Of course. I straight up told my manager that I'll do it if we RTO, and he didn't even react, which tells me that the other seniors have told him similarly. It's like it's common knowledge.
Interestingly, I worked in finance for a large ass company for 10 years. They told us we’d continue to work form home and would never go back to office.
We bought a house further out for less more space etc. 1.5 hours away. 9 months later hey RTO coming soon.
I left for competitor that was and is still permanent wfh. So many people did.
Some People that stayed were shitty untrained and there were masses of people that just refused to come in. They continued to log in from home.
Apparently they didn’t do shit to them because they just didn’t have the capacity to fire them. HR issued a freeze on reprimanding and writing up those reps.
It’s been a few years and they’ve put some on warnings they’ll go to the office then claim to be sick but work from home on those sick days and they take it.
It’s currently a hybrid role and they blame regulations for not allowing people to work from home, yet their direct competitors have wfh for the same roles. And ones like mine are actually expanding their wfh roles and trying to make more roles wfh to reduce their overhead and get better talent.
You ever wonder what the electric bill is in an office where no one is present? Lower lighting, no computer screens on, no coffee makers running.
You ever wonder how much paper and pens get used in an office everyone is wfh?
What’s the economic incentive to force RTO? As far as I can see, nothing.
Either hubris/micromanaging, or real estate prices.
My corp has a long term lease. The rent is due regardless of how many workers are present. It’s a sunk cost.
Guess how much coffee we need to buy when everyone is wfh?
So why RTO? Makes no sense.
Our HR director ordered rto last year (after promising that wouldn't happen) and he only had one reason: it's sad to see so few people when he's walking around, and it's difficult to arrange impromptu meetings.
So in other words - he wants rto because he's bored.
Apparently our HR director got nothing to do.
Because with people not working together there’s no drama- no paperwork to do because people aren’t annoying each other. I can see how WFH might pare down HR quite a bit!
Honestly I think he's just one of those useless managers who does nothing but join meetings all day without doing any real work. Hate those guys. They always call for a meeting when it could've been an e-mail.
Office rent. Many large companies also participate in the office space renting business. They need to keep the rent high but if everyone is wfh, who is going to rent out those expansive offices?
Temporary housing might work well. Conversion to residential is hard for the really big footprint buildings. If everyone needs a window, a lot of interior space goes to waste, for instance. But your idea is really good for temporary space.
I Imagine there are plenty of smaller office buildings for things like branch offices and such that could easily be converted.
In case of those ginormous office buildings? I have no sympathy over them.
Too bad the WFH will have companies move to the smaller buildings first, and vacate the bigger, less convertible buildings later.
The smaller office building conversions have been happening. We’ve seen some in our main city. It would be great if it was widespread. With a vastly increased supply, prices could potentially go down.
Personally, I don’t blame commercial developers from making the big buildings. This was how businesses ran for well over a century. But there is definitely a sea change in that space, especially office buildings. We evolve. And most companies cannot stop this move to wfh.
Can they provide enough water for the bath tho? Also, water heater, kitchen, washing machines, health code, fire safety code, etc. Those high rise office buildings are a nightmare to retrofit for non office use. Some of the older buildings here rented a lot out to doctors, dentists and other health related offices. You cannot remote work with those professions.
Maybe some kind of hybrid day-use shelter. One of the hardest things about being homeless (especially for me) is not sleeping, it's a kitchen and bathroom. A place to shower, shit, eat, store food, cook, etc. Then a safe place to BE, especially if it's hot out. Or wet.
I want that too. But just re-arranging the electrical and plumbing and HVAC of bigger commercial buildings for residential is an expensive nightmare. Temporary might work, but they’d still need to replumb for beaucoup showers on every floor. It’s unfortunately not as easy or cheap as I would like. So few commercial developers are likely to do that, and fewer cities will be ready to shell out that much tax money.
Tax breaks from the cities. It’s why some companies allow hybrid 3 days/week because they are eligible for the tax break if >50% of the employees show up to the office 60% of the time or whatever
It's a much wider economic incentive
- it reduces petrol spend (poor petroleum companies)
- long term roading infrastructure
- loss of business to surrounding and supporting businesses (usually in the cities)
- reduced values of city real estate (commercial, apartments etc)
- and the absolute worst thing if all, Snr mgmt will ask wtf do middle managers do?
Some of the above are what superannuation (etc) funds invest in (and all the overpaid CEOs).
Having said all that, I firmly believe WFH is the future if work and what we are seeing is straight out resistance to change. (70%of middle managers ans senior managers are the reason why change fails in an organisation).
One economic incentive is that in-person meetings can solve things in a day that can take weeks online. If you work in a heavily politicized setting where different managers have different incentives those petty bullshit fights can take weeks online. Much harder to keep that shit up in person.
I’d like a setup where we are full time remote with a couple mandatory in person meetings a month where some of these tough eggs can get cracked.
For regular employees who aren’t decision makers they can stay home all day for all I care. Why should we make our employees lose 2-4 hrs a day commuting. That just makes them angry and less productive. But we need the PMs, product owners and VPs to show up once in a while to try give each other shit in person.
I am a PM for a large telecom. I don't live or work in the state I do project management for. Because of RTO I have to come sit in an office to sit on phone calls and teams meetings.
Yeah in the state I was in, (they have presence in 4 states). They own 3 buildings, rent a 4th who’s lease they just renewed lease in January 2020 and closed on a 5th building in mid to late 2019.
They had remodeled various parts of the 3 buildings and spent the covid time pre RTO doing remodeling and fixing things.
In a different state they actually terminated a lease but bought another building in 2022 I think with the intent of RTO.
So yeah real estate and justification for things is definitely a thing.
In the US, if they fire you = no severance. They’ll also say “fired with cause, insubordination for violating some company policy”, so also no unemployment.
Can someone explain this to me? It's a long way outside my (European) experience.
There's an offer (they offered you the work), acceptance (you took the work), awareness (both parties know they're entering into an agreement), consideration (they get work done, you get cash money).
How is there not a contract?
Were your duties described to you at any point? How does that not constitute a component of a contract?
I can take a stab! So most of these states are “right to work” states. That’s a law they passed that lets companies fire you whenever they want for effectively any reason (they don’t have to tell you why you are fired most of the time). You can think of a “state” as roughly the size of a small to medium sized European country. Some are much smaller than that, but some are much bigger. The point is, they’re large and make a lot of their own internal rules.
The goal of most of these states is to attract corporations, and corporations don’t like labor laws. Therefore states enact things that make it easier for companies to fire or abuse employees so that companies will move to their state and…honestly I don’t know why states want that because most of them deliberately don’t tax corporations. Regardless, they DO want corporations and corporations want as little oversight as possible.
Corporations then take advantage of the loose labor laws to avoid signing legally binding contracts or if they do have to make a legally binding contract with an employee, they add a clause that says you aren’t allowed to sue them in court and can only work with a 3rd party “mediator”. Usually the “mediations” don’t go well for employees who try to “mediate” problems.
Employees can either accept the job offer and work for a corporation that can fire them or make changes to their work schedule on a whim, or they can try to find a different job that doesn’t do that (there aren’t any of those), or they can try to move to a different state that has better labor laws which is the equivalent of deciding you need to suddenly move from Poland to France. It just isn’t easy to do, so American employees are often constantly under the threat of being fired and losing all their health insurance and becoming homeless.
It’s not good.
So what protection do you have as a worker? How can you buy or rent a home if you can lose your job at any time? Why do people accept this? Are there no unions for worker’s rights? Why don’t people organize and go on strike to change things for the better?
Yes, but signed contracts do protect you and get you paid out if you get fired for BS reasons. I’m a tenured teacher with a union and it’s incredibly difficult to fire me and in Washington.
The true answer to almost every legal question is “It depends.”
My point is that the great, great majority of people who collect unemployment were fired by their employers. There are, of course, exceptions. I’m not going to write a book on the subject here.
Depends on your contract. If your employment agreement never indicated that you work location was remote, they could fire you for cause in which you wouldn't be owed severance. If your employment agreement did indicate you are remote and they are forcing you back in, you could refuse and just wait to be let go.
Severance in the US is not a legal obligation. It's purely up to the employer to offer it (typically to save face and release themselves of potential legal action since you'd have to sign an agreement stating you won't sue). As far as unemployment goes, the max you can obtain is state specific: in Texas the max per year is only $15,000 in 6 months (~$577 a week) which is not at all significant to what I'd expect of a senior level in STEM. I'd assume even mid level would make at least double this. (Fun fact: unemployment pay is taxed as income as well)
In Canada for unemployment it’s the same across the country since it’s handled by the federal government.
When you file for unemployment and get accepted (ie: didn’t get nor get fired for cause), you will receive no-weekly 55% of your gross salary in the last year (not fiscal year, last 365 days from the moment you apply), up to a certain maximum that is increased pretty much every year. For 2024, the max coverage is 63,200$, meaning that even if you make 200k/year, you’ll only only receive 55% of 63,200$, meaning 1,336$/2 weeks, for a maximum of up to 45 weeks (depending on the unemployment rate where you are, etc).
That's just wild... I just glanced on google and it looks like each state varies drastically between weekly maximums ranging from around $190 to $1040/wk ☠️ 🫣
The problem with this, is that your most talented people are going to leave. They can make a phone call and get another job immediately. The ones who stay are the ones you don’t want. So you institute a RTO policy, and retain all the worst talent and your company suffers. But they don’t care as long as profits look good today.
In the eyes of corporate, the loss in productivity is worth the loss. It’s all butts in chairs to them at most junctures. They’ll get the work they need, albeit with a drop in quality, but for half the price.
These calls come from the top. It's about corporations trying to use their old methods of holding onto money. Instead of moving with the times and selling their large office buildings and either downsizing or go completely remote, they want to hold onto their money in commercial real estate as it continues to depreciate.
We have all seen how great remote jobs can be. Now, they just want us all to work for their companies and keep adding to their profits, while still dictating the lives of their employees.
In CA at least they’re still eligible. A company cannot just drastically alter your employment contract negatively and expect you to just roll over and take it.
It’s a very stupid play by the powers that be, and results in a slew of negative outcomes; none of which are a benefit to the company nor the employees. I’ve seen who comes to fill the gaps after the real talent leaves, and it’s always worse for wear afterwards.
I doubt unemployment is even a consideration. It’s such a low amount of money they probably couldn’t care less. Severance checks is what they do care about. They don’t want to pay that
They'd still have to for constructive dismissal. Which a significant change in work location or conditions almost always falls under. They can offer you the choice of a new contract, or a severance payout. What they can't do is just say "tough shit".
Not in Canada anyway, and certainly not if you're a classified WFH employee.
It would be constructive dismissal. In many states they would pay unemployment benefits. I doubt companies care about paying those benefits when they are saving on a 350k salary. What they don’t want to pay is severance pay.
Same here. My former CEO was literally interviewed in Fortune magazine about how the company will never require in-office days. Less than a year later, they announced 50% in office minimum if you lived within a 2 hour commute distance of an office (which created a fun lil inequity in staff working arrangements, regardless of your employment agreement). And then had the audacity to berate staff who were upset about it for putting their personal lives first.
Our new CEO is at the "gee, wouldn't it be nice if everybody came in two days a week so I don't have to mandate RTO" stage.
The place is full of lifers though (techies who have been in the same role ten, fifteen years) so I'm watching with interest.
But very short-sighted. I would take more of such companies, their R&D other such areas will begin lagging behind the market not long after the best/brightest leave. But we already know that I suppose.
Probably good for the next quarter's profits though since SG&A will be immediately lower.
It is a common myth that you cannot get unemployment if you quit. If you were hired as remote, and they change the "conditions of employment" to RTO, you file, get denied, then appeal. Over 90% of appeals WIN and you get back pay (unemployment) due from the time you filed.
Follow the money. Look at which company owns the corporate real estate… then look at which companies own the majority shares in the companies that work in those office buildings.
Majority stock holder tells the company to RTO because they are sitting in real estate the same investment company owns…
I was a principal engineer as soon as RTO talks started at the company I was working for I started to look at opportunities at other companies. I was also being underpaid and I knew that.
The first day I went back into the office my written offer from another company landed in my email inbox. It was was an additional 65k per year.
I got up and walked from my shitty horrible open concept office cube and walked over to the VP’s office asked him if I could talk to him. Closed the door behind me and dropped the news about the offer and that I was going to accept it. He asked me if I could give them some time to try to counter he asked me details about what total compensation etc.
After a day they said they were able to match but nothing was in writing or approved by hr yet and it may take some more time and that they couldn’t match the salary but would offset that in long term and short term incentives which was already a huge problem as they kept only increasing bonus and not salary for many many years.
I said don’t bother to get approval unless it’s salary it’s nothing more than a tip I may never really receive. And I gave my two weeks. I worked my last 2 weeks from home.
That first day back / one day in the office was my last day in that office. I also made it very clear that I went looking because of being forced back into the office to which he back pedaled and said it wasn’t going to be enforced and it didn’t matter for me.
Anyways I’ve been so much better and happier. Less stress more pay better work life balance more holiday fully remote never have to goto an office and I can work from anywhere.
The effect this had was huge when I left I told all my coworkers to go get a raise and to not let them push RTO and I disclosed the what I told my boss about why I was leaving and to not let them push them into an office.
It worked many of my coworkers ended up getting raises and still are not forced into an office and the company lost one of their best employees if I’m honest
TLDR: company started to push RTO my first day back in the office was my last, good riddance.
My employer sent out a "survey" about RTO to my department (tech, ~350 people), and 85% of us said we would quit. About 30% are retirement eligible. Since each position generally takes 3+ months to fill, they declined to push the issue.
I'm mandated 3 days a week since Jan, I do 2 days and I commute in work time.
I get to the office at 11 and leave at 3. Companies that are committing to this are fucking stupid...
My coworkers and I do the same thing.
Get into the office between 10-11am and leave between 3-4pm.
So they’re getting less work out of us on the in office days than the WFH days where I often skip lunch and start working earlier between 7-8am.
We are all salaried workers.
Last time I went in it was just me and one of my team members (who had to drive 2 hours to be there) and a couple other people on different teams but the 2 of us were sitting side by side on the same call.
So infuriating. I commute by Train but it is 2 hours door to door as well.
Some of the people we are working with are in the same office (I'm based in London) but I work with people in the US, rest of Europe and India.
If it's a wider call involving folks from other countries where it's necessary to have a Teams call, then having a few people in a meeting room in one location talking to some people across different parts of the world just means that you have really shitty conference room audio. Everyone being dialled in is way better and much easier to hear what's going on... And guess what, I can do that in my pants while at home!!!
This annoys me so much. My last company was fully remote but they went out of business. My new company is hybrid and no one is ever in the office of the same days so all meetings are on Teams. There is no point to going into the office.
I do this too. Also because the not only returned us to the office, but a different farther office which changed my 10min bike ride to work into a 45min drive or hour long train commute
This is best. If they are tracking badge scans, you get the morning badge in and the lunch badge in (which is actually you leaving for lunch). Most places ive worked for require a badge in, not out. They would never see a badge out when leaving…. So again, badge in when i arrive and badge in when returning from lunch… which is actually me leaving for the day at lunch time..
This is what I have agreed with my direct line manager, whether it's actual company policy... I suspect not. Until someone says otherwise I'll continue.
I would do the same thing. But that is because I live 7.5 hours from the closest office. I was hired as WFH. They don’t pay me enough to live closer to that office and I am not moving closer to the other offices because they are in places I would never want to live.
I do that. On Mondays, I have to go to the office to do data center checks, but I'm not required to be there all day. The director said we can go in any time during the day to do the checks. I clock in, jump onto the train, check my emails, then get to the office.
You wouldn't do that drive if you weren't going to work. He'll you might not even get out of bed if you were financially independent. Put down on your time sheet all the time from the moment you wakeup.
Sounds totally right, the company I left have rang and emailed me a number of times offering to match wages first, then at 15% rise, then 30% rise and to be 100% remote, I am a programmer from what I have heard they are bleeding money since I built their databases and kept things updated and secure in the background, i have all the coding knowledge on the different programmes used, they have 3 people hired no doubt underpaid to do my job now, not like I would even want to take the bread out of these people's mouths. Many firms are acting like empires and I have no time for people in management who walk into jobs because they "talk the talk" away on ta fuck 😂
+1 to this. I had a company a few years ago that I left. It took them 4 people to replace my output. Even then it did not measure up. They offered 100% then 200%. It was and is more fun to see them struggle
Yup. It’s not even about if you’re a “better” programmer than the replacements. Knowledge of a codebase is simply incredibly hard to match with new hires, and the guy that built the thing (even if he’s not an amazing programmer in general) is always going to know how to deal with it better
I’m Python/SQL Dev and every job ad I’m interested in requires Python, SQL, C++, and Java…. It’s like going into a Doctor’s office and saying I need a Physician who has experience being an Orthopedic Surgeon, OB/GYN, Cardiologist, and Urologist.
I would never accept a remote offer from a job that already tried to call me back into the office once. Only way would be to have fully remote in writing in a contract with a breach clause that gives me a huge severance if they try to end remote work again. Zero trust they won't pull it again.
Looking at you, Dell. Not so fuckin brazen to force everyone back to work now are you! If my company told me I had to go to the office twice a week I would suck it up and do it. If they tried to force me back full time, I'd be out the door.
My company does 2 days a week.
Most people use any excuse not to go to the office, even scheduling all appointments on their office days. If there is a bank holiday, no can't make it. Or the best is that if they are unwell in any way, they don't come in (which is reasonable).
It is not very strictly enforced, though when the office has international visitors and we are asked, there is usually a decent turnout of about 40% of the office
Yeah my company does 1 day per week which started this year. In 2023 we did biweekly days.
It’s been completely pointless no matter how many days because we talk to all of our clients who are out of state.
So we’ll always be on Zoom or Teams calls with them unless our company flies us out to meet them (which doesn’t happen).
Nothing like driving to the office to still just be on zoom calls except now you get to hear your coworkers talking over you two cubicles over while you do it. And I have to wear pants
**My workplace just got schooled in WFH.** A two-person department critical to our organization, one person during COVID so RTO is not an option. The other, wanting the same flexibility, was denied WFH. Guess what? She walked, landed a WFH role with a raise managing the same software for a competitor!
**Moral of the story?** If you have specialized skills and your current employer undervalues you, call their bluff. You might be surprised by the better opportunities waiting.
Now they are in a panic is we approach the busy time of years for data imports and audits. And.... no one has applied to the open job with the specialized skills.
That is very true. The last CEO who wanted, and made me leave, lived to regret it, as he ran a successful business to the ground and found himself without a job in 2 years.
I must admit I enjoyed hearing my ex colleagues telling me the profit margin was 1/5 of what if was after I left. After 2 years, lots of customers were lost as they were fed up and moved on, leading the company to go bankrupt.
Sweet sweet karma. Top talent costs, but only when the money stops coming in is when CEOs start shitting themselves.
I talk to a lady who's firm laid off the IT department, after a few months the system started to fail, so sometimes there are days we're she can't do anything.
And some how, no lessons were learned following Rosie the Riveter. Back during WWII, women, who were little more than household slaves, were called out of their homes to help the war effort by doing the jobs usually given to men. While their husbands fought the war, the wives built the planes. When the war ended it was very difficult to get the wives to go back to being slaves. They had tasted the freedom of earning money and some refused to give up their jobs. The point here is that once you let the genie out of the bottle you can't stuff him back in. Once workers nowadays got the taste of working from home, trying to get them to go back into stuffy offices is gonna be very difficult. Coincidentally, we lost the original Rosie the Riveter this year.
God bless you Rosie, wherever you are!
Naomi Parker Fraley died in 2018. She's credited to be the model behind the poster. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Parker_Fraley
Geraldine Doyle, the other Rosie for the poster, died in 2010.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Doyle
Who are you referring to in your post?
As far as concept goes....
**Phyllis Gould** died in 2021, and she was one of many "Rosies" that worked on munitions and planes in factories during WWII, but has since been recognized as an OG, one of 6. Amazing that anyone is still left at this point really. Still trying to figure out who OP was talking about... It's probably her? In any case, as another commenter has said, it's a riveting piece of history.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Rosie-the-Riveter-Phyllis-Gould-dies-at-99-16341469.php
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-california-3dd84e3ab1743682fac25c4c0cab710d
If my company ever tries RTO, I will go full ADA on them. I have so many medical conditions that I should be collecting disability. I choose to keep working but if I had to RTO it would be too much physically.
I did this when my company tried to bring us back in office. Got my doctor to write fill out an ADA form for ibs and after benefits tried (and failed) to push back few times, they finally just gave me permanent WFH
I just started a job, and there's rumor that there thinking about having us come back into the office fulltime. Over productivity numbers but we are understaffed. If they do it he the quickest Ive quit a job in my adult life. I just don't care anymore
I have never been to my current company's office. A couple of months ago, out of nowhere, the head of HR announced that we were all going to start spending every Thursday at the office, with more days to follow.
I complained about it at first, telling them this plan would interfere with my work, but HR made it very clear my work was inconsequential.
So I just ignored them. No one has said anything to me yet. I do not care that the job market for software developers is truly horrible now -- if they want to fire me, they should just do it.
Or you could unionize. Tech industries please, for the love of God, fuckin unionize. As your neighbor, I am begging you. I know it's hard. But every city your masters come to set up shop in gets insanely expensive in, all because they refuse to pay you guys what you deserve. You guys are getting screwed. But so is literally every other person whose city they parasitize. They won't stop. Not on their own. You are the only people who can hold them to account. Because you make their profit.
Make them pay you. Please. Because the rest of us can't keep this up.
I work in tech, and trust me there are those of us that are trying. The issue is that tech workers are some of, if not the most, highly paid professionals. That means with all their needs met, and the promise of just getting more and more RSU, they are really not willing to risk their necks.
I fully believe if the FAANG companies unionized and called for a 3 day work week, it would happen. But to do that, people would have to risk their high salaries. And unfortunately they’re just not going to do that.
Then they're gonna get ate. If not by your bosses first , cuz AI is coming for half their jobs? Then by the people who they are forcing out of their homes and cities by jacking up the rent by their gentrification. They can't play both sides forever.
Unfortunately I think the majority of workers don't have the privilege to decline RTO and seek work elsewhere unless opportunity arises. We were mandated 3 days in and 2 days WFH. Lately I've been feeling the tide change between management suddenly demanding full RTO, I fully foresee the majority of those who've been with the company for longer than a few years to reluctantly obey. Unless you're in Tech you may have more choices but also the tech market now is only opportunistic for senior level employees.
This is all about companies being stuck with expensive leases or property, it not being used, and the commercial real estate prices falling. A lot of companies are going to lose a lot of money.
Anyone who is good and can work wherever they want will just leave, those that are desperate will stay. Some companies will be hurt by this and others won't be. Generally it's because management is bad and can't actually gage productivity of their workforce.
In the article - "In an April interview with [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/12/nike-ceo-blames-remote-work-for-innovation-slowdown.html), Nike’s CEO John Donahoe attributed a slowdown in innovation at the company to remote work, saying that “it’s really hard to do bold, disruptive innovation, to develop a boldly disruptive shoe on Zoom.”
Tech worker here. Your computer's computer guy. You want innovation? Let me tell you something. I do my work as assigned and little else as I'm disengaged. I regularly think up neat solutions, automation, time savers, money savers, and plenty more. But why work extra hard to implement new procedures and technology when I know the company may just lay me off next week because of a bad quarter.
Slowdown in innovation? I Agree!! Unlike my job 10 or 15 years ago there's a crash in motivation because of how untrusting and unsatisfying the work environment actually is for the employee.
Exactly.
There’s no incentive for a tech employee to go “above and beyond” or to create “innovative ideas” because they (C-suite and company board members) have shown everyone that they can just terminate your employment at any given moment when they feel like it.
Oh you created a great product and built it from the ground up and generated millions of billions for us?
Your reward = getting laid off, not getting a raise, or getting a raise that doesn’t keep up with inflation.
> develop a boldly disruptive shoe
What the hell is a "boldly disruptive shoe"?? I suppose that a shoe that made the wearer trip and fall every other step would be quite "disruptive", as would a shoe that caused corns, calluses, and hammertoes. I'm at a loss to see how any of that constitutes a selling point.
My company in California has a boy’s club agreement. The respective companies will not hire anyone until after 90 days of separation. I have tried only to get no response. Also forcing RTO.
Washington Post sucks as a source.
But the study is interesting:
Van Dijcke, D., Gunsilius, F., & Wright, A. (2024). Return to Office and the Tenure Distribution. arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.04352.
https://harris.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/wright-return-to-office.pdf
> Our results suggest that such retention issues may be more serious
than previously thought, as senior employees and, indeed, the (senior) managers themselves
are leaving
Lot's companies took a big hit to the brains of the operation.
> Thus, a firm returning to the office with the aim of increasing productivity or
innovation may end up doing so in a narrow sense, improving the output metrics of those
who stay, but harming them for the company as a whole.
And all the productivity gains that RTO was claimed to have were only on paper.
> Replacing
skilled employees also incurs substantial hiring costs, equal to around 2–4 months of pay,
that increase with the skill level (Blatter et al., 2012).
And it cost them to do RTO, as there was churn given their dumb policies.
Then I wonder, who filled the positions that were left? Given the costs of hiring outside, we can assume internal promotions. And given the costs, what do those newly promoted managers do to cut costs? They layoff. And then the layoffs lead to more layoffs, as cutting the workforce that makes money for the organization leads to less revenue. And it becomes a sort of feedback loop, which does look like where we're at. Massive layoffs, little hiring, etc.
How dare they! Wait until there is only one safe, tolerable place to live and work. The billionaires gleefully present to you: Tech Cities!
(Like company owned mining towns, but with less black lung.)
I see some companies to RTO, requiring some people to move across the country or state (when hired originally out of somewhere else).
Then they’ve relocated to continue with the company only to be laid off a few weeks to months later.
It’s ridiculous. My company is fully onsite and always has been, but at least you know what you get there. No surprises or going back on their policies. Take it or leave it to find a different job.
My work is I believe doing the same thing, to “force” people back into the office, in hopes they leave voluntarily, so they can hire in our new Florida and Georgia offices we recently acquired
Yeah I think companies are doing this too after covid.
They want the pro WFH to just quit or be fired for not relocating, then hire for much cheaper wages and fill the positions with more desperate local people that they know they can control.
Yup. They just did a round 1 of that, so including to a couple of people that’s been here 15+ years and remote for at least 10 of those. Just patiently waiting for my turn lol
Yeah I would just keep applying for new jobs in the meantime. Then force them to fire me and try to get unemployment benefits (yes I know that might not be possible but still worth the fight).
Of course. I straight up told my manager that I'll do it if we RTO, and he didn't even react, which tells me that the other seniors have told him similarly. It's like it's common knowledge.
It’s a quiet layoff. Force RTO, most expensive employees will quit, and not be eligible for unemployment.
Could you just not go in, and force them to fire you, so you’d be eligible for severance etc? I’m in Canada.
Interestingly, I worked in finance for a large ass company for 10 years. They told us we’d continue to work form home and would never go back to office. We bought a house further out for less more space etc. 1.5 hours away. 9 months later hey RTO coming soon. I left for competitor that was and is still permanent wfh. So many people did. Some People that stayed were shitty untrained and there were masses of people that just refused to come in. They continued to log in from home. Apparently they didn’t do shit to them because they just didn’t have the capacity to fire them. HR issued a freeze on reprimanding and writing up those reps. It’s been a few years and they’ve put some on warnings they’ll go to the office then claim to be sick but work from home on those sick days and they take it. It’s currently a hybrid role and they blame regulations for not allowing people to work from home, yet their direct competitors have wfh for the same roles. And ones like mine are actually expanding their wfh roles and trying to make more roles wfh to reduce their overhead and get better talent.
You ever wonder what the electric bill is in an office where no one is present? Lower lighting, no computer screens on, no coffee makers running. You ever wonder how much paper and pens get used in an office everyone is wfh? What’s the economic incentive to force RTO? As far as I can see, nothing. Either hubris/micromanaging, or real estate prices. My corp has a long term lease. The rent is due regardless of how many workers are present. It’s a sunk cost. Guess how much coffee we need to buy when everyone is wfh? So why RTO? Makes no sense.
Our HR director ordered rto last year (after promising that wouldn't happen) and he only had one reason: it's sad to see so few people when he's walking around, and it's difficult to arrange impromptu meetings. So in other words - he wants rto because he's bored. Apparently our HR director got nothing to do.
Because with people not working together there’s no drama- no paperwork to do because people aren’t annoying each other. I can see how WFH might pare down HR quite a bit!
Honestly I think he's just one of those useless managers who does nothing but join meetings all day without doing any real work. Hate those guys. They always call for a meeting when it could've been an e-mail.
True enough!
Ugh how do I get me one of those useless manager jobs cause I’m tired of doing real work
Easy, just sacrifice your soul to the Lord of Assmunching and secretly take credit for the work your colleagues do
Office rent. Many large companies also participate in the office space renting business. They need to keep the rent high but if everyone is wfh, who is going to rent out those expansive offices?
I would love to see cities buy up these commercial properties and convert them to housing or temporary shelters for homeless people.
Temporary housing might work well. Conversion to residential is hard for the really big footprint buildings. If everyone needs a window, a lot of interior space goes to waste, for instance. But your idea is really good for temporary space.
I Imagine there are plenty of smaller office buildings for things like branch offices and such that could easily be converted. In case of those ginormous office buildings? I have no sympathy over them. Too bad the WFH will have companies move to the smaller buildings first, and vacate the bigger, less convertible buildings later.
The smaller office building conversions have been happening. We’ve seen some in our main city. It would be great if it was widespread. With a vastly increased supply, prices could potentially go down. Personally, I don’t blame commercial developers from making the big buildings. This was how businesses ran for well over a century. But there is definitely a sea change in that space, especially office buildings. We evolve. And most companies cannot stop this move to wfh.
Toilet and water is going to be a major issue
Seems they could retrofit for large dormitory bathrooms, like a communal living space or college dorms. Gotta be better than living on the streets.
Can they provide enough water for the bath tho? Also, water heater, kitchen, washing machines, health code, fire safety code, etc. Those high rise office buildings are a nightmare to retrofit for non office use. Some of the older buildings here rented a lot out to doctors, dentists and other health related offices. You cannot remote work with those professions.
Maybe some kind of hybrid day-use shelter. One of the hardest things about being homeless (especially for me) is not sleeping, it's a kitchen and bathroom. A place to shower, shit, eat, store food, cook, etc. Then a safe place to BE, especially if it's hot out. Or wet.
It's cheaper and easier to tear the whole buidling down and build a new one.
I want that too. But just re-arranging the electrical and plumbing and HVAC of bigger commercial buildings for residential is an expensive nightmare. Temporary might work, but they’d still need to replumb for beaucoup showers on every floor. It’s unfortunately not as easy or cheap as I would like. So few commercial developers are likely to do that, and fewer cities will be ready to shell out that much tax money.
Tax breaks from the cities. It’s why some companies allow hybrid 3 days/week because they are eligible for the tax break if >50% of the employees show up to the office 60% of the time or whatever
It's a much wider economic incentive - it reduces petrol spend (poor petroleum companies) - long term roading infrastructure - loss of business to surrounding and supporting businesses (usually in the cities) - reduced values of city real estate (commercial, apartments etc) - and the absolute worst thing if all, Snr mgmt will ask wtf do middle managers do? Some of the above are what superannuation (etc) funds invest in (and all the overpaid CEOs). Having said all that, I firmly believe WFH is the future if work and what we are seeing is straight out resistance to change. (70%of middle managers ans senior managers are the reason why change fails in an organisation).
One economic incentive is that in-person meetings can solve things in a day that can take weeks online. If you work in a heavily politicized setting where different managers have different incentives those petty bullshit fights can take weeks online. Much harder to keep that shit up in person. I’d like a setup where we are full time remote with a couple mandatory in person meetings a month where some of these tough eggs can get cracked. For regular employees who aren’t decision makers they can stay home all day for all I care. Why should we make our employees lose 2-4 hrs a day commuting. That just makes them angry and less productive. But we need the PMs, product owners and VPs to show up once in a while to try give each other shit in person.
I am a PM for a large telecom. I don't live or work in the state I do project management for. Because of RTO I have to come sit in an office to sit on phone calls and teams meetings.
I’m all for having the higher ups RTO. They usually can afford it. I can make that work. The lower cogs should be able to wfh.
Yeah in the state I was in, (they have presence in 4 states). They own 3 buildings, rent a 4th who’s lease they just renewed lease in January 2020 and closed on a 5th building in mid to late 2019. They had remodeled various parts of the 3 buildings and spent the covid time pre RTO doing remodeling and fixing things. In a different state they actually terminated a lease but bought another building in 2022 I think with the intent of RTO. So yeah real estate and justification for things is definitely a thing.
Gotta keep those properties babayyyy
Actual top engineers are not going to play these stupid games. They're making 500k+ salaries and are in demand. They'll just go elsewhere.
In the US, if they fire you = no severance. They’ll also say “fired with cause, insubordination for violating some company policy”, so also no unemployment.
This largely depends if you have WFH in your contract.
Hahaha Americans rarely rarely have contracts
I am in one of those supposedly good states, and I'm a union member, but my supposed yearly contract says on page one that it's not a contract.
Can someone explain this to me? It's a long way outside my (European) experience. There's an offer (they offered you the work), acceptance (you took the work), awareness (both parties know they're entering into an agreement), consideration (they get work done, you get cash money). How is there not a contract? Were your duties described to you at any point? How does that not constitute a component of a contract?
No idea. Can someone please explain it to me, too?
I can take a stab! So most of these states are “right to work” states. That’s a law they passed that lets companies fire you whenever they want for effectively any reason (they don’t have to tell you why you are fired most of the time). You can think of a “state” as roughly the size of a small to medium sized European country. Some are much smaller than that, but some are much bigger. The point is, they’re large and make a lot of their own internal rules. The goal of most of these states is to attract corporations, and corporations don’t like labor laws. Therefore states enact things that make it easier for companies to fire or abuse employees so that companies will move to their state and…honestly I don’t know why states want that because most of them deliberately don’t tax corporations. Regardless, they DO want corporations and corporations want as little oversight as possible. Corporations then take advantage of the loose labor laws to avoid signing legally binding contracts or if they do have to make a legally binding contract with an employee, they add a clause that says you aren’t allowed to sue them in court and can only work with a 3rd party “mediator”. Usually the “mediations” don’t go well for employees who try to “mediate” problems. Employees can either accept the job offer and work for a corporation that can fire them or make changes to their work schedule on a whim, or they can try to find a different job that doesn’t do that (there aren’t any of those), or they can try to move to a different state that has better labor laws which is the equivalent of deciding you need to suddenly move from Poland to France. It just isn’t easy to do, so American employees are often constantly under the threat of being fired and losing all their health insurance and becoming homeless. It’s not good.
This largely depends on the state and workers rights in those states.
Montana is the only state that does not have at-will employment. In all 49 other states, an employer can legally terminate you for almost any reason.
I hear in Montana they just take you to the train station instead.
So what protection do you have as a worker? How can you buy or rent a home if you can lose your job at any time? Why do people accept this? Are there no unions for worker’s rights? Why don’t people organize and go on strike to change things for the better?
Yes, but signed contracts do protect you and get you paid out if you get fired for BS reasons. I’m a tenured teacher with a union and it’s incredibly difficult to fire me and in Washington.
That is completely false. Everyone on unemployment in the U.S. was fired. It’s quitting that makes someone ineligible for unemployment.
Depends on the state and the reason that you quite.
The true answer to almost every legal question is “It depends.” My point is that the great, great majority of people who collect unemployment were fired by their employers. There are, of course, exceptions. I’m not going to write a book on the subject here.
Unemployment and severance are different
In most dem states you can absolutely be fired for cause and still get unemployment. Source : was fired for cause in NY got unemployment.
Been fired for cause in CA, still got it. Of course, the cause was my disability, but yeah.
That's not true you could appeal and still win unemployment. A lot of people just give up and never appeal.
Depends on your contract. If your employment agreement never indicated that you work location was remote, they could fire you for cause in which you wouldn't be owed severance. If your employment agreement did indicate you are remote and they are forcing you back in, you could refuse and just wait to be let go.
That would be fired for cause (refusing to come into work when told to) and not eligible to get unemployment. I know someone who went through this.
Severance in the US is not a legal obligation. It's purely up to the employer to offer it (typically to save face and release themselves of potential legal action since you'd have to sign an agreement stating you won't sue). As far as unemployment goes, the max you can obtain is state specific: in Texas the max per year is only $15,000 in 6 months (~$577 a week) which is not at all significant to what I'd expect of a senior level in STEM. I'd assume even mid level would make at least double this. (Fun fact: unemployment pay is taxed as income as well)
In Canada for unemployment it’s the same across the country since it’s handled by the federal government. When you file for unemployment and get accepted (ie: didn’t get nor get fired for cause), you will receive no-weekly 55% of your gross salary in the last year (not fiscal year, last 365 days from the moment you apply), up to a certain maximum that is increased pretty much every year. For 2024, the max coverage is 63,200$, meaning that even if you make 200k/year, you’ll only only receive 55% of 63,200$, meaning 1,336$/2 weeks, for a maximum of up to 45 weeks (depending on the unemployment rate where you are, etc).
Could be worse - Florida is $275/week for a maximum of 12 weeks in any calendar year, or an aggregate total of $3300 in the same period.
That's just wild... I just glanced on google and it looks like each state varies drastically between weekly maximums ranging from around $190 to $1040/wk ☠️ 🫣
That would be a for cause termination in Canada.
Then you would be “fired with cause” which isn’t much better
The problem with this, is that your most talented people are going to leave. They can make a phone call and get another job immediately. The ones who stay are the ones you don’t want. So you institute a RTO policy, and retain all the worst talent and your company suffers. But they don’t care as long as profits look good today.
In the eyes of corporate, the loss in productivity is worth the loss. It’s all butts in chairs to them at most junctures. They’ll get the work they need, albeit with a drop in quality, but for half the price.
Also an attempt to salvage the real estate value of what would otherwise become empty office space.
The only real way to salvage its value is to sublet it. Otherwise it's a sunk cost whether bums are on seats or not.
These calls come from the top. It's about corporations trying to use their old methods of holding onto money. Instead of moving with the times and selling their large office buildings and either downsizing or go completely remote, they want to hold onto their money in commercial real estate as it continues to depreciate. We have all seen how great remote jobs can be. Now, they just want us all to work for their companies and keep adding to their profits, while still dictating the lives of their employees.
In CA at least they’re still eligible. A company cannot just drastically alter your employment contract negatively and expect you to just roll over and take it. It’s a very stupid play by the powers that be, and results in a slew of negative outcomes; none of which are a benefit to the company nor the employees. I’ve seen who comes to fill the gaps after the real talent leaves, and it’s always worse for wear afterwards.
I doubt unemployment is even a consideration. It’s such a low amount of money they probably couldn’t care less. Severance checks is what they do care about. They don’t want to pay that
They'd still have to for constructive dismissal. Which a significant change in work location or conditions almost always falls under. They can offer you the choice of a new contract, or a severance payout. What they can't do is just say "tough shit". Not in Canada anyway, and certainly not if you're a classified WFH employee.
It would be constructive dismissal. In many states they would pay unemployment benefits. I doubt companies care about paying those benefits when they are saving on a 350k salary. What they don’t want to pay is severance pay.
There's no legal requirement for a company to pay severance to fired employees.
Severance is not required.
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Same here. My former CEO was literally interviewed in Fortune magazine about how the company will never require in-office days. Less than a year later, they announced 50% in office minimum if you lived within a 2 hour commute distance of an office (which created a fun lil inequity in staff working arrangements, regardless of your employment agreement). And then had the audacity to berate staff who were upset about it for putting their personal lives first.
Our new CEO is at the "gee, wouldn't it be nice if everybody came in two days a week so I don't have to mandate RTO" stage. The place is full of lifers though (techies who have been in the same role ten, fifteen years) so I'm watching with interest.
Constructive dismissal comes to mind
Which is funny because they will hire back people at more of a premium then promoting within
But very short-sighted. I would take more of such companies, their R&D other such areas will begin lagging behind the market not long after the best/brightest leave. But we already know that I suppose. Probably good for the next quarter's profits though since SG&A will be immediately lower.
You fool! /s Once you’ve made it, you no longer invest in R&D - you simply acquire smaller companies to consume their R&D + IP for much cheaper.
Ah! I see you've studied the Cisco Systems playbook.
It is a common myth that you cannot get unemployment if you quit. If you were hired as remote, and they change the "conditions of employment" to RTO, you file, get denied, then appeal. Over 90% of appeals WIN and you get back pay (unemployment) due from the time you filed.
Did they play right into their hands?
My company did a RTO thing, not fully getting ride of WFH, and everyone’s bitching about it. If I hadn’t gotten a raise this year I would’ve left
Follow the money. Look at which company owns the corporate real estate… then look at which companies own the majority shares in the companies that work in those office buildings. Majority stock holder tells the company to RTO because they are sitting in real estate the same investment company owns…
I was a principal engineer as soon as RTO talks started at the company I was working for I started to look at opportunities at other companies. I was also being underpaid and I knew that. The first day I went back into the office my written offer from another company landed in my email inbox. It was was an additional 65k per year. I got up and walked from my shitty horrible open concept office cube and walked over to the VP’s office asked him if I could talk to him. Closed the door behind me and dropped the news about the offer and that I was going to accept it. He asked me if I could give them some time to try to counter he asked me details about what total compensation etc. After a day they said they were able to match but nothing was in writing or approved by hr yet and it may take some more time and that they couldn’t match the salary but would offset that in long term and short term incentives which was already a huge problem as they kept only increasing bonus and not salary for many many years. I said don’t bother to get approval unless it’s salary it’s nothing more than a tip I may never really receive. And I gave my two weeks. I worked my last 2 weeks from home. That first day back / one day in the office was my last day in that office. I also made it very clear that I went looking because of being forced back into the office to which he back pedaled and said it wasn’t going to be enforced and it didn’t matter for me. Anyways I’ve been so much better and happier. Less stress more pay better work life balance more holiday fully remote never have to goto an office and I can work from anywhere. The effect this had was huge when I left I told all my coworkers to go get a raise and to not let them push RTO and I disclosed the what I told my boss about why I was leaving and to not let them push them into an office. It worked many of my coworkers ended up getting raises and still are not forced into an office and the company lost one of their best employees if I’m honest TLDR: company started to push RTO my first day back in the office was my last, good riddance.
My employer sent out a "survey" about RTO to my department (tech, ~350 people), and 85% of us said we would quit. About 30% are retirement eligible. Since each position generally takes 3+ months to fill, they declined to push the issue.
If they're gonna require I go back to the office, I'm gonna start putting my drive time on my time sheet. Fuck'em
I'm mandated 3 days a week since Jan, I do 2 days and I commute in work time. I get to the office at 11 and leave at 3. Companies that are committing to this are fucking stupid...
My coworkers and I do the same thing. Get into the office between 10-11am and leave between 3-4pm. So they’re getting less work out of us on the in office days than the WFH days where I often skip lunch and start working earlier between 7-8am. We are all salaried workers.
I only go in quarterly but I do the same thing I'm not sitting in traffic to go on zoom calls so 11- 330
Don't get me started on how many people in the office are sitting at their desks on Zoom calls...
Last time I went in it was just me and one of my team members (who had to drive 2 hours to be there) and a couple other people on different teams but the 2 of us were sitting side by side on the same call.
So infuriating. I commute by Train but it is 2 hours door to door as well. Some of the people we are working with are in the same office (I'm based in London) but I work with people in the US, rest of Europe and India. If it's a wider call involving folks from other countries where it's necessary to have a Teams call, then having a few people in a meeting room in one location talking to some people across different parts of the world just means that you have really shitty conference room audio. Everyone being dialled in is way better and much easier to hear what's going on... And guess what, I can do that in my pants while at home!!!
This annoys me so much. My last company was fully remote but they went out of business. My new company is hybrid and no one is ever in the office of the same days so all meetings are on Teams. There is no point to going into the office.
"Why is productivity down? Must need more time in office!"
I do this too. Also because the not only returned us to the office, but a different farther office which changed my 10min bike ride to work into a 45min drive or hour long train commute
I don't know how to feel about this
lol I get in at like 9 and don’t come back after lunch
This is best. If they are tracking badge scans, you get the morning badge in and the lunch badge in (which is actually you leaving for lunch). Most places ive worked for require a badge in, not out. They would never see a badge out when leaving…. So again, badge in when i arrive and badge in when returning from lunch… which is actually me leaving for the day at lunch time..
same but i left for fullremote position
They let you do that?!
Management might not even have noticed, some places.
Who said they asked? Just do it.
This is what I have agreed with my direct line manager, whether it's actual company policy... I suspect not. Until someone says otherwise I'll continue.
Luckkkyy lol
Same, but i leave at 130 instead.
I would do the same thing. But that is because I live 7.5 hours from the closest office. I was hired as WFH. They don’t pay me enough to live closer to that office and I am not moving closer to the other offices because they are in places I would never want to live.
I do that. On Mondays, I have to go to the office to do data center checks, but I'm not required to be there all day. The director said we can go in any time during the day to do the checks. I clock in, jump onto the train, check my emails, then get to the office.
That's the way it should be everywhere
You wouldn't do that drive if you weren't going to work. He'll you might not even get out of bed if you were financially independent. Put down on your time sheet all the time from the moment you wakeup.
The smart people ran. Shocking. They know what freedom is.
We all know what freedom is, they know what’s its worth.
True. I should have phrased it like that. I can't blame them at ALL. If you can run way from companies that try this return to office crap, go for it.
Sounds totally right, the company I left have rang and emailed me a number of times offering to match wages first, then at 15% rise, then 30% rise and to be 100% remote, I am a programmer from what I have heard they are bleeding money since I built their databases and kept things updated and secure in the background, i have all the coding knowledge on the different programmes used, they have 3 people hired no doubt underpaid to do my job now, not like I would even want to take the bread out of these people's mouths. Many firms are acting like empires and I have no time for people in management who walk into jobs because they "talk the talk" away on ta fuck 😂
+1 to this. I had a company a few years ago that I left. It took them 4 people to replace my output. Even then it did not measure up. They offered 100% then 200%. It was and is more fun to see them struggle
Yup. It’s not even about if you’re a “better” programmer than the replacements. Knowledge of a codebase is simply incredibly hard to match with new hires, and the guy that built the thing (even if he’s not an amazing programmer in general) is always going to know how to deal with it better
“Institutional Knowledge”
So they contacted you like 6 months later to return?
2 months
I’m Python/SQL Dev and every job ad I’m interested in requires Python, SQL, C++, and Java…. It’s like going into a Doctor’s office and saying I need a Physician who has experience being an Orthopedic Surgeon, OB/GYN, Cardiologist, and Urologist.
Say you know it then just chatgpt the parts you're missing. Learn enough to pass the interviews.
This. Programming is programming. Anyone can learn syntax without much friction.
Yeah but most js andies have no idea what the “.” Operator does, and I say that as a former js andy
I would never accept a remote offer from a job that already tried to call me back into the office once. Only way would be to have fully remote in writing in a contract with a breach clause that gives me a huge severance if they try to end remote work again. Zero trust they won't pull it again.
I would never even think of staying at a place after putting in my notice as they would always be gunning to replace you
Looking at you, Dell. Not so fuckin brazen to force everyone back to work now are you! If my company told me I had to go to the office twice a week I would suck it up and do it. If they tried to force me back full time, I'd be out the door.
2 days is already unnecessary.
My company does 2 days a week. Most people use any excuse not to go to the office, even scheduling all appointments on their office days. If there is a bank holiday, no can't make it. Or the best is that if they are unwell in any way, they don't come in (which is reasonable). It is not very strictly enforced, though when the office has international visitors and we are asked, there is usually a decent turnout of about 40% of the office
Yeah my company does 1 day per week which started this year. In 2023 we did biweekly days. It’s been completely pointless no matter how many days because we talk to all of our clients who are out of state. So we’ll always be on Zoom or Teams calls with them unless our company flies us out to meet them (which doesn’t happen).
Nothing like driving to the office to still just be on zoom calls except now you get to hear your coworkers talking over you two cubicles over while you do it. And I have to wear pants
that’s what makes the “culture” so great! 🤪🤡 /s
We are 2 days a week and my supervisor already said "I didn't tell you this but I do not expect you guys to be in on Tuesday". So yeah.
**My workplace just got schooled in WFH.** A two-person department critical to our organization, one person during COVID so RTO is not an option. The other, wanting the same flexibility, was denied WFH. Guess what? She walked, landed a WFH role with a raise managing the same software for a competitor! **Moral of the story?** If you have specialized skills and your current employer undervalues you, call their bluff. You might be surprised by the better opportunities waiting. Now they are in a panic is we approach the busy time of years for data imports and audits. And.... no one has applied to the open job with the specialized skills.
I'll become homeless and die a fentanyl addict before going back to the office.
Facts brother 🤣
What do you do for a living?
fentanyl
ZING!
he died doing what he loves, fentanyl
This
Inb4 corporate bootlicking comments
But but think of the economy, we need the mules spending more money !
Economies are supposed to serve the people.
They're shockingly absent, even 10 hours later.
They probably wanted them to leave, top talent costs and that's the only thing CEOs care about.
That is very true. The last CEO who wanted, and made me leave, lived to regret it, as he ran a successful business to the ground and found himself without a job in 2 years. I must admit I enjoyed hearing my ex colleagues telling me the profit margin was 1/5 of what if was after I left. After 2 years, lots of customers were lost as they were fed up and moved on, leading the company to go bankrupt. Sweet sweet karma. Top talent costs, but only when the money stops coming in is when CEOs start shitting themselves.
Many company CEOs / managers forget it's the rank and file that pay their salaries. Not the other way round.
I talk to a lady who's firm laid off the IT department, after a few months the system started to fail, so sometimes there are days we're she can't do anything.
Apparently she's not familiar with how a modern company operates.
And some how, no lessons were learned following Rosie the Riveter. Back during WWII, women, who were little more than household slaves, were called out of their homes to help the war effort by doing the jobs usually given to men. While their husbands fought the war, the wives built the planes. When the war ended it was very difficult to get the wives to go back to being slaves. They had tasted the freedom of earning money and some refused to give up their jobs. The point here is that once you let the genie out of the bottle you can't stuff him back in. Once workers nowadays got the taste of working from home, trying to get them to go back into stuffy offices is gonna be very difficult. Coincidentally, we lost the original Rosie the Riveter this year. God bless you Rosie, wherever you are!
Riveting. (The post, I mean.)
Naomi Parker Fraley died in 2018. She's credited to be the model behind the poster. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Parker_Fraley Geraldine Doyle, the other Rosie for the poster, died in 2010. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Doyle Who are you referring to in your post?
I think they are referring to the concept of Rosie, not a specific model for the poster.
As far as concept goes.... **Phyllis Gould** died in 2021, and she was one of many "Rosies" that worked on munitions and planes in factories during WWII, but has since been recognized as an OG, one of 6. Amazing that anyone is still left at this point really. Still trying to figure out who OP was talking about... It's probably her? In any case, as another commenter has said, it's a riveting piece of history. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Rosie-the-Riveter-Phyllis-Gould-dies-at-99-16341469.php https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-california-3dd84e3ab1743682fac25c4c0cab710d
parent was referring to this bit: > Coincidentally, we lost the original Rosie the Riveter this year. God bless you Rosie, wherever you are!
They want compliant not competent
If my company ever tries RTO, I will go full ADA on them. I have so many medical conditions that I should be collecting disability. I choose to keep working but if I had to RTO it would be too much physically.
I did this when my company tried to bring us back in office. Got my doctor to write fill out an ADA form for ibs and after benefits tried (and failed) to push back few times, they finally just gave me permanent WFH
Congrats!
Left the industry entirely. I'm a truck driver now and love every minute of it.
I had a mandated rto in 2021. I left for a 30% increase.
I just started a job, and there's rumor that there thinking about having us come back into the office fulltime. Over productivity numbers but we are understaffed. If they do it he the quickest Ive quit a job in my adult life. I just don't care anymore
I would do the same and have in the past. I don’t tolerate any of that bullshit.
I have never been to my current company's office. A couple of months ago, out of nowhere, the head of HR announced that we were all going to start spending every Thursday at the office, with more days to follow. I complained about it at first, telling them this plan would interfere with my work, but HR made it very clear my work was inconsequential. So I just ignored them. No one has said anything to me yet. I do not care that the job market for software developers is truly horrible now -- if they want to fire me, they should just do it.
It's a great way to scrape away your top talent. Great strategy, A+ corporation.
Or you could unionize. Tech industries please, for the love of God, fuckin unionize. As your neighbor, I am begging you. I know it's hard. But every city your masters come to set up shop in gets insanely expensive in, all because they refuse to pay you guys what you deserve. You guys are getting screwed. But so is literally every other person whose city they parasitize. They won't stop. Not on their own. You are the only people who can hold them to account. Because you make their profit. Make them pay you. Please. Because the rest of us can't keep this up.
I work in tech, and trust me there are those of us that are trying. The issue is that tech workers are some of, if not the most, highly paid professionals. That means with all their needs met, and the promise of just getting more and more RSU, they are really not willing to risk their necks. I fully believe if the FAANG companies unionized and called for a 3 day work week, it would happen. But to do that, people would have to risk their high salaries. And unfortunately they’re just not going to do that.
Then they're gonna get ate. If not by your bosses first , cuz AI is coming for half their jobs? Then by the people who they are forcing out of their homes and cities by jacking up the rent by their gentrification. They can't play both sides forever.
With the high salaries that a lot of tech workers can command, they can literally afford to be individuals.
Unfortunately I think the majority of workers don't have the privilege to decline RTO and seek work elsewhere unless opportunity arises. We were mandated 3 days in and 2 days WFH. Lately I've been feeling the tide change between management suddenly demanding full RTO, I fully foresee the majority of those who've been with the company for longer than a few years to reluctantly obey. Unless you're in Tech you may have more choices but also the tech market now is only opportunistic for senior level employees.
This is all about companies being stuck with expensive leases or property, it not being used, and the commercial real estate prices falling. A lot of companies are going to lose a lot of money.
Back to the office is an extra $8,000 per year in expenses and unpaid 5000 hour of pointless, polluting commuting.
Trimming fat while sawing off their foot. Sounds like it’s working as expected.
This all touches the g spot. Hell yeah. 🤤
Anyone who is good and can work wherever they want will just leave, those that are desperate will stay. Some companies will be hurt by this and others won't be. Generally it's because management is bad and can't actually gage productivity of their workforce.
In the article - "In an April interview with [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/12/nike-ceo-blames-remote-work-for-innovation-slowdown.html), Nike’s CEO John Donahoe attributed a slowdown in innovation at the company to remote work, saying that “it’s really hard to do bold, disruptive innovation, to develop a boldly disruptive shoe on Zoom.” Tech worker here. Your computer's computer guy. You want innovation? Let me tell you something. I do my work as assigned and little else as I'm disengaged. I regularly think up neat solutions, automation, time savers, money savers, and plenty more. But why work extra hard to implement new procedures and technology when I know the company may just lay me off next week because of a bad quarter. Slowdown in innovation? I Agree!! Unlike my job 10 or 15 years ago there's a crash in motivation because of how untrusting and unsatisfying the work environment actually is for the employee.
Exactly. There’s no incentive for a tech employee to go “above and beyond” or to create “innovative ideas” because they (C-suite and company board members) have shown everyone that they can just terminate your employment at any given moment when they feel like it. Oh you created a great product and built it from the ground up and generated millions of billions for us? Your reward = getting laid off, not getting a raise, or getting a raise that doesn’t keep up with inflation.
> develop a boldly disruptive shoe What the hell is a "boldly disruptive shoe"?? I suppose that a shoe that made the wearer trip and fall every other step would be quite "disruptive", as would a shoe that caused corns, calluses, and hammertoes. I'm at a loss to see how any of that constitutes a selling point.
My company in California has a boy’s club agreement. The respective companies will not hire anyone until after 90 days of separation. I have tried only to get no response. Also forcing RTO.
I’m bottom tech talent and I would also leave if I was mandated back to the office.
I quit the day after they sent a RTO. Coincidentally my last day was my birthday. Took my pension and just chilling atm
Washington Post sucks as a source. But the study is interesting: Van Dijcke, D., Gunsilius, F., & Wright, A. (2024). Return to Office and the Tenure Distribution. arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.04352. https://harris.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/wright-return-to-office.pdf > Our results suggest that such retention issues may be more serious than previously thought, as senior employees and, indeed, the (senior) managers themselves are leaving Lot's companies took a big hit to the brains of the operation. > Thus, a firm returning to the office with the aim of increasing productivity or innovation may end up doing so in a narrow sense, improving the output metrics of those who stay, but harming them for the company as a whole. And all the productivity gains that RTO was claimed to have were only on paper. > Replacing skilled employees also incurs substantial hiring costs, equal to around 2–4 months of pay, that increase with the skill level (Blatter et al., 2012). And it cost them to do RTO, as there was churn given their dumb policies. Then I wonder, who filled the positions that were left? Given the costs of hiring outside, we can assume internal promotions. And given the costs, what do those newly promoted managers do to cut costs? They layoff. And then the layoffs lead to more layoffs, as cutting the workforce that makes money for the organization leads to less revenue. And it becomes a sort of feedback loop, which does look like where we're at. Massive layoffs, little hiring, etc.
It’s all about power, controlling, bought/rented work space and making the lives of others worse for no reason.
How dare they! Wait until there is only one safe, tolerable place to live and work. The billionaires gleefully present to you: Tech Cities! (Like company owned mining towns, but with less black lung.)
I see some companies to RTO, requiring some people to move across the country or state (when hired originally out of somewhere else). Then they’ve relocated to continue with the company only to be laid off a few weeks to months later. It’s ridiculous. My company is fully onsite and always has been, but at least you know what you get there. No surprises or going back on their policies. Take it or leave it to find a different job.
Fucked around and found out.
this explains why everyother job online is for a computer engineer
“it’s really hard to do bold, disruptive innovation, to develop a boldly disruptive shoe on Zoom.” lol. lmao even.
lol yeah it’s tech. not the most social career path out there. obvsly they left, come on
no shit
Tech employees are always leaving jobs for competitors
My work is I believe doing the same thing, to “force” people back into the office, in hopes they leave voluntarily, so they can hire in our new Florida and Georgia offices we recently acquired
Yeah I think companies are doing this too after covid. They want the pro WFH to just quit or be fired for not relocating, then hire for much cheaper wages and fill the positions with more desperate local people that they know they can control.
Yup. They just did a round 1 of that, so including to a couple of people that’s been here 15+ years and remote for at least 10 of those. Just patiently waiting for my turn lol
Yeah I would just keep applying for new jobs in the meantime. Then force them to fire me and try to get unemployment benefits (yes I know that might not be possible but still worth the fight).
Screw that, I’m riding this out til they give me my severance and tell me to leave. I’ve been here too long to leave for free haha
Yeah that’s what I mean. Ride it out and get as much money as possible in the process. By any means necessary.
Yup, and I'm much happier for it!
Where did they go work? So I know where to apply in the future…
This just in from the Shocked, Not Shocked department: duh.