RTO mandates did not improve a firm’s financial metrics, but they did decrease employee satisfaction.
Great success.
this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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I'm making a note here.
The goal was not to improve company financials. It's to justify paying rent to corporate real estate holders so the people who get rich from owning property don't lose their infinite free money exploit.
I don't get why this thought is so prevalent. Unless these companies are also in the business of renting the property out, it makes no sense for them to line the pockets of someone at their own expense, especially if it also costs them in productivity and employee satisfaction. Or maybe there is some bribery going on, but I've seen precisely zero evidence of this.
the businesses themselves aren't renting property out, no. the shareholders and executives who run the companies and hand down these decisions, however, are frequently invested in real estate.
RTO mandates make employees unhappy because I think they perceive it as a punitive measure. It's not "We need you to be in the office because we have a big project in the coming weeks and we need everyone on board" instead it's received as "We don't believe you're actually working anymore so now you have no choices left".
The statements I've seen have been suggesting that corporations try to make remote workers feel like those who don't come in are lazy and worthless and you need to prove your worth by being present. (See web MD RTO cringe) and the insults people suffer only go so far.
Imagine if you feel like you worked very hard through the pandemic and even through working remotely you were able to keep the ship afloat just to turn around and get spanked for it by your boss "Thanks but we really need you to get back to your REAL job and stop slacking off", you would perceive the RTO mandates as injust punishment. All self respecting people reject injustice.
::Tinfoil hat:: This is by design and they want you to quit as they are done extracting value from you and firing you is harder than making you quit.
Even if it did improve company value, I don't think you need a study to show that taking away a privilege makes employees unhappy.
Believe it or not, they'd be unhappy if you took away the coffee machine too. Just far less unhappy.
The problem is that sometimes when something seems obvious, it's actually incorrect. A big example is that if people didn't bother to think about it, and actually do something to confirm it, we might still think the world is flat. It's understandable to believe, if you just walk outside and look around, that it is flat.
I agree with you that this is "obvious" but that doesn't negate the need for a study.
Water is wet! News at 11.
Water is what makes other stuff wet.
"Water is wet" is used to describe something that is obvious, and dismiss the fact that someone looked into it.
Ironically, because it is incorrect, it shows exactly why we should look into things despite it being seemingly obvious.
The problem with RTO is that you need management to institute procedures to make it worthwhile along with employee expectations.
That you are seeing poorly performing companies pushing for RTO makes sense, they can't meet metrics in WFO so they are changing how work is occurring. And there probably is a continuation of poor performance as those managers probably aren't the best.
If you are going to have staff come in some time to the office, you have to make the face time worthwhile. That means all staff in certain departments are in that day and you use some of that time on employee training and network building.
If you don't make employees miserable, how do you get them to quit on their own so that you don't have to pay for severance?
I've been in solutions architecture too long, I was already working up arguments about how important Recovery Time Objectives are.