coworker drone on about his hobbies, or lack thereof, of people-watching at a goddamn casino.
Yeah or you guys could have helped each other and when having question solve it together. Its really shocking to me to see everyone has such toxic workplaces 😳
Complaining at work or to coworkers is always a bad idea
They will take your words and spread the word
At least cubicles gave people privacy. When they took those away the quality of work declined.
I work with accounting in Sweden and i recently changed job. The recruiter i was in contact with helped me get in touch with a bunch of companies that were offering remote work. I explicitly told her i would not be interested in a company that do not offer any sort of remote work, which she told me that those companies are not able to recruit anyone and that basically 90% of companies she help find new employees for offer remote work.
As a working mother of two small children, I need RTW about as much as I need a third t*t. I’m tapped out as is, I don’t need another way for an employer to suck additional work out of me for the same pay, or build resentment as I twiddle my thumbs at my desk once I’m done with my tasks for the day. With work from home 4 days a week and 1 day a week in office, I get more done, still get to know my coworkers, get all in office admin work done in that one day, and have time to buy groceries, wash clothes, make meals, and do doctors visits for my kids - plus whatever nonsense life throws at me. WFH forever.
The ability to work remote, even if only at times, is truly life changing. As a single guy with no family, I’ve been able to see the world in a way I never imagined, and even pursue projects of my own in other parts of the country, things I could’ve never done before. I’ve realized that this is more important to me than my compensation.
Absolutely!!
see? they don't want you to have that.
How can a person get a remote job? I need one.
@@chance52694 OK. That's useful information.
it's truly life-changing in every respect. my car is only used for groceries and entertainment now. i save hundreds in gas. i work from Starbucks, i record songs in between meetings or watch movies before work. There is no going back.
My job tried to install a two day in office policy. Many people, myself included, were only coming in one day a week because our teams were flexible and that was all we really needed.
Recently they pushed it to 3 days when it was already 4 days before the pandemic. They said it would be used as a performance metric, although not heavily weighed, and could result in decreased compensation.
Well considering my feedback reviews have always been positive and our office is facing a huge staffing shortage and turnover problem, I am calling their bluff and sticking to one day. Worst case scenario they don't promote me or give me a crap raise and at that point, someone with my background has tons of better options for hybrid position.
Decreased compensation for not being in office but still working and doing the same tasks as everyone else. Seems like discrimination to me :) seems like an unlawful thing of them to do.
Well, that's an asshole policy 😂. And it goes to show that there's no reason that's a benefit to the employee for going back in.
Under the circumstances, you might consider moving now.
I love it, take the power back fellow laborer 💪🏼
It's the same everywhere, it's all bluff, because they say that but in the same time we have crisis map to manage worker shortage in my company, lmfao.
It's manager and upper layers who refuse to ack that their workplace is a shitty one or that other companies are paying higher salary, so they just put their heads in the sand and say "it's because of remote work that we don't have the same result as before" when we are clearly under staffed, turn over everywhere (if it's a cashier it's fine, but a software engineer, it's all the knowledge who goes with him)
Being forced to office would be an immediate reason for me to quit. I will go to office to socialize a day or two during the week but only if I have the time. I'm much more productive at home and I feel much more relaxed.
In Feb '20 Hulu had a brand new, 3 floor suite custom made in downtown SEA (cut through the concrete floors to connect them). In Mar '20 employees were told to not return to the new office due to pandemic. June '23 the office is 90% empty on a daily basis, excluding special events, and Disney decided to axe the custom building because across the street they have another office. Now ~500 ppl are expected to return to this office 4 days a week when it can barely hold half of that. Luckily most managers are ignoring the CEO's demands (on the tech side) and continue to work remote because it is physically impossible to fit hundreds of people in an office with thousands of devices.
Watching this from my cubicle. My job could 100% be done from home but they want me in meetings twice a day that have nothing to do with my project.
HQ needs to justify having the office space.
This is corporate culture in a nutshell.
Oh no twice a day? I don't think I even talk to my internship manager / colleague two times per day, and I actually like him (We also speak during breaks but we don't talk about work during breaks). With his manager I talk on tuesdays since that is the only day he is there, and once per two weeks out part of the company has a conversation with the director (but not the past 4 weeks because he is on holiday)
At my other job we had a meeting once per day, it was some 15 minutes or so.
At my other other job I worked in a restaurant so we didn't need meetings.
These meetings can’t be attended remotely?
@@blargithonify Of course they can, they are meetings
My job was hybrid before Covid. Very hybrid. Like my boss told me he doesn’t care if I work from the beach 5 days a week. We transitioned to full remote shortly after Covid hit and never turned back. We’re a tech company though so it probably makes more sense for us.
I was trying to throw a fashion show before covid
Still working?
I spent the last ten years of my working career working from home. I was able to do more (and better) work from home since I did not have any distractions. The company I was working for merged with another company and I was informed I would be expected to come into the office to work (a commute of 70 miles one way). I decided to take an early retirement instead (that was 12 years ago). I never understood why they wanted me to travel to the office when I had a record of doing my job from home, that is until now. It makes sense now that they in fact encouraged me to quit as it got rid of one person and they did not have to fire (with all the complication associated with that).
When you think about it, saving the time and energy taken up by comuting, which can be pretty arduous in some cases, probably accounts for most of the WFH productivity gains
The ceo of my company told me a big reason was to justify the expense of rent, but the thing that irked him most was that when working remote, you can job hop a lot easier because it’s just a different company laptop out of your same room, so more convenient to change jobs. I don’t mind working out my my office cuz it’s close and I have access to things like scanners and printers, but it made my heart sink to think of the people with an hour plus long commute coming in because of “wasted space”
I don't understand why the CEO thinks people can job hop a lot easier because it's just a different company laptop. In fact, people can still and will hop over to a different job even more easily if they were offered work from home flexibility in another company anyway. 😅
What about wasted gasoline? Especially since not only is it contributing to climate change, it's a finite resource that's running out very fast.
In the corporate world, after a certain point the higher I've been promoted, the less work I've had to do and the bigger the pay bumps+bonuses. Next step would be Director and now that I work closely with mine, I can see he really does nothing, but pass down buzz words, expense travel and take reports to pass along to VP's. Can't wait, hopefully this whole house of cards won't collapse before I retire lol.
Thats how it works. The CEO is often the most incompetent and does the least work of them all but is paid the most. Some CEOs are paid $100s of millions and are there because of some connection they made at the Ivy League country club network that promotes its stooges, yes men and pawns who are compliant to the agenda, keeping the plebes oppressed and reserving a good life for themselves. Sad
Yes v accurate
As a software engineer who enjoys coding and working from home. This pisses me off to no end. I hate "management just for management". I hate micromanagers. Give a me a project and a deadline and I will have it done for you. Half the time I will have it done ahead of the deadline.
Ah yes the "face to face collaboration" excuse yet all meetings in the office are still done on Teams.
Most important thing as an employee: Always make sure you're in a position of power. Have irreplacable skills or knowledge, be part of a union, have money saved, whatever you can do. If you have power, you can defend yourself, if you don't, you're at risk of management just walking over you.
Money is a good one. If my employer announced a mandatory return to office move, I'd be letting my team lead know about my intent to resign as soon as practical. I can afford to be unemployed for a very long time, so I don't have tolerate a bad employer.
My position of power is I am one of the few people who likes to work at the office. If I am let go, then the managers will have to come in to the office instead of working from home. Or have to find some rare person who wants to do that. There are somethings that can only be done at the office.
Those toilet cleaner donuts won’t change themselves…
You can also maliciously play with return to office policy. Come in late and leave early, give white lies to why you are late such as the bus didn’t show up on schedule, had to take my daughter to school and there was endless traffic, train delayed for more than 10min, etc.
Unfortunately, no one is irreplaceable. Even the CEO can be replaced!
Companies: "Hey what if you gave up the best work/life balance improvement in generations in exchange for less family/free time and a pay cut (commute expenses) ?"
Brainwashed coworkers: "Wow, I love the office, can't wait to see you there boss. I hate my personal life anyway"
Those brainwashed coworkers are usually in the older "I can't stand being around my spouse" crowd.
@Jonathan Pritchard also known as the "my office is the only social interaction i have" crowd.
It's also about extroverts that get ahead because of "networking " and "company politics" instead of skills and competence, not wanting to give away the only thing that can keep them going forward, which are office interactions.
Our IT guys for example are angry at his manager for requiring them being on site twice a week. They don't understand that there are already talks in higher management on replacing IT guys with cheaper guys from outside firms if they not needed on site. They manager were already asked to check if the job they do on site can be done remotely so they can do "broader" hiring or working with outside cooperators.
Personally i want them to go hard on their remote working "rights". From my experience, outside services we already work with have a lot better performance and are easier to work with then our IT guys on remote working. But yes, they believe their performance is better. Only them.
As for remote working i would still say we will wait and see, we still don't see how it will work in the long-term. I personally seen how full remote working basically removes people from company, and decrease their performance since they don't have idea what's going on the company, don't set their priorities right (lack of information), and waste time of other people to set information specially for them.
And while you and you are hard-working person, and home-working increased your performance in aggregated data it may look differently.
Internet itself is proof that people react and treat each other differently in person then when dealing online. And that's main problem i see in long-term. It's not seen in short-term where most people working remotely still now each other from before.
As for multiple studies, i want to point out at the start of communism there were multiple studies even in western countries that proved beyond any doubt it's the best economical system. And as person from post-soviet countries i can fill national stadium with scientific works about greatness of communism as the best future of humanity.
And back to studies about remote workings - other problem is they contradict multiple earlier studies about work, mostly like lack of interaction, and personal acquittance of workers effect performance negatively. It's fine to jump on new wagon if you are small company, but if you are big and have thousands of workers then you start becoming careful with every new fad.
@mapokl Solid points! One thing I've learned about myself through COVID19 is that I am a lonely person if I can't go in to see people at work.
And, I know for a fact as a younger person not learning from others is bad for my career, and also bad for my networking to build relationships with other people.
So, I do think working remotely can still be good, but full remote is nor for everyone, and I don't expect young people to perform as well that way as previous generations.
My company tried to get us back in the office as early as July 2020. I remember being on a call with 70 people (HR and multiple teams/leadership) asking why? We’ve adapted so well. We’re working longer, getting more done, and atleast happier. It ultimately lead to a delay of RTO until May 2021.
I have a relative that works for a big insurance company, and I was STUPEFIED when I heard they were tearing down their entire corporate building near the international airport
After watching this video, it makes total sense. Knowing the building was decades old and seeing the research on at-home employees, they decided to cut their loses and tear the building down, and then sell the valuable real-estate without losing a lot of skilled employees
Didn't think about layoffs without actually doing layoffs strategy. Very interesting.
They hate paying Severance Pay. That's money that could be going to the CEO... and the stockholders.
It's wrong though. If everyone is going back to the office, and no one is currently hiring, then how are people going to find an employer who allows remote work and jump ship because of being frustrated to go back to the office? Not happening during this time of uncertainty.
@@shuki1 Depends on where you live. There are tons of businesses currently hiring office positions and allowing remote working depending on industry. The tech sector has been where most of the layoffs are happening, but there are plenty of other office jobs hiring like crazy.
The downside of trying to use pulling people back to the office to avoid having to do layoffs is that it’s usually the best employees that you lose and they go to work for your competitors. Remote work is going to be the new norm and any company that doesn’t adapt will find themselves getting undercut by competitors who have adapted and have far less expenses. This is the new reality of business, adapt or die.
@@barnabusdoyle4930 The current trend of new norm seems to be going back to the old norm but perhaps with flexibility of hybrid. It's too early to tell, but obviously, the studies show the need for people to get back to seeing each other, hence the massive drive to get people back into the office. It's really not about managers wanting more control over people to feel self-important.
The company I work at increased employee count by 4x since the pandemic while cutting down office space by 40%.
A lot of the people they hired are from other cities and can occasionally show up for a training or important meeting, but wouldn't be willing to move permanently.
There's no way they could call everyone back to the office now without a massive disruption.
Also would have a much harder time finding new talent especially right now when demand for workers is very high in my industry.
When I see an offer that requires me to be in the office 2 days a week I just ignore it even if it's 40% higher salary.
Wow you would turn down a 40% higher salary? Are the WFH perks that great for you?
@@Dommy521 I'm already making enough to live comfortably so any additional money is nice, but won't really change my life significantly, while working from office will be a significant downgrade.
The video talked about how non-cash incentives are more impactful than salary increases for people with satisfactory salaries, but somehow missed the point that working from home is basically the ultimate non-cash incentive companies can offer.
@@Dommy521yes it is, just have a look at how mich more time you have for yourself without having to commute.
@@Dommy521 absolutely. I'm in the same boat. WFH allows me to skip commutes entirely, and I'm lucky that my company doesn't use monitoring software so I'm essentially able to work less hours. I used to screw around at work when in the office to kill time since I was very efficient but had to be in the office 40 hours. Now I get the same work done in 20 hours and do whatever I want with the rest. 40% higher salary isn't worth 20 hours/wk of work.
I could definitely stand to be making more, but I'd rather keep my current pay and work fully remote (right now. I'm hybrid) than to be paid more but I have to exclusively work in the office. I might consider it if it's a hybrid that's two days or less a week. But overall, my mental health would take a huge hit having to go into an office every day. I have always worked hard both at home and in the office, but there are small benefits that add up when you're at home.
Like not having to share a bathroom with strangers 😅
There's nothing I can't do in the office that I can't do at home. I don't have a collaborative environment with my team because each member of my team works in a different city. I can't stand when people come to my desk and ask me shit about something they, or I, are working on. Teams solves all of this. I can call someone or chat them up. If a meeting is needed that can get scheduled.
I've seen stuff like this before. Long-time employers keep doing things they way that they've always been done, and don't want to change with the times. Those employers get their sorry, unchanging asses left out in the cold, and either go out of business or get bought up by other employers. The employers that keep up with the changing times prosper, and their turnover is nil, because their employees are happy working for them.
true! I am a manager and like people but some of the other comments that pretend all people are 100% perfect and awesome are borderline delusional. What you wrote would be a common case I need to deal with as a manager. The kicker is always, the person thinks they're productive and valuable and doesn't see that they're holding back growth and change and their coworkers. That's why I am taking so many of these "I'm so great working from home" comments with a grain of salt.
Bases on my experience one motive is needing to justify having an office at all. I've been in offices post pandemic that are 80-90% empty so the companies losing money every day it's a desert.
That and commercial real estate developers then have a surplus of office space they need to fill too
@@tonywalters7298 Good, they can convert that to living spaces.
@@iamhereblossom1588 while I agree with this in concept, it can be very difficult to convert office buildings into residential uses.
@@tonywalters7298 Have you seen rent prices and where offices are located? With those rent prices, you’d easily cover the conversion cost in not even a year of rent from a tenant
We literally were told just that
They need people in the office because it's literally a measurement they have. There is no business gain.
Wait, people would rather brag about having a corner office than having a better salary so they can live more comfortably? That is freaking moronic! If I work at home I don't need a freaking assistant. I am my assistant, I get myself my coffee and I get it the way I want it. I never mess up when I'm assisting myself. Just give me more money.
I think what this neglects is to account for the type of job that you do - if you are an individual contributor, then yes WFH makes more sense. However, in team intense environments some in-office presence is just required. The company I work for is heavy on teamwork-type work and we have definitely seen a big uptick in performance once we went back in-office.
From someone working big 3 Corporate Real Estate (CRE) the real reason is all of these companies are stuck with leases that aren't up yet and they need to stall for time and justify the office space. You will see these hard office time requirements drop like an anchor when all of these leases expire by 2025. And that's one of the biggest punches the CRE brokerages are taking right now because nobody is buying/leasing large office space anymore. Everyone is shrinking their space so that they can hit the same occupancy rates as before but only for people that actually need it. Future office model is more of a conference space with teams coming in to connect when needed and critical personnel space than a university campus for adults like it is now.
If you worked for the government, you can add the fact that your bosses want you to come into work to spend lunch money downtown where their voters are. This actually happened in Canada' capital.
Well that’s only maybe a few hundred a day or around $1000 a week. And that’s to the restaurant and taxes will be paid regularly anyway. And most people bring their own lunch or just eat something from the office.
I'm in Minnesota and something kind of similar is happening at my work. The company I work for receives tax breaks from the city they're located in. They received those tax breaks with the understanding that a few thousand people would be around to spend money in local restaurants and other stores. But when people stopped coming to the office, the city complained and threatened to take away those tax breaks, so back to the office it is.
@@danaborris345 That's exactly the same thing they pulled in Jersey City where my office was
Same in Seattle.. Mayor's office wants everyone back in the office to boost downtown businesses.
Let's all risk getting Long Covid (~12% chance with each infection) to buy a crappy $18 sandwich with chips.. 😒
Happened to the City of St. Louis. They have imposed a 1% income tax on people who work in the city but don't live in the city. Everyone hates it. And then, all of a sudden, no one was driving in from the burbs to work. One employee who was sent home brought a lawsuit and the court agreed that he was exempt from the tax.
When we transitioned to WFH, my team didn’t skip a beat. Productivity increased significantly, every department was showing signs of resiliency and growth, employees were happy, didn’t mind taking on extra projects or even working late. Now we’re required to go into the office 3 days a week. Everyone hates it. Productivity has declined to pre-pandemic levels. Turnover has increased significantly and a lot of departments are short staffed. Many people, including myself, took themselves off special projects and are out the door at 5pm. Management is in complete disarray. They can’t wrap their heads around why no one wants to work more to impress management 🤣. When asked, I replied, “I have a dog who’s been home all day by herself and my commute has gone from 2 seconds of powering down my laptop to sitting and battling traffic for 2 hours if there isn’t an accident on the freeway. By the time I get home I have enough time to play with her for a while, feed and walk her, and then shower and go to bed just so I can do it all over again the next day. Why would I volunteer to stay here even later than I have to? I don’t live to work, I work so I can live.” As if that isn’t bad enough, we just got an email on Friday letting us know they’re going to rent another building which we will be transitioning to within the year. They previously downsized from 2 buildings to 1 during the pandemic, but now there aren’t enough desks or parking to have everyone on site every day. The writing’s on the wall, they want everyone back 5 days. I’ve already started updating my resume and looking for better opportunities.
Just get out of there. Even if you endure it, they are losing their competitive edge, wasting money and sapping workers' morale. In the end, your job, career prospect and salary increase would be at risk.
Not to mention it can facilitate infinite growth.
You were doing exactly what they wanted. They wanted you to quit voluntarily so that they could cut down cost without paying compensation and not make the company looks bad to the investors.
And the opposite happened at many other jobs. Especially if the workforce is younger. I can see someone who has 20 years experience working independently from anymore. But if you manage people in their 20s who don't know what they don't know, they are doing more mouse clicks than ever but accomplishing less remote and - here is the zinger - not aware of it. Seems like everyone self-evaluates as super productive
Its a ploy to make people quit, rather than layoffs.
Funny, as someone in finance myself, you'd think these companies would realize that their facilities are already a sunk cost. Forcing people to use the facilities doesn't suddenly justify an expense you've already been hit with. If you want to "get some of that back", sublease the space or sell it outright and downsize to a more appropriate facility based on your employees' desire to come into the office. If anything, forcing people to come into the office just costs you more regardless of the sunk cost of the facility, because know you get to use and pay for more utilities such as electricity and water, provide more amenities such as snacks and coffee, etc... Let them stay at home and pay for their own utilities if you want to save money.
I think they don't want those expensive office spaces going to waste, let alone the boost to their Ego's when it comes to firing people or micromanaging your work.
Pretty much that's the case. Ego is a big thing in society it motivates Senior Managers
Bingo for JPM. They paid for a shiny new corporate center with cafeterias and daycares so they want us here to help pay the associated salaries for it.
My entire team is spread out over the US and we spend our entire day on zoom calls. I'd rather skip traffic and take my calls at home
its possible there is a tax update where a cetain amount of peole have to be in teh building cuz a bunch of companies are trying to put people back in office now, not just a few big ones
also most of these motivations mentioned in the video rely on you being career focused. the idea of a career is dead for anyone under the age of 30.
True. Why TF must I go to the office if I am a software developer that does not even speak to the company's clients. It's them to make money like paying for basement parking space etc
During the pandemic my company merged many teams across our two main corporate offices (in different parts of the country) to streamline everything, and it worked beautifully. Last fall they ordered everyone back to the office to "increase collaboration and creativity". Well, turns out it's really hard to collaborate in person when half your team is sitting in an office across the country, and productivity started suffering, so they eventually backtracked and designated everyone as "Flexible" workers where there is no mandate to come into the office. I come in occasionally because it's nice and quiet, but when everyone is there it's noisy and distracting.
I guess it's too complicated for them to have video conferences :/
I live in Calgary, Alberta Canada and it was snowing again this morning. Listening to the traffic report, people were stuck in the slog and wondering how many had to do so because they were forced back to the office.
My job never lets me WFH unless necessary, but I find myself to be more productive in the office and at home. I like being in the office and I feel like it's a better environment for me to get stuff done. But I'm more traditional and as an engineer you need to be there to help ensure things get done and run smoothly between yourself and the techs/operators. Plus the social aspect is nice as well.
The thing is, work from home is a great non cash incentive. When you work from home, you have all the benefits of a private office.
Yeah unless you have kids at home.
If work from home is an incentive then office work is punishment.
Just want to weigh in as a principal manager at a big tech company. I LOVE work from home. For my team as well as myself. I've spent a bunch of time building culture around trust, autonomy and the RIGHT productivity metrics. That is, getting work done. Not appearing to get work done, not whether you play video games, go skiing or sit on the beach during the day. You wanna do that, f'in awesome! I do it and post pics in company meetings. Not surprisingly my team's productivity is up, but also their job satisfaction, happiness with pay/bennies, retention and all the other goodness. Turns out when you treat people not just like people but also as responsible, trusted, valuable people they crush it! Well aware of all the points in this vid and sadly agree.
Let me work for you!
Kidding hahaha
It was nice to read that, some managers do understand it after all, in the end we are all people and want the same things.
You're one of them that will be able to keep valued employees - that's a win for everyone. 😏
Hell yeah, you get it.
I work in HR. You must have had to let some slackers go, no?
@@randymillhouse791 Sheesh, why does HR always think there must be slackers? Most people I've worked with over the years (in the research sciences) have worked way too hard, even off the clock..
This sort of thinking doesn't make me question employees, in general, but just that there may be more slackers in HR. Way too much projecting going on. 😒
The funny thing is that, WFH can be an indirect raise. When you don't have to pay for an expensive appartment or for transportation fees you basicaly have less expenses on the same salary. Thus it is less likely to request a raise to ease your financial burden which in turn can reduce a company's budget. While this is not an ideal scenario, it can be a compromise that both sides can make. So unless all top players agree to an "evil masterplan" and use unemployement as a subjugation tool (again), i believe RTO will be quite expensive for both sides.
Its hard to fake it to make it when you cant fake it around nobody.😂
So it's not that comapnies need workers back in the office, they need to enforce a dealbreaker that gets employees to quit on their own as opposed to being laid off, saving company expenses and a layoff process.
>> saving company expenses and a layoff process
Theu have already been replaced by a cheaper option. Hiring people in third world countries.
Theu just need them to quit.
@@kclaiborn6257 It tends to be the opposite since most of the "experts" are older and have worked longer. There's definitely a con to it, but a lot of these big companies have done the calculus and came to their conclusions
Severance packages and unemployment insurance premiums are expensive and add nothing to the bottom line.
@@IFearlessINinja A lot of the "calculus" big companies do rarely goes past the next quarterly report; Assuming it stretches past the end of the week.
I did a financial analysis for a former employer. Even though companies can't get out of leases, it's still cheaper to have remote workers because they are actually saving quite a bit on energy costs since the HVAC systems aren't working as hard to combat fatass middle management body heat. Nor are they spending as much on electricity, for obvious reasons. When they pull workers back into the orifice, utility costs skyrocket.
OMG you work at an orifice? Is it a dry one or a wet one?
Jokes aside, sometimes an office really feels like an orifice, right?
Our company also has to provide a fully sticked fridge; fresh fruit and veg every day and lots and lots and lots of treats so we never think of leaving. Then there are about 100 litres of carbonated drinks a day. The food costs are enormous! Then there are the extra cleaning staff who have to unpack, restock and clean up all the food stuffs. The hourly toilet cleaning and alll that toilet paper down the toilet. The never ending trash runs. The dishwasher loading and unloading. Tens of thousands a day for making us come to the office.
He hit the nail on the head. Spot on with each of his points. I was struggling with elder care and a loved one in the final stages of dementia. Didn’t matter. Be back in the office or quit.
I went WFH in 2018. It took me about 3 months to adjust. Once I did, there was no looking back for a few reasons:
1-No distractions from errant coworkers or middle management types
2-Making my own schedule meant I was working at times when my mind was most efficient for the task at hand
3-I edit video for a living so building my machine the way I want/need vs using whatever cheap crap was in the office meant I could get rid of transcode/render times because my machine is really fast which opens me up to #4
4-This is a big one... managing my own time allows me to take on multiple clients at once. More money in my pocket when I can take on more work - can't do that working onsite
5-Time management means I can also learn additional tasks to make myself more efficient, more well-rounded, and more valuable
The two biggest arguments about working from an office usually boil down to (we bought a building) and "company culture." Here's the thing, I can barely get myself a decent paycheck because companies think they don't have to pay you what you're worth let alone a living wage so why should I have to shoulder the burden of their bad financial decisions. Sorry you bought a building, dude. Maybe if you eat less avocado toast, you'll be able to save up enough to pay it off. Either way, not my problem. As for "office culture", it's just control. They want to control every moment you're on the clock and some companies I've worked for give themselves the luxury of expecting you to be on-call 24/7 (and they weren't the companies that paid well, either). Again, it's not my problem that you can't manage your business without hovering over someone and it's definitely not my problem that you hired a bunch of useless middle management types to micro manage me who have literally no purpose if we're all WFH. My paycheck isn't optional and it sure as shit isn't your slush fund to hire worthless middle management types.
These rich jerks want to pay us less while expecting more and genuinely think we should fall over ourselves to thank them for the opportunity while calling us entitled for demanding what's ours. I'd say it "seems" f-ed up but it IS f-ed up. Say what you will about Gen Z (I'm an old millenial), but they're not putting up with this crap at all and I'm here for that. At the end of the day, if you put every member of every C-suite into a plane and then smashed it into a mountain, companies might lose a little stock value briefly but the C-suite gets replaced and then it's business as usual. But what happens when regular below-the-line people decide to stop working - stock clerks, cashiers, chefs, etc. Betcha Walmart can't run without them. Shit, they tried outsourcing the registers to robots and had to step it back because theft was so high. Serves them right.
Every business needs to be discussing their plan to transition as much of their workforce to remote as possible. The future is remote working. Yes, not every job can be done remotely, but every position can be transitioned to remote needs to be as soon as possible.
Just so AI can do it all and everyone can get more-easily fired.
@@auraguard0212 everything that gets spouted by AI will need a human to proofread it and take responsibility for it. It’s less clean cut than it looks like
@@auraguard0212you think businesses won't adapt AI regardless of whether their employees are in office or not? Lol
@@auraguard0212 just say you dont know anything about AI other than what you see from reactionaries on the internet and TV. if your job can be replaced EFFECTIVELY by AI then your job shouldnt exist. if your job matters then theres no way for an AI to do it without a human to verify it so it equals out anyways.
tl;dr if your job is lost to AI you never had job security in the first place. get a better job.
@@lorenzopini1990 You might be wrong. People say "we can't have fully self-driving cars until they are safe", and the implied part is "safe as in no killing people safe", but that isn't true is it? Imagine you own a trucking company with 100 trucks.. If on average a truck driver is involved in one fatal accident per 500,000 miles driven, and an AI driven truck is in a fatal accident once in 800,000 miles, on average, then your vehicle insurance company is going to encourage you to covert to self-driving trucks. If you lay off all your drivers, you don't have to contribute to their 401k or pay health insurance. An AI truck can drive 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It won't get sleepy, or distracted, it doesn't get road rage. AI doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be better (safer) than us.
when my previous office called us back to the office, I immediately resigned. took 2 months until I found another remote work. salary got dropped around 10% but it was all worth the 2 months being unemployed and the salary drop. working from home is a luxury.
I think it's time for some of these managers to realize the truth: That almost nobody liked or was impressed by their firm handshakes, small-talk, or other inane corporate culture "skills". People put up with it, play along, and give it a smile and nod, because managers hold power over their paychecks and performance evaluations.
The managers we actually admire are the ones who, first and foremost, sincerely care about our well-being and take action to better our lives and, second, are competent and know the work so that they aren't asking us to do useless things.
Such an emphasis on 'culture' worries me. Sounds like they care more about conformance than performance.
@thepissedofflandlord Exactly. To the point that they cultivate an entire set of skills that are mostly useless outside of a ritualized corporate setting and don't even necessarily translate to the ritualized corporate culture of other countries.
Developer here. Company lost huge % of workforce when they tried to add one more in office day. Going from 2 to 3. It was so bad the person above the person above that person who made the decision retracted the decision and offered a return bonus to those who left.
This. I'm a single mom/sole provider software engineer that works at a well known company that was mentioned several times in this video and I was hired during Covid WFH. It was a game changer for me and has allowed me to not only be able to work a job that I wouldn't have been able to before but to have significant impact on the organization. I've been given a few extra months to RTO past the announced date for all other employees so I don't have to go back during the summer when my child is home all day and also the brand new office they just built for us is in expensive Alexandria, VA and I would have to move closer since I'm 4 hours away now but my (all male and all single or married with kids) coworkers and manager are ignoring the reality for me. I have a 7 year old who will have to get himself on the bus in the morning and come home to an empty house in the evening. The company said they would make exceptions but I feel like if I ask, they'll probably just fire me since my coworkers have no other responsibilities and are all able to RTO which would make me the only one on my team at home. Some of them have even joked that it would be nice to be back in office to get away from their noisy kids and let their wives handle them. It makes me really sad that a company that claims to value inclusion and diversity is forcing me to make a dangerous and illegal decision for their own financial reasons. I've been applying like crazy to every remote role even outside of my profession in hopes that I'll find absolutely anything before my extra months of WFH are up, but it's frustrating, stressful, and dissappointing.
I can relate to this. Single mom. Even prior to the pandemic, most of my dept worked from home, but last year the CEO reneged on letting us continue WFH and called us back in the offices in April of all months (when most daycares are wrapping up their after school programs). It was so insensitive. Then we're back for 6 months and there was surprise layoffs for 10% of the staff to "right sizing" the workforce. I'm so angry at returning to the office. My job is quota-driven. They know if we're slacking off or not.
Then the irony is that the only people able to RTO are the (probably married) men who don’t shoulder the burden of raising kids. Just like in the “good old days.”
Power in numbers. Our leadership learned the hard way after firing a bunch of newer people that you can’t just pick anyone and replicate great teams. In the old world (pre covid) it was hard to find quality people but the die hard invested caring employees filled the gaps. WFH just put a spotlight on poor leadership and lazy practices. The same people caring the load could now get their work done without others making strategic efforts to request their help for dumb questions and/or situations where they tried to pawn off their work.
This! The high tech company I work in just delivered their "You will return!" dictator decree. Then they had a "Where the Company is Going" full day presentation. One third was on People First and Diversity & Inclusion! And "we're still under the industry norm for number of female employees but we're working to close the gap. Bullsh!t when you create a policy that specifically targets single mothers and the handicapped. Who was the policy made by? Rich men and a woman with no partner or children and no desire to ever have such career derailing pests.
Then the same business leaders and political leaders wonder why nobody wants to have kids.
Theory #1 is mega interesting - a way to get rid of employees without paying them out or announcing layoffs. Damn thats slick and evil. Theory #3 I think is much more true than people realize. Aside from tangible project managers, middle management is dying. You just don't need 12 levels of people micro managing and tracking all day, who's sole job is to tell other people to do the work. These people tend to be 40s or older, they need to justify their positions. They'll argue to work in person no matter what the data says.
Once again the problem is worthless old people dragging down society.
Considering the building being a loss, you'd think that they could either remodel the office building to apartments to sell/get tennants, maybe rent it out for a decent price to employees, or sell it for slightly below the price for someone else to remodel, but then i guess you have to worry about zoning which shouldn't be in place in the first place. I guess planners like unnecessary cost inflation.
This is very interesting and I can see all your points are generally valid. I work in a STEM industry where there have been very, very few qualified staff for decades. And these people literally HATE interacting with each other to the point they will quit if they have to do it. So I don't see us forcing people back to work. We are relying on the very old, highly trained, specialized people to keep working, and that means giving concessions and letting them work non-traditional hours and work in non-traditional spaces.
What industry is it specially, if you don’t mind me asking?
What industry?
Yes I'm also interested in your industry
COBOL programmers?
I agree with you. Our lab is letting support staff work remotely and turned the previous office into analytical bench labs. It's a win win. But I see how not many industries can pivot in this way.
Yup, let's kill the planet with commuting unnecessarily to save a few bucks on severance.
It's about financial incentives from the city and state. And the status (for the bosses) of delivering humans to the city center.
Essentially, the company gets a cut of the money employees spend on food, parking, and lunchtime shopping.
And getting invited to galas and charity events.
Right now I make about $85k working from home, but have been looking for higher paying jobs. All the jobs within my reach that pay $100k - $115k require me to be in an office 5 days a week, and would require a commute of 45 - 60 minutes one way. Heck no. I’d rather work from home making less than have to endure the rat race of commuting for a little extra money. The money that I save from having no commute and being able to do things around my house basically adds up to that extra $25k. No need for daycare, no need for dog boarding, no wear and tear on the car, no unnecessary fuel costs, I can run necessary errands on my lunch break. The list goes on and on. All my friends work 6-figure jobs but have to work in-office, and they hate it. Meanwhile, I have never been less stressed, and I’m more productive.
Man, I love your videos calling out corporate bullshit. It makes me aware of it and allows me to steer away from it. Like non cash incentives. Great.
exactly "easier to see non-cash incentives" my 🍑. I have no problem seeing the money in my bank account GIVE ME CASH!!! 😅
I came to the comments ready to criticize this insistence that people should go back to the office but I am quite glad most employees share the same sentiment as me. I work in IT where 100% of our work can be done out of the office. The company recently decided to have non-negotiable office days but some of our team members are contractors and are not obligated to do so. We currently go to the office and get on Teams calls in our desks during meetings. Essentially, I go to the office to be online on office days because the company said so.
At my former job, the execs, which are the highest paid, all work remote, and are never at the corporate office. They have mandated that all workers (except for themselves of course) be in person at the new office they just leased for “productivity” and “collaborative” reasons.
Rules for thee, but not for me. WTF
I finished college and got my first “real” job in March 2020. My first experience was remote work and when I had to go into the office once, I was struck by how much time was spent being interrupted by coworkers, managers, and going to unnecessary meetings.
I love how this channel both encourages us to understand money and make money but is also extremely pro worker and and anti-corporatist.
So many money channels are either shills for corporations or just complain about how unfair capitalism is. So good to see a channel that neither tells us to sell our soul, nor asks us to wait for some imaginary utopia.
Yeah, idiots like Second Thought.
I don't get complaining about something you can't change
Change happens slowly. Believing it will never occur is redundant and uninformed.
@@twotails Wait for what? We live in the present not the future
@@dariuspalmer2829ppl do it because it's easier and feels better short-term
The ‘important’ big wigs are the ones who want people back so they can look good in their big office and show dominance which doesn’t happen in a laptop meeting.
I'm someone with a mostly required in office job (nature of the work, but there is flexibility of remote sometimes). There are also individuals here whose role requires 100% in office work. I get to see both perspectives. The main complaint is that when a remote worker is needed to review or weigh in on work done on site (we are a technical and prototype center for our company), it's often a chore to get the remote worker to come in or even respond through Teams or email. And the remote worker often expects the on-site guys to do extra work they wouldn't have to do if the remote guy was in office. Also, the communication delays often make work/projects take longer. This issue is compounded by the remote workers living 5 to 15 minutes from the office, and the on-site guys often having 30 plus minute commutes.
I do miss my colleagues when I work from home, but I don’t miss the noise and stupid superfluous chit chat from desk neighbours.
The funny thing is I often work extra time from home without noticing and I don’t mind it because I am so chilled 😅