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IBM Software mandates return to office for those within 80km (www.theregister.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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telling those living within a 50 mile (80km) radius of a Big Blue office to be at their desks at least three days a week

This feels a bit discriminatory, but also sort of an obvious solution for those who can move or pretend to have moved to their parents' place, etc.

Big corporations still have major investments in real estate to justify to shareholders, and management at many companies prefer to see bums on seats – a phenomenon Microsoft previously termed productivity paranoia.

Happens incredible rarely, but I'm with Microsoft on this one.

In general I do see the point of mingling, especially during the probation period, when so many things are new. But the forceful, out-of-thin-air number of days in the office is daft. They could at least make it moving average over a quarter or two. Or a whole year.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Coming into a work location should make sense for what you’re trying to do, not to justify a building cost. I see too many CEOs simply follow what another CEO is doing even if they’re in a completely different industry.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I agree with you, but is it not across the board that humans benefit from face to face interactions to some extent? So "what you're trying to do" may be makeing widgets or shuffling business paperwork, but they all have meaningful interactions that can benefit from being in a centralized location for some amount of time, no?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

For any business you have to consider the cost to benefit. Many times a face to face meeting will be highly beneficial, or can foster closer working relationships. That’s awesome, but what if by having a physical location prevents us from hiring better talent from another location? Is the face to face meeting going to offset paying for a physical space in prime real estate with all the additional costs that this brings? Could this face to face meeting just be a face to face zoom call? It depends on the role and business. I’m all for a company making the choice based on what their vision is, but it becomes laughable when a company models their choice on an arbitrary standard, like three days in the office. There are also many managers who feel that if they don’t see someone working, that person isn’t working.