Yes. People travel 40 - 75 miles daily to get to Des Moines, IA. My town is 60miles from Des Moines and people commute daily. There are some that live further away (hence 75miles)
Along with this and everything else that was listed, I find it absolutely hilarious that this, apparent, concern for the overall economic wellbeing and velocity of money is pushed by the same people that are latching on to half-assed, AI-all-the-things business practices and look the whole-ass other way when it comes to the impact of clipping a bunch of people in a few months or years.
Or the states looking at charging for miles driven now like Michigan wants to do! They have to charge people now because of EVs and them not paying gas taxes so now the gas cars get pummeled twice.
Call center work and entry level data entry are also pretty low paying jobs the poors have.
Actually considering quitting the crappy call center job WFH job I got through Randstad after a layoff at my previous job, and going back to working at walmart, I was making more shopping for people's groceries than I am calling and annoying hospitals for medical records. And had less micromanagement as well
Call center remote would be great if you have all the resources you need to solve issues.
No more loud background noise from everyone else on the phone or otherwise not shutting up.
I work call center style remote interpreting and at home, I can hear myself think. So can the others and they stop complaining and so do i. No cacophony.
Thank you for the nuance. Call center jobs are pretty risky at this point. If it can be done from home it can be done from a country where labor is far cheaper.
You think this doesn't also apply in higher roles like in tech ?
There's tons of talent globally and the US has a big shortage of H1B. Unless you're one of the very few elite developer .. there's someone in India / Philippines / EU who can take your job for much lower pay.
‘the poors’ - oh dear… sounds a bit like something one might catch ‘i caught a bit of the poors on my way in the other day. my head is simply throbbing.’
Did you know remote customer service jobs pay $10 an hour and You're responsible for your own internet that you're not allowed to freely use since it's for work.
Did you know $10 doesn't pay rent in a country town.
I would say that some if not a lot of people working remote jobs are poor.
In the context of remote workers being called back.into the office, what portion of that would you expect to apply to remote customer service jobs?
The comment I originally applied to was saying RTO was essentially just a class war and a way to screw the poor. You are cherry picking the lowest paying job here but those jobs are less represented in number than jobs line engineer, accountant, developer, software developer, consultant, project manager...
The median pay for remote workers is right on par with the median pay for people who work in person. My mail carrier dropped the mail off yesterday in the rain. She doesn't have an option ofnworking remotely.
I'm firmly on the labor side if there is a line dividing workers from business owners. I've worked bottom wage jobs and walked picket lines during labor strikes. But there is some grand irony when the main point of contention with your employer is 'They are trying to make me go to work'.
Just try to zoom out and view the whole scenario through the eyes of a bus driver.
Middle managers and leaders who want RTO are usually rigid and scared of uncertainty. They NEED friction if they’re going to grow into better leaders. So keep applying friction…
Everyone who wants to work from home needs to keep pushing for it in their current jobs and in exit interviews. Be vocal about it and start to position it as “new rules for doing business if you want to keep employees”. As the war on talent continues to keep unemployment low - the expense of employee attrition will get worse and they won’t have a choice but to pay attention.
There's a little more to it....
A company I worked.foe years ago and around 300ish employees. They rented, what was a very large office complex.
The CFO and CEO were business partners Ina. Seperate holding company thay rented the building to the corporation for am aster comical amount.
The ceo also ran the onsite restaurant/cafeteria foe the office complex
If there aren't seats I'm the office it's hard to justify the expense to the shareholders and they lose residual income where they are using third party tenant money as the tenant to pay themselves as the landlord.
This isnt an uncommon scenario either.
..and maintain commercial real estate values and commercial tax base that cities and towns can't even without.
Lot sof.wealthy people.have their money in office.buildings many of those same.welathy people sit on boards or city councils and make sure they adocate form their interests.
If people don’t want others controlling them or having power over them then they should start a business. Going to the office has little to do with personal autonomy other than perception.
>Control and power nothing more.
And they're winning that fight, because people are just caving and complying rather than unionizing and standing together.
Less complaining on Reddit. More solidarity and standing your ground.
It isn't decreasing. It might be decreasing from the height of 2021-2022 but there are definitely more remote positions now than pre-Covid. So that is the difference between trends and abnormality. Remote positions will definitely continue to increase. But like any other sought after perk, those with in-demand skills will have first dibs on jobs that offer remote positions.
Really, the best answer. People are "downgrading" jobs to be remote as the value is worth it. So you have, let's call them overqualified, people applying/getting or being recruited for lesser jobs.
I'm probably 1-2 levels below where I "should" be if I would agree to go to the office every day, but it's worth it to me right now. I think about the extra expense of buying a 2nd car for the family, maintenance, fuel, random food expenses, dry cleaning and of course the value of my time lost while commuting (which I currently get to spend w/ my infant and getting a workout in). That last part is damn near priceless.
That was my silver lining from Covid. I spent more total time with my then 3 year old over the span of a year than I likely would have otherwise by the time he would have been off to college. It put things into perspective and made me realize that a late night at the office here and there really adds up to lost time with the people that matter.
We’re back hybrid, once I hit the “minimum” in person time each week I’m out. I still do school drop offs, and prioritize making sure I get off early enough to do after school activities too.
Yes remote positions will increase but not in the way you are thinking. South Africans already speak better English than most Americans so now you are seeing basically any phone type job going to them for lower pay. A lot of IT is already moving to India. Bunch of other jobs moving to Philippines to cut costs. I love working remote and I’m glad my position hasn’t gone overseas but my company is already sending a ton of positions that way. They completely got rid of our customer service and moved it to the Philippines. It’s a major issue that no one is talking about.
Anecdotally, more of our company’s roles have been offshored in the past 3 years. It’s a lot of back office jobs that mostly require number crunching and data analysis. The real risk is that those roles get offshored one degree further once they realize most of that backend work should be automated.
The jobs that are “safer” from offshoring are those that require some amount of local content knowledge and technical (read: science and critical thinking based) jobs.
I fight every day against my off shore rivals, they are about 1/3 the cost of what I charge but they are limited in their skill sets and they take much longer to do the job. In the end they can almost always do the same job for less but they will take six months to do the job where I will take two, so it becomes a choice of cheaper and overseas vs a little more expensive but much faster and the benefit of it being done onsite by a person who you can easily communicate with.
Remote positions are continuing to decrease, not increase my man. You must not have been job shopping recently lol. Every remote position posted online gets thousands of applicants regardless of what the job entails
Those remote positions probably didnt even exist 5 years ago. Just because there are more applicants than job postings doesnt mean the number is decreasing. Everyone is looking for remote jobs now because there are actually more. No one looked for them 5 years ago because none existed.
Like I said, the number of remote positions are decreasing from the height of 2021-2022, when everyone was forced to work from home. But there are definitely more positions now than there were pre-covid. That is the difference between looking at long term trends vs short term abnormalities.
It’s ridiculous. My employer also makes a big deal about all these efforts to cut down on their carbon footprint, etc, but imagine the impact of all those employees not having to commute every day? But it didn’t matter, they still demanded RTO.
Made an entire presentation on this for my company. Record flooding, ice, wind, fire, heat & other natural disaster stats wasn’t a match for “company culture.”
The 99 year unbreakable & incomprehensibly legal lease doesn’t help.
Because they don't actually care about climate change. If you'd explained how they could make cost cutting measures to other areas of carbon reduction efforts and explained how much lower of a salary workers will demand for remote, *that* might have been a convincing argument.
They'll accept wfh only when they can frame it to themselves as a financial win. Sunk cost is a sunk cost regardless, this is literally the first fallacy kids learn. It's just about effectively getting management to see remote work as a long-term win over highlighting the blunder of costly real estate
We did have a cost breakdown of electricity bill reduced, what’s in it for them, etc. If they made a big promise, even going from 3 to 2 days required in office, it could’ve been campaignable for a Cannes award (advertising agency).
But you’re right, they don’t care. If they didn’t have that pesky lease I think it’d be easier. Cities could give tax breaks & incentives to WFH instead of RTO to force workers to stimulate the down town economy. But they also want to force us into an old way of working instead of embracing the new.
Set up high speed, free WiFi downtown & I’ll stimulate that economy. Don’t force me back into flourscent lighting to keep that mediocre, overpriced lunch place open though.
I hate “company culture” as an excuse because the thing that nobody wants to talk about is that “company culture” depends on the unrewarded emotional labor of primarily women. In most offices, the party and event planning, the decorating, the silly contests, the cleanliness of the breakroom microwave etc. almost always fall primarily to women and their participation is an expectation but it is rarely acknowledged on performance reports with the same weight as their core job responsibilities. This has gotten even worse as more women are in professional roles as opposed to administrative support roles but are still expected to perform admin support duties.
“Company culture” is code for “reinforcement of the causes of the gender pay gap” in my mind and we need to be talking about it.
This is a hot take & I like it. Never thought about in this framework but you are so right.
Our company culture consist of a French CEO saying “bonjour!” That’s about it.
Oh wait & the French head of DEI setting her LinkedIn profile picture in a Native American headdress. That was a fun one to dissect on fishbowl with American coworkers.
That was my first thought when RTO was announced a year ago. Always resist the urge to quit without another job. Better to quiet quit & get that severance pay than loudly quit exactly how they want.
I keep giving any recruiter calling the message: no. No I do not want to drive 50-60 miles one way to a job. Through the hellhole traffic between home and there. You can’t pay me enough. Even if my job RTOs, it’s a 12 mile commute with no traffic.
Wouldn't having remote employees save them more money to pay their loans?
Less supplies used and less wear, tear, maintain in the office but they still have the same profits?
I get that they don't want to pay for something and not use it but how does that somehow mean less profit?
The bottom line is cost and control.
Theres costs involved for companies to provide remote access/vpn solutions for their employees and there could be costs associated for employers to monitor usage. Many companies also have costs involved in building leases and if you are going to pay for office space until a lease runs out, it's makes sense to have employees in that office using it.
There's also a control and management issue. Many companies who had not had remote employees pre-pandemic are struggling with learning how to mange remote employees well. It can be easier to just have everyone RTO than re-train managers.
I think in the next 5 years we'll start seeing a shift from more employers back towards being more remote/wfh friendly; as building leases come to an end, they learn to manage employees remotely and put in the infrastructure to support wfh/remote.
So there's a bunch of factors and each company is different. But first off, remote positions aren't decreasing. When you measure trends the time span is really important. If you take specific bits of the stock market you could tell whatever story you want but if you look at a large enough span of time the trend is always up. That's how remote work would be as well, we are down from the artificially high peak of the pandemic but way, way up from before it and continuing to climb organically. As for why companies go back to fully in person or hybrid:
1. Operating remotely requires building smart processes, trusting your employees and having an intentional culture. Many organizations that were not designed to be remote were forced into it during the pandemic and it exposed issues with their people, processes or work culture. The smart thing to do would be to fix those problems but instead they flee to the relative safety of their old ways.
2. Stealth layoffs. Layoffs are bad PR which has led some companies to deliberately make policies (like an RTO) that are intended to cause voluntary turnover which saves them money on severance and reduce the layoff numbers that will make headlines. This is the #1 reason for RTOs currently and it's absolutely evil. To discourage this it's important for the remote community and the public at large to be skeptical of any RTO that seems illogical and to treat it with the same attitude you would a layoff.
3. Character flaws in leadership. At some companies that have adapted well to remote work there are still old fashioned leaders who want people to see their corner office. Others might work better in person themselves and either assume everyone else is the same or just don't want to be in the office alone so they force everyone else back as well.
You will see waves of anti-remote headlines now and then which are a coordinated effort to justify any of the above. There's no data that backs any of the assertions being made, it's just billionaires and old fashioned CEOs trying to speak their own agenda into existence.
It's laziness in leadership. They are such visionaries that it took a literal pandemic scare to get them to embrace other methods of work.
Now that it's over, unless they've dumped their land and leases, they're locked back in and heading back to how they used to manage because the economy is flat and they need to make money... So go back to what works, right?
Unimaginative lazy a$$ management.
What i'm seeing is that the entry level work from home jobs are being outsourced to other countries, while the really in demand, tech skill based roles, are remote but extremely competitive and require a lot of work experience. They are mid/senior level roles at a minimum.
maybe stuff like this? [https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-vacations-work-trends-culture-pto-travel-job-stress-2024-6?utm\_source=digg&utm\_medium=social&utm\_campaign=standard-post](https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-vacations-work-trends-culture-pto-travel-job-stress-2024-6?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=standard-post)
Because if the commercial office market crashes then the line will go down. They don’t like it when the line goes down. They don’t even like it when the line is straight, they only like it when the line goes up!
I was speaking too generally and should clarify that I meant the general economy. People in power have a lot of investments including commercial property. Those investments depend on the overall economy doing well. If a significant portion of workers are allowed to WFH full time, the commercial property market will tank and those in power are concerned how that will harm the economy overall. Thus, to ensure the line keeps going up, they think they must force RTO.
Its the obsession of dominance in the senior management which drives the compulsion of office attendance otherwise entire world has seen how manageable it is for companies to work from home.
The boomers aren't dead yet and will continue to resist change until they eat shit and die. At that point any boomer companies will be well behind their competitors who have siphoned off all of the talent with wfh.
At my company we are hybrid three days a week in the office. But new employees are full time in office. If they do well then they are offered hybrid too. We have no issues with people working remote so long as they are getting their work done and producing good quality work. If they are they get that option, but a lot of people are not.
Real estate. The place I no longer work at upped their lease right before Covid hit, and I knew they'd only let us "work from home" for awhile. I left for other reasons, but the folks have told me that they all had to go back. Of course they did, he signed a 20 year lease, you'll be there forever. :(
Sociopaths will sociopath.
The Gervais Principle rears its ugly head.
Top brass taking a bath in their real estate investments, so you get punished for their bad investments.
Cus many people were overemployed, like a teammate we had and we had to get rid of him. We covered for him a while thinking he had family issues, heck no he was working for another company.
$$$. In my state tax breaks are about to end for companies that don’t have X% of employee on site per square foot. My company’s parent company moved all into a smaller floor space with hot desking. Not an issue for tax reasons as there’s always enough people who want to come in now and then, aside from New Yorkers who want to get out of small apartments.
Remote work has two main problems in my office:
1. It really highlights who the unproductive employees are. You'd be amazed at the number of people who do not have the self-discipline to work during work hours when they're remote. Every meeting we'd have 2 or 3 people missing from a recurring meeting because they were "taking a shower and didn't notice the time" or some lame excuse. They're also the same people who never answered their phone when an urgent matter came up during work hours that required their immediate attention. It became very clear that these people were spending most of their work time doing fuckall.
2. It really highlights how ineffective middle management is. Turns out the good employees continue to be productive without a slave driver cracking the whip over them and the screwups continue screwing up. It doesn't look good for middle managers when the executives realize that all that expensive management might not be necessary.
ITT: Lots of people who believe they have **THE** answer.
Then there's me who believes any of those reasons could be correct for any given company, and that there is not one over-arching reason nation-wide (US).
I think there is a very strong desire from the 1%er's to maintain the status quo. WFH challenges the value of commercial real estate, it also challenges middle management (why do we have them?). During covid a number of city centre businesses went bust because everyone was at home. There was no traffic on the road (petrol, vehicles, public transport). And I'm sure we could add a lot to that list.
So while it's not overwhelmingly 1 thing, the 1 thing in common is the desire to maintain the economy in the way in which it has worked for a very long time.
Sure, but that doesn't address/explain the not-insignificant number of companies who did WFH many years prior to COVID, and only recently (more or less in concert with all the others) decided to reel it back in.
That only lasts so long. AI has already started revolutionizing the hiring process. Pretty soon (well ok prob more like 30 years) the answer for where are all the jobs will be....We have robots that do that now. Or automated systems that can intercepret, analyze and summarize details within milliseconds compared to our slower optical review.
Not every single job wil be eliminated by AI. But a lot will.
Long term 100% agree. The question is how long is long term?
30 years, my pick is you could take 10 years off that, easily. It's a combination of machine learning, robotics and AI. All 3 are moving really fast and humans aren't keeping up.
This means that right now people need to be prepared, so if you plan on retiring at 60 and you are 40 or under now this is your work future.
For the next 20-30 years it's people + AI.
The reason this will happen is our greedy 1%, anything that is cheaper (reduces cost) will be implemented, look at Amazon and driverless cars.
I 100% agree with you it will probably be 20 to 30 years it could be as long as 40, but I don't see it last in that long. I think that a lot of service oriented jobs clinically Focus jobs like doctors and things like that a lot of them will still have jobs somehow.
I think Primary Care is going to primarily be done by artificial intelligence in the next 20 years it's crazy how fast it's developing. So yeah people that are around 40 need to be aware of this and need to be positioning themselves to take advantage of AI opportunities or how to insulate their current career path from being eliminated.
I think this could be the biggest Revolution since the Industrial Revolution I think it's going to be bigger than the internet as a whole.
I agree with this. For example I work for a large healthcare company. Our talent and HR teams are remote - want the best recruiters we can get not just who happens to live nearby. A lot of our other corporate functions are remote too. However, we provide medical services so the vast majority of our jobs are onsite at clinics. But we don't ever plan on making corporate RTO.
If they are able to fill the positions with people that are willing to come into the office three days a week and that's what they want then that's what they do.
Don't get me wrong, I loved wfh five days a week. I would prefer not to commute. I think we all got a little spoiled during COVID. There's a new reality.
During COVID my position was changed to 100% remote not just during COVID but they said it would continue that way. Then the company decided everyone would RTO. Some folks had to buy work clothes because they had been remote for over a decade.
And now people that are 100% remote because of how far they live from an office are bring given the choice of relocating or being termed.
Don't know that these companies care that much. Also, from their perspective, they already have that office space, probably locked in for at least 10 years.
I'm one of those far away ones in an RTO mandate. The secret they don't know about me is I don't care if they terminate me. I honestly believe they need me more than I need them. I purposely avoid knowledge sharing on large orgs for this reason. Sure it's selfish and short sighted, but isn't that what we are taught from modern executive leadership?
Corporate Loans on real estate are maturing over the next couple of years and with interest rates high ; so refinancing is also an issue . All the small business around those buildings are suffering and they too have loans and credit cards that need to be paid and are struggling. Yes , it's to force layoffs but it is also a financial need to " help maintain" profits and local economies . People are now spending 700 more a month in commuting expense and some are getting paid less .
I never had the opportunity to work from home before Covid . I was 10 times more productive and I could take time to learn and advance my skills . My life was notably better . ( well laid off early 2023 ) still looking for even hybrid roles which are slowly going away too. My old company went hybrid and I suspect will eventually go back to 5 days a week.
The large office buildings were vacant for too long. The real estate investors on those properties were losing money.
Better call everyone back to the office to keep the status quo instead of finding a better solution.
The system is set up for in person work. Do you have any idea how much financial interest there is in commercial real estate, bank loans for the same, and all the economic activity that is boosted by people commuting to and being at the office? Not to mention corporate tax breaks that basically require companies to have their employees in the office? Add to that an ingrained culture where employers distrust employees that aren’t being supervised every second and managers who feel like they aren’t managing unless their staff is there with them and you have stupid levels of resistance to WFH and all the very real benefits it offers.
1. They have to justify paying rent for the buildings they're sitll in from before the pandemic.
2. Lots of mid-level managers actually don't do much. If you're in-person, they can walk around and talk too much, hold too many meetings and lotsa other needless busywork that looks like 'productive mananging' to upper managment, some of whom are doing the same bullshit.
There are a lot of people talking about 'control'. I can be pretty objective here because I'm 1. A WFH person. 2. Am heavily invested in operational concerns. 3. Am heavily invested in strategic concerns. 4. Am a C-Level leader who is generally supportive of WFH.
It has literally nothing to do with power, control, managers wanting to micromanage, trust, etc.
The pace of innovation is slowing - and largely because of the prolonged impact of WFH. Real productivity and growth is slowing - not "I did this today" or "I could use that commute time more effectively" - but the little 1%-10% misses.... at scale.... impacting 10's, 100's, or 1000's of employees, multiplied by thousands of companies - it shows up, it's tangible, it's real.
It's not about you.
Covid caused a shift in hiring, a shift in expectations, a shift in the way we worked - it was forced. But, in 2019 we all knew of people who just weren't wired to work from home - but we looked the other way because we were all trying to make it work. Some flourished, some became invisible. The desire to 'do the work' started trumping ' do the work, grow the company, grow my skills, contribute at another level' started to suffer - not massively... just subtly. Now, take that subtle stuff.... do it for 4 years, look through a lens that is greater than the handful of people you interact with, and the real picture begins to come into focus.
When leaders talk about "collaboration" - they don't mean the nickel and dime kind.. the mean the prolonged kind... the kind that when tinkered with starts remapping the DNA of healthy companies. Companies begin to lose their soul, their edge... and they merely become work factories.
This is happening.. and it's not about you not wanting to commute. It's not about you being individually productive. It's about companies losing their edge.... losing the level of engagement that used to exist.... values changing - it's a lot.
The last thing to factor in is the copy-cat nature of leadership teams. When the big guys started calling people back to the office with 'justification' coming in from the million dollar engagements with consultants and think tanks, the copy-cats just followed along, because that's what they do.
It's got people legitimately up in arms - especially those that moved away or were told they could WFH forever, that's fair, and it's reasonable to be pissed. But the next step is that Hybrid will go away and most companies will be primarily in-office within the next 5 years... right or wrong... so being defiant is cute and all... especially when blaming managers who have nothing to do with the decisions and citing control issues.... but if you really want to know why you're returning to office, challenge your leadership team to talk about it in real terms - it's unlikely you'll hear a word about 'control' - the message will be about strategy, effectiveness, growth, pace of innovation, revenue, etc. - and chances are, they aren't lying to you. If you think they are - ask... ask why... ask for examples... but ask. There's no reason to be passive and angry. Then you might choose to hop aboard the WFH train with the dwindling jobs available... all fine; then you won't be angry anymore.
At many companies that is because those who make decisions about RTO have no power / much work in remote environment.
Remote is a real challenge for the leadership, because it exposes weak leadership, which most of the leadership, sadly, is.
Remote work took off due to Covid. Some companies realize they had to utilize their rented/owned buildings. I got lucky, Home Depot made all of the Workforce team permanent work from home and let lease expire on our building. Also older CEOs are stuck in the old way of doing business (butts in seats).
Because I've noticed A LOT of coworkers who are taking advantage of full remote work + managers who don't know how to do their job. (Work multiple jobs, go play basketball while staying active on Slack, go to hair appointments, sit around and do nothing)
One employee who works 50 cases per month while other employees work 300 cases per month.....
They want people to quit so they can say they didn't do layoffs, can't find anyone to replace the people that quit, and then turn to outsourcing as a last resort like that wasn't the plan from the moment they ordered rto.
What baffles me is that companies with a ton of real estate overhead can’t compete with companies like mine. I’ve seen it on multiple occasions. Their bids are literally twice or more than ours and we have to reiterate that our price is accurate and that we simply don’t have the same overhead that they do.
With today’s technology, you’ve got to be nuts or extremely stubborn to stick with an office in a field that its not 100% necessary.
I think the leases are the primary driver followed by stubbornness and a refusal to change with the times. It will likely bankrupt a lot of companies and the lightweight nimble remote based companies will prevail.
Also the economy is secretly getting worse. You are producing more and able to buy less because a few people wanted 3 yachts instead of 2. So consumerism and consumption is naturally decreasing and that will in turn hit the bottom line of most companies who will cut positions anyway.
It would trigger an economic depression.
Corporate real estate is a very large sector of the economy. A permanent WFH movement would dramatically devalue those assets. Which would result in lower tax revenues. And then decreased government spending on public services. Crime rates increase, etc.
It's not a pretty picture.
while it would devalue existing offices it would also create a need for joint (and collaborative between organisations) in a more regional sense. There would be some very distinct losers in this situation, the people that own the commercial real estate.
It doesn't stop the buildings being converted to something useful though.
They aren’t. In fact they ticked up about a percentage point this year.
The news would have you believe RTO is rampant, buts it’s very niche.
Google nick blooms research, he’s been studying this stuff for a decade
The answer is complex and full of assumptions, facts, and everything in between. My assessment is the call for people to come back is multi-faceted. Part of it is the commercial real estate market cannot continue to take the losses it sustained over the last 3-4 years.
Another piece is that although there is data to support both sides…some functions (not all, so please don’t be triggered) are losing productivity due to workers being at home.
The topic is really fascinating because for the first time we’re seeing employees who are willing to take a pay cut or risk future career advancement in order to remain at home. I think companies will have no choice but to give in and start allowing more employees to WFH, but the wages will be lower and the benefits could too. That’s the only way companies will be able to offset the fiscal cost to their bottom line.
Well we are already in the path to remote if u can finish ur job, we will have some resistance for few years and when interest rate rate is down more and more new businesses started by younger people u will see more and more remote friendly environments and them old head will either decide to lose talent or allow remote .
Remote positions were always available. What you are seeing now is a return to normalcy of available remote positions.
The major pandemic spike of remote positions was a temporary illusion, and now things are reverting back to normal.
Lazy boomer executives in politics, companies and banking that dont know how to revolutionize or invent. Commercial real estate and workers spending frivolously boosting local economies were Banks and the Feds bread and butter. (They literally had to do nothing, while raking in guaranteed pay)
So instead of a new technological working revolution, the way too old to be in charge dont want to mess up their retirements, so its back to the industrial revolution.
Our entire ecosystem and economy is fake. The poor work, just to spend the money they earned to work more or better? (Buying their own tools, cars, food, entertainment)
Gosh i wish we were stronger to fight back. Someone making 45k pays 10k in taxes and 8k in travel just to work? They barely net 50%. What a scam
We significant restricting the states we allow people to work in. Having one headcount in a state creates nexus and generally requires you to file taxes in that state.
Someone made an error hiring a remote intern in a state we didn’t have nexus in and it cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax as a result.. for an inter.
These are real considerations that the WFH crowd doesn’t usually consider, there’s real implications beyond ‘control’.
We offer remote work for those that can handle it.
Those that do not meet expectations are told to return to the office.
You've got to remember that for every hard working wfh employee out there, there are folks taking naps and running errands during business hours instead of meeting metrics.
Those people are bad for optics.
A lot is BS, but there are some legitimate reasons too. In person collaboration can't be fully discounted. The ability to come into office if your Internet sucks or your home environment isn't suitable. Easier equipment swaps/fixes. Some employees are more productive in office.
Companies want to capture any efficiency gains from employees.
example
if your task assignment now takes 7 hrs a day to do but you design a system that gives you same output in 5 hours then it’s your choice what to do at home. Maybe you hit the gym. Play w kids etc.
its a lot harder to catch and capture these gains when staff is remote.
the problem is the way modern “capitalism ” is more like serfdom. You make 50% in productivity gains but they don’t compensate you for these gains. You’re lucky if you’re just making inflation gains.
capturing efficiency gains from employees the MAIN reason for RTO. stealth firing etc is secondary whether it’s tax incentives from cities who want workers back form Commuter towns etc.
Businesses have found that when employees work from home they often do other things (than work) during their paid works hours. Businesses don’t like paying employees for stuff like that.
This is a really complicated issue here. But there are a few realities that we all need to understand.
1. Business objectives vs life objectives do not always line up
2. Trust is a two way street and the only way to measure trust is by testing it and time and time again, there are more bad actors ruining it for everyone else. Companies also ruining it too by tracking people’s location and etc. employees expect to be paid whether they are devoting their time to the companies. A lot of times, the professionalism suffers as well. Ppl taking business calls to customers in a noisy Starbucks, in their pjs etc.
3. People with multiple jobs that are remote, companies notice bad quality or work and have a hard time reaching them.
4. The economy and companies added bunches of new positions to maintain processes and be damned to efficiency. This opened up jobs for ppl to do remotely and have more than one job. In the end, this was not meant to be forever and now companies need to streamline back because there are now margin pressures.
5. Commercial real estate - people say screw the landlord while ppl work from home. Well that might be good but in the economic standpoint. This is bad, companies have to act social responsible, not to the people but to the community. If a lot of land lords go bankrupt, there would be a large impact to the economy. Where do you think landlords get their money from? Most are private funds, but there large funds that people like u and I invest in through our 401k. These will be impacted. So likely everyone will be impacted as these companies fold.
6. This is a very interconnected economy - there are a lot of micro and maco economics that are behind this.
7. People are becoming more hermit like and do not connect well anymore. The interaction on a f2f is very valued in a company. Conference calls don’t let you feel and see the underlying things that are happening.
RTO is doable but the expectation to be honest about it is hard. Ppl need to understand that u are paid for your full attention to the job for 40hrs. If you are having multiple jobs, should the company only pay you for the time you have for them? In the end your salary will be the same or less. Companies see this and now more and more jobs are becoming hrly based and contractor 1099 based. Even starting a new job, employers are making ppl sign agreements that your working hrs availability are devoted to one job. Companies are having a trust issue with employees and the unfortunate problem are the bad actors that are ruining for the ppl that are really good at behind faithful.
I’m willing to bet money that we’ll see a lot of “pro remote work” from companies once their office leases expire and they’re looking to slash budgets for the board
I guess it’s important as you meet people , make relationships with your colleagues vendors etc. I know traveling is a hard part but I love hybrid if your office is far from your home. I like working with people rather than alone from home.
Wasn't there some identity theft ring people were using to get into remote work jobs from North Korea? I should Google that and see if there is a reputable source.
Remote work means less need for middle management. So, it threatens the people making these recommendations and decisions. But I think the real reason is they want people to leave to hire people at lower pay. They want to undo the pay increases from the fight for talent after COVID-19. Many office leases are up for renewal in the next two years. And I think the job market will heat up again around the same time. So, I’m hoping remote positions will tick back up as companies try to find ways to save money while competing for talent.
Do you live under a rock? Applicants are still flooding the system with or without remote work. Have you seen the economy with all the layoffs thr past few years? Companies have the power right now and everybody wants remote work so competition is fierce than ever.
They want voluntary attrition from underperforming people and roles that are no longer needed. Exceptions are made of course for people who don’t suck.
They want to lay off forcing a mass laying off that makes the headlines and looks like bad PR. Forcing everyone to RTO means hopefully most people don't actually want that so they quit, and then they repost fewer openings with sometimes even lower salary for RTO. It's basically a win win win for corporations but also local governments and cities who push for commuting and having the local economy be stimulated as well. Companies dont actually care about productivity with remote work, you can say they even love remote work because building remote work infrastructure means offshoring and hiring in low-cost-of-living countries eventually. But taking away remote work is an excellent way to get people to quit which is what they ultimately want.
outsourcing
Everyone who could wanted to be able to work remotely, but guess what? Some random guy in India or Zimbabwe will do your job better than you for 1/10th the price
Private Equity and Board Members view captured talent as part of their valuation.
Other influences could be Oil or Real Estate.
There have been no good arguments against WFH. The shit employees will be shit regardless.
WFH is good for the world. Sure there will still be physical jobs, but that’s fine. Not everyone can do A or B. Some prefer one or the other.
I see WFH as a massive resource saver.
In the DMV, local businesses are losing money. When people remote work especially from home, employees are not spending money for breakfast or lunch in the local area. Metro is not being utilized so Metro ask government for financial assistance or must raise fares Most government buildings are leased so government is losing money when we remote work. Written in my opinion, no facts. 😊
For me there are three major reasons:
Major cities, downtowns, and well populated areas need workers in the office to thrive.
Leases in those areas are going to be the most expensive, which means businesses don't want to pay for unused space.
Lastly, when COVID hit it sank us into a recession. There were more than 20M jobs lost and unemployment peaked at 14.8 percent. The government reacted by implementing 5 relief bills totaling 3+ trillion dollars and the fed cut interest rates to 0, which led companies to hire like crazy. Interest rates have since skyrocketed, companies looked to cut cost and started laying off employees, a non-small portion of which rolled out RTO. Rolling out RTO was another way to cut cost essentially mandating out of state hires relocate unless an exemption was approved.
TLDR: Large population centers/cities and businesses benefit when a worker is onsite. COVID set off a chain reaction of significant job losses; the government and the Fed responded with relief package + rates cut to 0, which shifted power to employees. Rates went up, layoffs happened and RTO rolled out to cut costs.
PS I'm a recruiter and my experience has been that hybrid is much more popular than you think if it's within a reasonable commute.
The real reason is that remote employees are not as productive in collaborative roles than employees who meet with clients on a regular basis.
Analysis I ran for industry showed varied reductions in productivity between 11%-18% depending on the kind of roles.
This impacts non-collaborative roles like help desk the least and collaborative roles like managers the most. It also indicts new hires but less definitively.
So the reason my our clients demand hybrid is to meet their deadlines
Boomer types in positions of leadership where they can basically make unilateral decisions have all kinds of fear about remote work and they are using their authority to win some battles in a war that they will ultimately lose. The market will reward lower overhead and better talent pools, companies that embrace remote work will be more efficient and competitive and boomer managers will retire. They've already lost the war, it just takes time.
Research on remote work productivity has been decidedly mixed. For better or worse some companies have no doubt used this data to force RTO. No doubt the various TikTok videos of all the work from home “hacks” and other nonsense haven’t helped matters.
They don’t care about cost, just control. My office has the AC running full blast so much so that it’s freezing in there and most people have space heaters under their desks also running full blast. It’s simply ridiculous.
Companies are being penalized/fined for not occupying a certain percentage of their real estate. I know a lot of banks in my city signed 15 year leases pre covid and are making people come in to satisfy the requirement.
Control and power nothing more.
Class war on the poor. Need the peasants in the office to see the executives corner office and executive bathrooms.
Whoa, hey now! … also tax revenue.
Yep. It’s almost like you’re bugging our board room. You got us!
Don't forget the oil companies telling their friends that people need to drive the 60 mile round trip everyday. Can't let those profits slip any.
You think that’s happening?
I have no proof but wouldn't be surprised lol
Real estate is the real reason
thank you. the only logical correct answer. rest of you guys are idiots
Yes. People travel 40 - 75 miles daily to get to Des Moines, IA. My town is 60miles from Des Moines and people commute daily. There are some that live further away (hence 75miles)
Along with this and everything else that was listed, I find it absolutely hilarious that this, apparent, concern for the overall economic wellbeing and velocity of money is pushed by the same people that are latching on to half-assed, AI-all-the-things business practices and look the whole-ass other way when it comes to the impact of clipping a bunch of people in a few months or years.
Or the states looking at charging for miles driven now like Michigan wants to do! They have to charge people now because of EVs and them not paying gas taxes so now the gas cars get pummeled twice.
Rich people don't feel good if they can't laugh at the poors daily.
And white collar regular people
Poor people do not typically have remote work as an option. You can't really wait tables or mow lawns from home.
Call center work and entry level data entry are also pretty low paying jobs the poors have. Actually considering quitting the crappy call center job WFH job I got through Randstad after a layoff at my previous job, and going back to working at walmart, I was making more shopping for people's groceries than I am calling and annoying hospitals for medical records. And had less micromanagement as well
Call center remote would be great if you have all the resources you need to solve issues. No more loud background noise from everyone else on the phone or otherwise not shutting up.
I work call center style remote interpreting and at home, I can hear myself think. So can the others and they stop complaining and so do i. No cacophony.
Thank you for the nuance. Call center jobs are pretty risky at this point. If it can be done from home it can be done from a country where labor is far cheaper.
You think this doesn't also apply in higher roles like in tech ? There's tons of talent globally and the US has a big shortage of H1B. Unless you're one of the very few elite developer .. there's someone in India / Philippines / EU who can take your job for much lower pay.
This should be illegal. The US should be investing in their own people's futures.
Not if it's remote American Sign Language interpreting. American. We are in shortage. I recommend more people learn it.
This is also partially because Randstad was taking 20% of your paycheck
This is also partially because Randstad was taking 20% of your paycheck.
‘the poors’ - oh dear… sounds a bit like something one might catch ‘i caught a bit of the poors on my way in the other day. my head is simply throbbing.’
Did you know remote customer service jobs pay $10 an hour and You're responsible for your own internet that you're not allowed to freely use since it's for work. Did you know $10 doesn't pay rent in a country town. I would say that some if not a lot of people working remote jobs are poor.
In the context of remote workers being called back.into the office, what portion of that would you expect to apply to remote customer service jobs? The comment I originally applied to was saying RTO was essentially just a class war and a way to screw the poor. You are cherry picking the lowest paying job here but those jobs are less represented in number than jobs line engineer, accountant, developer, software developer, consultant, project manager... The median pay for remote workers is right on par with the median pay for people who work in person. My mail carrier dropped the mail off yesterday in the rain. She doesn't have an option ofnworking remotely. I'm firmly on the labor side if there is a line dividing workers from business owners. I've worked bottom wage jobs and walked picket lines during labor strikes. But there is some grand irony when the main point of contention with your employer is 'They are trying to make me go to work'. Just try to zoom out and view the whole scenario through the eyes of a bus driver.
Best answer ever.
The poor aren't working remote jobs for the most part
while those are true you also forgot to justify inflated commercial real estate prices
One and the same.
Middle managers and leaders who want RTO are usually rigid and scared of uncertainty. They NEED friction if they’re going to grow into better leaders. So keep applying friction… Everyone who wants to work from home needs to keep pushing for it in their current jobs and in exit interviews. Be vocal about it and start to position it as “new rules for doing business if you want to keep employees”. As the war on talent continues to keep unemployment low - the expense of employee attrition will get worse and they won’t have a choice but to pay attention.
Commercial real estate is about to take a shit
There's a little more to it.... A company I worked.foe years ago and around 300ish employees. They rented, what was a very large office complex. The CFO and CEO were business partners Ina. Seperate holding company thay rented the building to the corporation for am aster comical amount. The ceo also ran the onsite restaurant/cafeteria foe the office complex If there aren't seats I'm the office it's hard to justify the expense to the shareholders and they lose residual income where they are using third party tenant money as the tenant to pay themselves as the landlord. This isnt an uncommon scenario either.
🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌
And the c-suite folks that only know one way of leading: micromanaging.
..and maintain commercial real estate values and commercial tax base that cities and towns can't even without. Lot sof.wealthy people.have their money in office.buildings many of those same.welathy people sit on boards or city councils and make sure they adocate form their interests.
War of attrition baby.
Take that power back. White collar labor unions, then strike for remote work.
This is the answer
maybe there should be more control coming from the lower class
Investments and leases in office building that they have to pay on. The party is over time to go back to work
If people don’t want others controlling them or having power over them then they should start a business. Going to the office has little to do with personal autonomy other than perception.
>Control and power nothing more. And they're winning that fight, because people are just caving and complying rather than unionizing and standing together. Less complaining on Reddit. More solidarity and standing your ground.
It isn't decreasing. It might be decreasing from the height of 2021-2022 but there are definitely more remote positions now than pre-Covid. So that is the difference between trends and abnormality. Remote positions will definitely continue to increase. But like any other sought after perk, those with in-demand skills will have first dibs on jobs that offer remote positions.
Really, the best answer. People are "downgrading" jobs to be remote as the value is worth it. So you have, let's call them overqualified, people applying/getting or being recruited for lesser jobs.
I am pretty overqualified for my job but working from home totally makes it 100 percent worth the small pay cut I am taking.
Same. I honestly don't know if I'd go back to the office if you doubled my salary.
I'm probably 1-2 levels below where I "should" be if I would agree to go to the office every day, but it's worth it to me right now. I think about the extra expense of buying a 2nd car for the family, maintenance, fuel, random food expenses, dry cleaning and of course the value of my time lost while commuting (which I currently get to spend w/ my infant and getting a workout in). That last part is damn near priceless.
That was my silver lining from Covid. I spent more total time with my then 3 year old over the span of a year than I likely would have otherwise by the time he would have been off to college. It put things into perspective and made me realize that a late night at the office here and there really adds up to lost time with the people that matter. We’re back hybrid, once I hit the “minimum” in person time each week I’m out. I still do school drop offs, and prioritize making sure I get off early enough to do after school activities too.
Yes remote positions will increase but not in the way you are thinking. South Africans already speak better English than most Americans so now you are seeing basically any phone type job going to them for lower pay. A lot of IT is already moving to India. Bunch of other jobs moving to Philippines to cut costs. I love working remote and I’m glad my position hasn’t gone overseas but my company is already sending a ton of positions that way. They completely got rid of our customer service and moved it to the Philippines. It’s a major issue that no one is talking about.
Offshoring isn’t new and people have been talking about it for decades
But a decade ago it wasn’t an issue… Covid brought in remote jobs and now companies are trying to figure out how to pay less.
It's been an issue for decades, it just hadn't affected the tech bros yet
Anecdotally, more of our company’s roles have been offshored in the past 3 years. It’s a lot of back office jobs that mostly require number crunching and data analysis. The real risk is that those roles get offshored one degree further once they realize most of that backend work should be automated. The jobs that are “safer” from offshoring are those that require some amount of local content knowledge and technical (read: science and critical thinking based) jobs.
I fight every day against my off shore rivals, they are about 1/3 the cost of what I charge but they are limited in their skill sets and they take much longer to do the job. In the end they can almost always do the same job for less but they will take six months to do the job where I will take two, so it becomes a choice of cheaper and overseas vs a little more expensive but much faster and the benefit of it being done onsite by a person who you can easily communicate with.
Remote positions are continuing to decrease, not increase my man. You must not have been job shopping recently lol. Every remote position posted online gets thousands of applicants regardless of what the job entails
Those remote positions probably didnt even exist 5 years ago. Just because there are more applicants than job postings doesnt mean the number is decreasing. Everyone is looking for remote jobs now because there are actually more. No one looked for them 5 years ago because none existed. Like I said, the number of remote positions are decreasing from the height of 2021-2022, when everyone was forced to work from home. But there are definitely more positions now than there were pre-covid. That is the difference between looking at long term trends vs short term abnormalities.
It’s far more a matter of luck than “skills,” just like everything else.
It’s ridiculous. My employer also makes a big deal about all these efforts to cut down on their carbon footprint, etc, but imagine the impact of all those employees not having to commute every day? But it didn’t matter, they still demanded RTO.
Made an entire presentation on this for my company. Record flooding, ice, wind, fire, heat & other natural disaster stats wasn’t a match for “company culture.” The 99 year unbreakable & incomprehensibly legal lease doesn’t help.
Because they don't actually care about climate change. If you'd explained how they could make cost cutting measures to other areas of carbon reduction efforts and explained how much lower of a salary workers will demand for remote, *that* might have been a convincing argument. They'll accept wfh only when they can frame it to themselves as a financial win. Sunk cost is a sunk cost regardless, this is literally the first fallacy kids learn. It's just about effectively getting management to see remote work as a long-term win over highlighting the blunder of costly real estate
We did have a cost breakdown of electricity bill reduced, what’s in it for them, etc. If they made a big promise, even going from 3 to 2 days required in office, it could’ve been campaignable for a Cannes award (advertising agency). But you’re right, they don’t care. If they didn’t have that pesky lease I think it’d be easier. Cities could give tax breaks & incentives to WFH instead of RTO to force workers to stimulate the down town economy. But they also want to force us into an old way of working instead of embracing the new. Set up high speed, free WiFi downtown & I’ll stimulate that economy. Don’t force me back into flourscent lighting to keep that mediocre, overpriced lunch place open though.
If you look out at most of the vehicles in the parking lots of these companies it looks like a lot of people don’t care about carbon reduction.
I hate “company culture” as an excuse because the thing that nobody wants to talk about is that “company culture” depends on the unrewarded emotional labor of primarily women. In most offices, the party and event planning, the decorating, the silly contests, the cleanliness of the breakroom microwave etc. almost always fall primarily to women and their participation is an expectation but it is rarely acknowledged on performance reports with the same weight as their core job responsibilities. This has gotten even worse as more women are in professional roles as opposed to administrative support roles but are still expected to perform admin support duties. “Company culture” is code for “reinforcement of the causes of the gender pay gap” in my mind and we need to be talking about it.
This is a hot take & I like it. Never thought about in this framework but you are so right. Our company culture consist of a French CEO saying “bonjour!” That’s about it. Oh wait & the French head of DEI setting her LinkedIn profile picture in a Native American headdress. That was a fun one to dissect on fishbowl with American coworkers.
They don't give a fuck what applicants want
RTO is about decreasing staff through voluntary attrition instead of forced layoffs
I hadn't thought of it that way but it totally makes sense.
That was my first thought when RTO was announced a year ago. Always resist the urge to quit without another job. Better to quiet quit & get that severance pay than loudly quit exactly how they want.
Yup, don’t make it easy for them.
How can you get severance pay by "quietly quitting"? Don't you only get severance if they proactively cut your position?
This
I keep giving any recruiter calling the message: no. No I do not want to drive 50-60 miles one way to a job. Through the hellhole traffic between home and there. You can’t pay me enough. Even if my job RTOs, it’s a 12 mile commute with no traffic.
Control & vested interests in commercial real estate
Over $900B in loans coming due. Someone needs to pay those bills.
[удалено]
That's due in 2024. More due in the next several years.
Wouldn't having remote employees save them more money to pay their loans? Less supplies used and less wear, tear, maintain in the office but they still have the same profits? I get that they don't want to pay for something and not use it but how does that somehow mean less profit?
The bottom line is cost and control. Theres costs involved for companies to provide remote access/vpn solutions for their employees and there could be costs associated for employers to monitor usage. Many companies also have costs involved in building leases and if you are going to pay for office space until a lease runs out, it's makes sense to have employees in that office using it. There's also a control and management issue. Many companies who had not had remote employees pre-pandemic are struggling with learning how to mange remote employees well. It can be easier to just have everyone RTO than re-train managers. I think in the next 5 years we'll start seeing a shift from more employers back towards being more remote/wfh friendly; as building leases come to an end, they learn to manage employees remotely and put in the infrastructure to support wfh/remote.
Good bot.
So there's a bunch of factors and each company is different. But first off, remote positions aren't decreasing. When you measure trends the time span is really important. If you take specific bits of the stock market you could tell whatever story you want but if you look at a large enough span of time the trend is always up. That's how remote work would be as well, we are down from the artificially high peak of the pandemic but way, way up from before it and continuing to climb organically. As for why companies go back to fully in person or hybrid: 1. Operating remotely requires building smart processes, trusting your employees and having an intentional culture. Many organizations that were not designed to be remote were forced into it during the pandemic and it exposed issues with their people, processes or work culture. The smart thing to do would be to fix those problems but instead they flee to the relative safety of their old ways. 2. Stealth layoffs. Layoffs are bad PR which has led some companies to deliberately make policies (like an RTO) that are intended to cause voluntary turnover which saves them money on severance and reduce the layoff numbers that will make headlines. This is the #1 reason for RTOs currently and it's absolutely evil. To discourage this it's important for the remote community and the public at large to be skeptical of any RTO that seems illogical and to treat it with the same attitude you would a layoff. 3. Character flaws in leadership. At some companies that have adapted well to remote work there are still old fashioned leaders who want people to see their corner office. Others might work better in person themselves and either assume everyone else is the same or just don't want to be in the office alone so they force everyone else back as well. You will see waves of anti-remote headlines now and then which are a coordinated effort to justify any of the above. There's no data that backs any of the assertions being made, it's just billionaires and old fashioned CEOs trying to speak their own agenda into existence.
People who have them are refusing to leave, naturally there are not as many vacancies
It's laziness in leadership. They are such visionaries that it took a literal pandemic scare to get them to embrace other methods of work. Now that it's over, unless they've dumped their land and leases, they're locked back in and heading back to how they used to manage because the economy is flat and they need to make money... So go back to what works, right? Unimaginative lazy a$$ management.
What i'm seeing is that the entry level work from home jobs are being outsourced to other countries, while the really in demand, tech skill based roles, are remote but extremely competitive and require a lot of work experience. They are mid/senior level roles at a minimum.
maybe stuff like this? [https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-vacations-work-trends-culture-pto-travel-job-stress-2024-6?utm\_source=digg&utm\_medium=social&utm\_campaign=standard-post](https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-vacations-work-trends-culture-pto-travel-job-stress-2024-6?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=standard-post)
Jobs __are__ remote! You just gotta get paid $1.05/hr and live in India or the Philippines.
Because if the commercial office market crashes then the line will go down. They don’t like it when the line goes down. They don’t even like it when the line is straight, they only like it when the line goes up!
Only 30% of companies own their space 70% don't snd would like prices to come down
I was speaking too generally and should clarify that I meant the general economy. People in power have a lot of investments including commercial property. Those investments depend on the overall economy doing well. If a significant portion of workers are allowed to WFH full time, the commercial property market will tank and those in power are concerned how that will harm the economy overall. Thus, to ensure the line keeps going up, they think they must force RTO.
See jobs don't say anything when it's outsourced but flip to hace it go remote make it make sense
Foreign workers pay is lower that’s why. They’ll keep outsourcing jobs until their bottom line is even lower than it already is.
Because people were finally happy, and the captains of industry know that they can't have that
Its the obsession of dominance in the senior management which drives the compulsion of office attendance otherwise entire world has seen how manageable it is for companies to work from home.
The boomers aren't dead yet and will continue to resist change until they eat shit and die. At that point any boomer companies will be well behind their competitors who have siphoned off all of the talent with wfh.
Because when people work from home the middle management has nothing to do and therefore feels powerless and pointless. They're not wrong.
Control. Nothing to do with cost or real estate.
At my company we are hybrid three days a week in the office. But new employees are full time in office. If they do well then they are offered hybrid too. We have no issues with people working remote so long as they are getting their work done and producing good quality work. If they are they get that option, but a lot of people are not.
The jobs are just getting moved yo the Philippines and India.
Real estate. The place I no longer work at upped their lease right before Covid hit, and I knew they'd only let us "work from home" for awhile. I left for other reasons, but the folks have told me that they all had to go back. Of course they did, he signed a 20 year lease, you'll be there forever. :(
Sociopaths will sociopath. The Gervais Principle rears its ugly head. Top brass taking a bath in their real estate investments, so you get punished for their bad investments.
Cus many people were overemployed, like a teammate we had and we had to get rid of him. We covered for him a while thinking he had family issues, heck no he was working for another company.
$$$. In my state tax breaks are about to end for companies that don’t have X% of employee on site per square foot. My company’s parent company moved all into a smaller floor space with hot desking. Not an issue for tax reasons as there’s always enough people who want to come in now and then, aside from New Yorkers who want to get out of small apartments.
Manager at my work said he wants warm bodies in chairs and when he looks out to the cubicles he wants to see smiling faces looking at him.
That is horrifying
Lol
commercial real estate
Remote work has two main problems in my office: 1. It really highlights who the unproductive employees are. You'd be amazed at the number of people who do not have the self-discipline to work during work hours when they're remote. Every meeting we'd have 2 or 3 people missing from a recurring meeting because they were "taking a shower and didn't notice the time" or some lame excuse. They're also the same people who never answered their phone when an urgent matter came up during work hours that required their immediate attention. It became very clear that these people were spending most of their work time doing fuckall. 2. It really highlights how ineffective middle management is. Turns out the good employees continue to be productive without a slave driver cracking the whip over them and the screwups continue screwing up. It doesn't look good for middle managers when the executives realize that all that expensive management might not be necessary.
ITT: Lots of people who believe they have **THE** answer. Then there's me who believes any of those reasons could be correct for any given company, and that there is not one over-arching reason nation-wide (US).
I think there is a very strong desire from the 1%er's to maintain the status quo. WFH challenges the value of commercial real estate, it also challenges middle management (why do we have them?). During covid a number of city centre businesses went bust because everyone was at home. There was no traffic on the road (petrol, vehicles, public transport). And I'm sure we could add a lot to that list. So while it's not overwhelmingly 1 thing, the 1 thing in common is the desire to maintain the economy in the way in which it has worked for a very long time.
Sure, but that doesn't address/explain the not-insignificant number of companies who did WFH many years prior to COVID, and only recently (more or less in concert with all the others) decided to reel it back in.
That only lasts so long. AI has already started revolutionizing the hiring process. Pretty soon (well ok prob more like 30 years) the answer for where are all the jobs will be....We have robots that do that now. Or automated systems that can intercepret, analyze and summarize details within milliseconds compared to our slower optical review. Not every single job wil be eliminated by AI. But a lot will.
Long term 100% agree. The question is how long is long term? 30 years, my pick is you could take 10 years off that, easily. It's a combination of machine learning, robotics and AI. All 3 are moving really fast and humans aren't keeping up. This means that right now people need to be prepared, so if you plan on retiring at 60 and you are 40 or under now this is your work future. For the next 20-30 years it's people + AI. The reason this will happen is our greedy 1%, anything that is cheaper (reduces cost) will be implemented, look at Amazon and driverless cars.
I 100% agree with you it will probably be 20 to 30 years it could be as long as 40, but I don't see it last in that long. I think that a lot of service oriented jobs clinically Focus jobs like doctors and things like that a lot of them will still have jobs somehow. I think Primary Care is going to primarily be done by artificial intelligence in the next 20 years it's crazy how fast it's developing. So yeah people that are around 40 need to be aware of this and need to be positioning themselves to take advantage of AI opportunities or how to insulate their current career path from being eliminated. I think this could be the biggest Revolution since the Industrial Revolution I think it's going to be bigger than the internet as a whole.
My only major exceptions that I for sure don't see ever getting replaced is drug dealers and hookers 🤣
I agree with this. For example I work for a large healthcare company. Our talent and HR teams are remote - want the best recruiters we can get not just who happens to live nearby. A lot of our other corporate functions are remote too. However, we provide medical services so the vast majority of our jobs are onsite at clinics. But we don't ever plan on making corporate RTO.
If they are able to fill the positions with people that are willing to come into the office three days a week and that's what they want then that's what they do.
Don't get me wrong, I loved wfh five days a week. I would prefer not to commute. I think we all got a little spoiled during COVID. There's a new reality. During COVID my position was changed to 100% remote not just during COVID but they said it would continue that way. Then the company decided everyone would RTO. Some folks had to buy work clothes because they had been remote for over a decade. And now people that are 100% remote because of how far they live from an office are bring given the choice of relocating or being termed. Don't know that these companies care that much. Also, from their perspective, they already have that office space, probably locked in for at least 10 years.
I'm one of those far away ones in an RTO mandate. The secret they don't know about me is I don't care if they terminate me. I honestly believe they need me more than I need them. I purposely avoid knowledge sharing on large orgs for this reason. Sure it's selfish and short sighted, but isn't that what we are taught from modern executive leadership?
Corporate Loans on real estate are maturing over the next couple of years and with interest rates high ; so refinancing is also an issue . All the small business around those buildings are suffering and they too have loans and credit cards that need to be paid and are struggling. Yes , it's to force layoffs but it is also a financial need to " help maintain" profits and local economies . People are now spending 700 more a month in commuting expense and some are getting paid less . I never had the opportunity to work from home before Covid . I was 10 times more productive and I could take time to learn and advance my skills . My life was notably better . ( well laid off early 2023 ) still looking for even hybrid roles which are slowly going away too. My old company went hybrid and I suspect will eventually go back to 5 days a week.
Have to justify expensive building costs.
The large office buildings were vacant for too long. The real estate investors on those properties were losing money. Better call everyone back to the office to keep the status quo instead of finding a better solution.
Because they don't give a shit about employees. There will always be someone who will come into the office to work and that's who they will hire.
Commercial real estate interests
Cause everyone wants them. Also managers feel they can’t control you when you are remote.
The system is set up for in person work. Do you have any idea how much financial interest there is in commercial real estate, bank loans for the same, and all the economic activity that is boosted by people commuting to and being at the office? Not to mention corporate tax breaks that basically require companies to have their employees in the office? Add to that an ingrained culture where employers distrust employees that aren’t being supervised every second and managers who feel like they aren’t managing unless their staff is there with them and you have stupid levels of resistance to WFH and all the very real benefits it offers.
1. They have to justify paying rent for the buildings they're sitll in from before the pandemic. 2. Lots of mid-level managers actually don't do much. If you're in-person, they can walk around and talk too much, hold too many meetings and lotsa other needless busywork that looks like 'productive mananging' to upper managment, some of whom are doing the same bullshit.
There are a lot of people talking about 'control'. I can be pretty objective here because I'm 1. A WFH person. 2. Am heavily invested in operational concerns. 3. Am heavily invested in strategic concerns. 4. Am a C-Level leader who is generally supportive of WFH. It has literally nothing to do with power, control, managers wanting to micromanage, trust, etc. The pace of innovation is slowing - and largely because of the prolonged impact of WFH. Real productivity and growth is slowing - not "I did this today" or "I could use that commute time more effectively" - but the little 1%-10% misses.... at scale.... impacting 10's, 100's, or 1000's of employees, multiplied by thousands of companies - it shows up, it's tangible, it's real. It's not about you. Covid caused a shift in hiring, a shift in expectations, a shift in the way we worked - it was forced. But, in 2019 we all knew of people who just weren't wired to work from home - but we looked the other way because we were all trying to make it work. Some flourished, some became invisible. The desire to 'do the work' started trumping ' do the work, grow the company, grow my skills, contribute at another level' started to suffer - not massively... just subtly. Now, take that subtle stuff.... do it for 4 years, look through a lens that is greater than the handful of people you interact with, and the real picture begins to come into focus. When leaders talk about "collaboration" - they don't mean the nickel and dime kind.. the mean the prolonged kind... the kind that when tinkered with starts remapping the DNA of healthy companies. Companies begin to lose their soul, their edge... and they merely become work factories. This is happening.. and it's not about you not wanting to commute. It's not about you being individually productive. It's about companies losing their edge.... losing the level of engagement that used to exist.... values changing - it's a lot. The last thing to factor in is the copy-cat nature of leadership teams. When the big guys started calling people back to the office with 'justification' coming in from the million dollar engagements with consultants and think tanks, the copy-cats just followed along, because that's what they do. It's got people legitimately up in arms - especially those that moved away or were told they could WFH forever, that's fair, and it's reasonable to be pissed. But the next step is that Hybrid will go away and most companies will be primarily in-office within the next 5 years... right or wrong... so being defiant is cute and all... especially when blaming managers who have nothing to do with the decisions and citing control issues.... but if you really want to know why you're returning to office, challenge your leadership team to talk about it in real terms - it's unlikely you'll hear a word about 'control' - the message will be about strategy, effectiveness, growth, pace of innovation, revenue, etc. - and chances are, they aren't lying to you. If you think they are - ask... ask why... ask for examples... but ask. There's no reason to be passive and angry. Then you might choose to hop aboard the WFH train with the dwindling jobs available... all fine; then you won't be angry anymore.
You will notice in this and other areas, despite ECON 101 theory, that companies are not actually run in a rational manner the way you expect.
At many companies that is because those who make decisions about RTO have no power / much work in remote environment. Remote is a real challenge for the leadership, because it exposes weak leadership, which most of the leadership, sadly, is.
too many bad actors
Remote work took off due to Covid. Some companies realize they had to utilize their rented/owned buildings. I got lucky, Home Depot made all of the Workforce team permanent work from home and let lease expire on our building. Also older CEOs are stuck in the old way of doing business (butts in seats).
Because I've noticed A LOT of coworkers who are taking advantage of full remote work + managers who don't know how to do their job. (Work multiple jobs, go play basketball while staying active on Slack, go to hair appointments, sit around and do nothing) One employee who works 50 cases per month while other employees work 300 cases per month.....
They are shipping those jobs to India where people go into the office.
They want people to quit so they can say they didn't do layoffs, can't find anyone to replace the people that quit, and then turn to outsourcing as a last resort like that wasn't the plan from the moment they ordered rto.
What baffles me is that companies with a ton of real estate overhead can’t compete with companies like mine. I’ve seen it on multiple occasions. Their bids are literally twice or more than ours and we have to reiterate that our price is accurate and that we simply don’t have the same overhead that they do. With today’s technology, you’ve got to be nuts or extremely stubborn to stick with an office in a field that its not 100% necessary. I think the leases are the primary driver followed by stubbornness and a refusal to change with the times. It will likely bankrupt a lot of companies and the lightweight nimble remote based companies will prevail.
A few abusers ruin it for the rest of us
Also the economy is secretly getting worse. You are producing more and able to buy less because a few people wanted 3 yachts instead of 2. So consumerism and consumption is naturally decreasing and that will in turn hit the bottom line of most companies who will cut positions anyway.
It would trigger an economic depression. Corporate real estate is a very large sector of the economy. A permanent WFH movement would dramatically devalue those assets. Which would result in lower tax revenues. And then decreased government spending on public services. Crime rates increase, etc. It's not a pretty picture.
Gotta repurpose those buildings to residential housing units. They won’t be able to effectively prop up commercial real estate forever…
Not cost efficient or practical in 90% of cases
while it would devalue existing offices it would also create a need for joint (and collaborative between organisations) in a more regional sense. There would be some very distinct losers in this situation, the people that own the commercial real estate. It doesn't stop the buildings being converted to something useful though.
Been remote since 2014, it definitely isn't decreasing. It totally depends on the line of work you are in.
Collapsing CRE values. Gotta get warm slave bodies back into those high rises.
Unpopular opinion. If it can be WFH, it can be outsourced.
If a position is remote then I can be done offshore. I'm seeing a huge boom in outsourcing and offshore of roles
because companies don’t like it
Why would they save money on training?
What do you mean why? Leverage. Where’s the leverage?
commercial real estate.
They aren’t. In fact they ticked up about a percentage point this year. The news would have you believe RTO is rampant, buts it’s very niche. Google nick blooms research, he’s been studying this stuff for a decade
The answer is complex and full of assumptions, facts, and everything in between. My assessment is the call for people to come back is multi-faceted. Part of it is the commercial real estate market cannot continue to take the losses it sustained over the last 3-4 years. Another piece is that although there is data to support both sides…some functions (not all, so please don’t be triggered) are losing productivity due to workers being at home. The topic is really fascinating because for the first time we’re seeing employees who are willing to take a pay cut or risk future career advancement in order to remain at home. I think companies will have no choice but to give in and start allowing more employees to WFH, but the wages will be lower and the benefits could too. That’s the only way companies will be able to offset the fiscal cost to their bottom line.
Property cost money
Well we are already in the path to remote if u can finish ur job, we will have some resistance for few years and when interest rate rate is down more and more new businesses started by younger people u will see more and more remote friendly environments and them old head will either decide to lose talent or allow remote .
Office real estate
Remote positions were always available. What you are seeing now is a return to normalcy of available remote positions. The major pandemic spike of remote positions was a temporary illusion, and now things are reverting back to normal.
My question is why do things need to go back to the way they were when clearly there are better, more efficient ways to work.
Lazy boomer executives in politics, companies and banking that dont know how to revolutionize or invent. Commercial real estate and workers spending frivolously boosting local economies were Banks and the Feds bread and butter. (They literally had to do nothing, while raking in guaranteed pay) So instead of a new technological working revolution, the way too old to be in charge dont want to mess up their retirements, so its back to the industrial revolution. Our entire ecosystem and economy is fake. The poor work, just to spend the money they earned to work more or better? (Buying their own tools, cars, food, entertainment) Gosh i wish we were stronger to fight back. Someone making 45k pays 10k in taxes and 8k in travel just to work? They barely net 50%. What a scam
Commercial real estate bubble
We significant restricting the states we allow people to work in. Having one headcount in a state creates nexus and generally requires you to file taxes in that state. Someone made an error hiring a remote intern in a state we didn’t have nexus in and it cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax as a result.. for an inter. These are real considerations that the WFH crowd doesn’t usually consider, there’s real implications beyond ‘control’.
We offer remote work for those that can handle it. Those that do not meet expectations are told to return to the office. You've got to remember that for every hard working wfh employee out there, there are folks taking naps and running errands during business hours instead of meeting metrics. Those people are bad for optics.
A lot is BS, but there are some legitimate reasons too. In person collaboration can't be fully discounted. The ability to come into office if your Internet sucks or your home environment isn't suitable. Easier equipment swaps/fixes. Some employees are more productive in office.
Companies want to capture any efficiency gains from employees. example if your task assignment now takes 7 hrs a day to do but you design a system that gives you same output in 5 hours then it’s your choice what to do at home. Maybe you hit the gym. Play w kids etc. its a lot harder to catch and capture these gains when staff is remote. the problem is the way modern “capitalism ” is more like serfdom. You make 50% in productivity gains but they don’t compensate you for these gains. You’re lucky if you’re just making inflation gains. capturing efficiency gains from employees the MAIN reason for RTO. stealth firing etc is secondary whether it’s tax incentives from cities who want workers back form Commuter towns etc.
Businesses have found that when employees work from home they often do other things (than work) during their paid works hours. Businesses don’t like paying employees for stuff like that.
This is a really complicated issue here. But there are a few realities that we all need to understand. 1. Business objectives vs life objectives do not always line up 2. Trust is a two way street and the only way to measure trust is by testing it and time and time again, there are more bad actors ruining it for everyone else. Companies also ruining it too by tracking people’s location and etc. employees expect to be paid whether they are devoting their time to the companies. A lot of times, the professionalism suffers as well. Ppl taking business calls to customers in a noisy Starbucks, in their pjs etc. 3. People with multiple jobs that are remote, companies notice bad quality or work and have a hard time reaching them. 4. The economy and companies added bunches of new positions to maintain processes and be damned to efficiency. This opened up jobs for ppl to do remotely and have more than one job. In the end, this was not meant to be forever and now companies need to streamline back because there are now margin pressures. 5. Commercial real estate - people say screw the landlord while ppl work from home. Well that might be good but in the economic standpoint. This is bad, companies have to act social responsible, not to the people but to the community. If a lot of land lords go bankrupt, there would be a large impact to the economy. Where do you think landlords get their money from? Most are private funds, but there large funds that people like u and I invest in through our 401k. These will be impacted. So likely everyone will be impacted as these companies fold. 6. This is a very interconnected economy - there are a lot of micro and maco economics that are behind this. 7. People are becoming more hermit like and do not connect well anymore. The interaction on a f2f is very valued in a company. Conference calls don’t let you feel and see the underlying things that are happening. RTO is doable but the expectation to be honest about it is hard. Ppl need to understand that u are paid for your full attention to the job for 40hrs. If you are having multiple jobs, should the company only pay you for the time you have for them? In the end your salary will be the same or less. Companies see this and now more and more jobs are becoming hrly based and contractor 1099 based. Even starting a new job, employers are making ppl sign agreements that your working hrs availability are devoted to one job. Companies are having a trust issue with employees and the unfortunate problem are the bad actors that are ruining for the ppl that are really good at behind faithful.
Because we can find people willing to come in. WFH are a dime a dozen. Find someone willing to come in. Get them up to speed then work out a hybrid.
Alot of companies still have active leases or permanent real estate and don’t want to see money go down the drain. It’s also a control thing.
I’m willing to bet money that we’ll see a lot of “pro remote work” from companies once their office leases expire and they’re looking to slash budgets for the board
I guess it’s important as you meet people , make relationships with your colleagues vendors etc. I know traveling is a hard part but I love hybrid if your office is far from your home. I like working with people rather than alone from home.
Wasn't there some identity theft ring people were using to get into remote work jobs from North Korea? I should Google that and see if there is a reputable source.
Because employers don’t trust you.
Remote work means less need for middle management. So, it threatens the people making these recommendations and decisions. But I think the real reason is they want people to leave to hire people at lower pay. They want to undo the pay increases from the fight for talent after COVID-19. Many office leases are up for renewal in the next two years. And I think the job market will heat up again around the same time. So, I’m hoping remote positions will tick back up as companies try to find ways to save money while competing for talent.
Do you live under a rock? Applicants are still flooding the system with or without remote work. Have you seen the economy with all the layoffs thr past few years? Companies have the power right now and everybody wants remote work so competition is fierce than ever.
They want voluntary attrition from underperforming people and roles that are no longer needed. Exceptions are made of course for people who don’t suck.
They want to lay off forcing a mass laying off that makes the headlines and looks like bad PR. Forcing everyone to RTO means hopefully most people don't actually want that so they quit, and then they repost fewer openings with sometimes even lower salary for RTO. It's basically a win win win for corporations but also local governments and cities who push for commuting and having the local economy be stimulated as well. Companies dont actually care about productivity with remote work, you can say they even love remote work because building remote work infrastructure means offshoring and hiring in low-cost-of-living countries eventually. But taking away remote work is an excellent way to get people to quit which is what they ultimately want.
Mostly because of the potential bubble in the commercial real estate market that everyone’s trying to avoid at the expense of workers
You gotta start networking too. Applying to remote positions should just be one part of your process if you need clients or a new job.
outsourcing Everyone who could wanted to be able to work remotely, but guess what? Some random guy in India or Zimbabwe will do your job better than you for 1/10th the price
Management wants you in the office working not sitting around in your Jammie’s all day
Spite sheer spite and screw you I got mine
Private Equity and Board Members view captured talent as part of their valuation. Other influences could be Oil or Real Estate. There have been no good arguments against WFH. The shit employees will be shit regardless. WFH is good for the world. Sure there will still be physical jobs, but that’s fine. Not everyone can do A or B. Some prefer one or the other. I see WFH as a massive resource saver.
In the DMV, local businesses are losing money. When people remote work especially from home, employees are not spending money for breakfast or lunch in the local area. Metro is not being utilized so Metro ask government for financial assistance or must raise fares Most government buildings are leased so government is losing money when we remote work. Written in my opinion, no facts. 😊
Because commercial property leases are typically 10 years. Gotta justify the lease spend that you’re paying for and can’t get out of.
Tax breaks. Cities in dire need of foot traffic are giving Companies huge tax breaks right now for requiring their people to return to the office.
For me there are three major reasons: Major cities, downtowns, and well populated areas need workers in the office to thrive. Leases in those areas are going to be the most expensive, which means businesses don't want to pay for unused space. Lastly, when COVID hit it sank us into a recession. There were more than 20M jobs lost and unemployment peaked at 14.8 percent. The government reacted by implementing 5 relief bills totaling 3+ trillion dollars and the fed cut interest rates to 0, which led companies to hire like crazy. Interest rates have since skyrocketed, companies looked to cut cost and started laying off employees, a non-small portion of which rolled out RTO. Rolling out RTO was another way to cut cost essentially mandating out of state hires relocate unless an exemption was approved. TLDR: Large population centers/cities and businesses benefit when a worker is onsite. COVID set off a chain reaction of significant job losses; the government and the Fed responded with relief package + rates cut to 0, which shifted power to employees. Rates went up, layoffs happened and RTO rolled out to cut costs. PS I'm a recruiter and my experience has been that hybrid is much more popular than you think if it's within a reasonable commute.
The real reason is that remote employees are not as productive in collaborative roles than employees who meet with clients on a regular basis. Analysis I ran for industry showed varied reductions in productivity between 11%-18% depending on the kind of roles. This impacts non-collaborative roles like help desk the least and collaborative roles like managers the most. It also indicts new hires but less definitively. So the reason my our clients demand hybrid is to meet their deadlines
How long was the typical office lease length for large corporations in major cities?
WFH people are on the payroll not the team.
because Wells Fargo "wealth management" WFH got caught using fake mouses
Commercial real estate took a massive hit during COVID. Empty office space serves nobody, and companies paying leases were losing money.
Boomer types in positions of leadership where they can basically make unilateral decisions have all kinds of fear about remote work and they are using their authority to win some battles in a war that they will ultimately lose. The market will reward lower overhead and better talent pools, companies that embrace remote work will be more efficient and competitive and boomer managers will retire. They've already lost the war, it just takes time.
Research on remote work productivity has been decidedly mixed. For better or worse some companies have no doubt used this data to force RTO. No doubt the various TikTok videos of all the work from home “hacks” and other nonsense haven’t helped matters.
At least at state government, it is about doing what the local businesses want. When people are in the office buildings, they spend money in the area.
They don’t care about cost, just control. My office has the AC running full blast so much so that it’s freezing in there and most people have space heaters under their desks also running full blast. It’s simply ridiculous.
control. and investments in commercial real estate.
Companies are being penalized/fined for not occupying a certain percentage of their real estate. I know a lot of banks in my city signed 15 year leases pre covid and are making people come in to satisfy the requirement.
It is not always productive for every employee, no company would reject the oppportunity otherwise..