Are Return-to-Office Mandates Just Attempts to Make People Quit? (washingtonpost.com) 162
Friday on a Washington Post podcast, their columnists discussed the hybrid/remote work trend, asking why it "seems to be reversing".
Molly Roberts: Why have some companies decided finally that having offices full of employees is better for them?
Heather Long: It's a loaded question, but I would say, unfortunately, 2025 is the year of operational efficiency, and that's corporate speak for save money at all costs. How do you save money? The easiest way is to get people to quit. What are these return to office mandates, particularly the five day a week in office mandates? We have a lot of data on this now, and it shows people will quit and you don't even have to pay them severance to do it.
Molly Roberts: It's not about productivity for the people who are in the office, then, you think. It's more about just cutting down on the size of the workforce generally.
Heather Long: I do think so. There has been a decent amount of research so far on fully remote, hybrid and fully in office. It's a mixed bag for fully remote. That's why I think if you look at the Fortune 500, only about 16 companies are fully remote, but a lot of them are hybrid. The reason that so much companies are hybrid is because that's the sweet spot. There is no productivity difference between the hybrid schedule and fully in the office five days a week. But what you do see a big difference is employee satisfaction and happiness and employee retention....
I think if what we're talking about is places that have been able to do work from home successfully for the past several years, why are they suddenly in 2025, saying the whole world has changed and we need to come back to the office five days a week? You should definitely be skeptical.
"Who are the first people to leave in these scenarios? It's star employees who know they can get a job elsewhere," Long says (adding later that "There's also quantifiable data that show that, particularly parents, the childcare issues are real.") Long also points out that most of Nvidia's workforce is fully remote — and that housing prices have spiked in some areas where employers are now demanding people return to the office.
But employers also know hiring rates are now low, argues Long, so they're pushing their advantage — possibly out of some misplaced nostalgia. "[T]here's a huge, huge perception difference between what managers, particularly senior leaders in an organization, how effective they think [people were] in offices versus what the rank and file people think. Rank and file people tend to prefer hybrid because they don't want their time wasted."
Their discussion also notes a recent Harvard Business School survey that found that 40% of people would trade 5% or more of their salaries to work from home....
Heather Long: It's a loaded question, but I would say, unfortunately, 2025 is the year of operational efficiency, and that's corporate speak for save money at all costs. How do you save money? The easiest way is to get people to quit. What are these return to office mandates, particularly the five day a week in office mandates? We have a lot of data on this now, and it shows people will quit and you don't even have to pay them severance to do it.
Molly Roberts: It's not about productivity for the people who are in the office, then, you think. It's more about just cutting down on the size of the workforce generally.
Heather Long: I do think so. There has been a decent amount of research so far on fully remote, hybrid and fully in office. It's a mixed bag for fully remote. That's why I think if you look at the Fortune 500, only about 16 companies are fully remote, but a lot of them are hybrid. The reason that so much companies are hybrid is because that's the sweet spot. There is no productivity difference between the hybrid schedule and fully in the office five days a week. But what you do see a big difference is employee satisfaction and happiness and employee retention....
I think if what we're talking about is places that have been able to do work from home successfully for the past several years, why are they suddenly in 2025, saying the whole world has changed and we need to come back to the office five days a week? You should definitely be skeptical.
"Who are the first people to leave in these scenarios? It's star employees who know they can get a job elsewhere," Long says (adding later that "There's also quantifiable data that show that, particularly parents, the childcare issues are real.") Long also points out that most of Nvidia's workforce is fully remote — and that housing prices have spiked in some areas where employers are now demanding people return to the office.
But employers also know hiring rates are now low, argues Long, so they're pushing their advantage — possibly out of some misplaced nostalgia. "[T]here's a huge, huge perception difference between what managers, particularly senior leaders in an organization, how effective they think [people were] in offices versus what the rank and file people think. Rank and file people tend to prefer hybrid because they don't want their time wasted."
Their discussion also notes a recent Harvard Business School survey that found that 40% of people would trade 5% or more of their salaries to work from home....
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes they are
No duh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bosses even say so https://fortune.com/2024/07/24/return-to-office-mandates-layoffs-bamboohr-survey/ [fortune.com]
Assholes Musk and Ramaswamy said so in the Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/opinion/musk-and-ramaswamy-the-doge-plan-to-reform-government-supreme-court-guidance-end-executive-power-grab-fa51c020 [wsj.com]
The funny thing is that many objective metrics of productivity show that productivity is higher with remote work. Of course no one is saying that. They just make all sorts of bullshit hand-waving arguments about it.
Re: No duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: No duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
How can Elmo be in the offices of SpaceX, Tesla, and Starlink simultaneously all while plundering the treasury?
Re: No duh. (Score:3)
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US America is best America.
Re: No duh. (Score:2)
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Republicans currently control the oversight powers. We have two years of them looking the other way ahead of us.
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You think the orange buffoon will care who's looking in two years? As long as someone is looking at him.
Gonna be a long four years for thems whats lives so long...
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Learn something about how our government works please. It does no one any good to be ignorant.
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Clones.
His kid's name is a serial number.
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No one elected Elon and last I checked it was congress (and not the executive branch) that controls government funding. Trump (let alone edgelord Elon) have zero authority to disband or defund anything. The only legal route is congress passing a bill for the change.
Re: No duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're just now realizing that conservatism is a symptomatic expression of malignant, sociopathic narcissism?
Re: No duh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Small c conservativism? No, it's definitely not. Promoting hard work for a good cause and self reliance, while wanting to help those around us achieve the same, is just as laudable now as it was when the founding fathers established their nation.
Trouble is none of this has anything to do with right-wing politics today espoused by oligarchs and authoritarians. What they call conservatism is definitely malignant, sociopathic narcissism. The reality is no "conservative" politician wants to conserve anything these days. And on the "other side" there are also destructive burn-it-all-down ideologies, although except for in certain academic institutions, they don't seem to have as much political hold. Choosing between two extremes is self-destructive.
Re: No duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Promoting hard work for a good cause and self reliance is never something I've seen conservatives do. Conservatives are about "fuck you got mine" and enabling theft from others, especially those they consider "other."
You want people who ACTUALLY promote hard work for a good cause, and self-reliance? Look to various local mutual aid organizations. Farmer co-ops. Groups that prepare for seasonal needs like hurricane recovery.
And yet NONE of those groups push mere "self-reliance." Because we live in a society. And yes, everyone needs help sometimes.
"Small-c" conservatives are the malignant sociopathic assholes who come in to take from others, but never give anything back or help anyone else in return. The kinds of trash who insist that they "did it all on their own" after mooching off of public services and using public infrastructure all their lives.
Re: No duh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: No duh. (Score:2)
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I'll say he got one thing right in a stopped-clock moment way. Ending the $800 so-called "de minimis" exception for crap shipped from China (Temu/etc) was both advisable and necesssary for the US's local economy.
BTW, are you the same "fluffernutter" that's regularly abusive to new editors on Wikipedia?
Re: No duh. (Score:2)
Re: No duh. (Score:3)
Re: No duh. (Score:2)
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I worked very hard my whole life until I retired early.
Let's examine your claims a bit more. Which college(s) did you attend? When did you graduate? I'll be happy to calculate how much state funding subsidized your tuition, you lying, worthless Klan Mooch.
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Pressing X to doubt on this one.
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> "Small-c" conservatives are the malignant sociopathic assholes who come in to take from others, but never give anything back or help anyone else in return. The kinds of trash who insist that they "did it all on their own" after mooching off of public services and using public infrastructure all their lives.
And yes I did it all on my own. Can you say the same? Stop mooching and sounding like Rsilvergun. It's not a good look.
I've had a voluntary career reading an assessing several acts of law introduced by "Small-c" conservatives. From some of the things that I read in proposed acts, like body cavity searches on minors, they seemed pretty sociopath as humiliation is a tactic sociopaths use. The effort of writing to multiple sides of politics to point this out and remind them "This is not who we are" is price paid when people say "Freedom isn't free" I could argue that you're mooching off right's I preserve.
Paying more tax th
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Re: No duh. (Score:2)
I think IAmWaySmarterThanYou is probably just a troll.
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The great irony is that the small c conservatives SHOULD naturally gravitate towards things like work from home, right to repair, and other initiatives that increase opportunities for self reliance and entrepreneurship while also supporting family values (how can your family have values if they never see you?).
Unfortunately, they've let the cuckoos and political ideology take over leaving actual values and pragmatism by the wayside. Even to the point that "Conservative" is becoming a swear word.
Re: No duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: No duh. (Score:2)
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Canada really hasn't had conservatives like Americans consider conservative, historically speaking, and we did fine.
True, but neither, before the current Trudeau, did we have a radical far-left government either. The old Liberals were pretty centrist and the tories only got into power when they shifted towards the centre as well. Trudeau's Liberals are basically the same as the left-wing NDP and have been an utter disaster. The problem is that the reaction to that has pushed the tories towards the US-style right and after the general election this year we are going to likely have another government that's far from the c
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You weren't around during the Harper years.
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I would argue he is one of, if not the, worst Canadian prime minister there has ever been - on a par with Boris in the UK albeit differently bad and unfortunately smarter.
Boris gets all the press. Truss... well was Truss. But The worst of the lot, the one who has done by far the most damage to the country, especially the kind of long term wrecking that will take decades if ever to undo was Cameron.
He inherited a country doing pretty well over all and architected the destruction into what we have now. Boris
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Re: No duh. (Score:2)
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I don't usually point to wikipedia but it has some decent examples with different countries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Why wouldn't I blame people who refuse to understand science for a lot of the ills of the world? And how exactly would we not have gotten anywhere without them?
Re: No duh. (Score:2)
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"and their relentless desire to enforce their views on everyone"
Whose "relentless desire"? You're telling me you wouldn't take seriously 80% of the world's population seriously because they don't agree with you on this, when your own country at large only arrived at these views in the last 30 years. Interracial marriage wasn't even considered acceptable by the majority in the US according to public polling until 1993, so I hope you apply the same logic to your own country and immediate ancestors, who probab
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Re: No duh. (Score:2)
Re: No duh. (Score:2)
Re: No duh. (Score:2)
Re: No duh. (Score:2)
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*loves to work all the time like they pretend to
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Assholes Musk and Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy is a name that really disappeared overnight. Wasn't he supposed to run DOGE with Elmo?
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The irony of it all is many of those CEOs are demanding RTO while they themselves are working remotely.
Take the CEO of Starbucks, demanding 3 days in the office, while working remotely at his California home. Even better, if he goes into the office, he has a private jet - no need to fly commercial to Seattle.
https://fortune.com/2024/10/28... [fortune.com]
Proper disclosure should be required. (Score:2)
If a return to office mandate is enacted by Management. The underlying reasons for doing so *SHOULD* be disclosed publicly. The WARN laws (At least in California) could be updated to include this requirement. Exposing things to daylight is a good way disinfect things.
Yes and no (Score:2)
Are RTO mandates attempts to make people quit? Yes.
Are RTO mandates just attempts to make people quit? No.
Some executives are indeed using the mandates to make people quit, but that isn't the sole motivation. Some of the purported reasons for RTO are truly believed. In-person meetings are different than zoom or chat. Some workers prefer an office environment with co-workers nearby. Some prefer not working at home and being away from kids, spouse, the comforts of home, and other distractions.
There are other
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Are RTO mandates just attempts to make people quit? No.
In some cases, yes. Especially in those cases where there are not enough desks for everyone to return to the office. In those cases, it is not a "return" as it is a new requirement of employment.
Pile unreasonable workloads on them. Cut their pay. Give them bad performance reviews. It's actually hard to believe that RTO mandates are solely or even primarily intended to make people quit.
That would require work on the executives to separate who they want to terminate vs who they can terminate. Also legally all those actions opens the company to lawsuits. Class-action lawsuits.
Re: Yes and no (Score:2)
Giving people too much work opens the company to lawsuits? Under what sort of tort?
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Re: Yes and no (Score:2)
Lay off maybe not, but my boss can fire me for any or no reason.
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Re: Yes and no (Score:2)
That's always true. I could sue you if I wanted to. It's only meaningful if there's something specific that would give me a chance of winning.
That's "constructive dismissal" in Canada (Score:2)
From the Canadian Government page cited below:
Constructive dismissal is sometimes called "disguised dismissal" or "quitting with cause". This is because it often occurs in situations where the employer offers the employee the alternative of:
- leaving, or
- submitting to a unilateral and substantial alteration of a fundamental term or condition of their employment.
A person given a "quit or return to the office" has been fired, and can sue the pants off the employer. The lawyer involved may well offer a good price on a suit to everyone the employer fired, thus increasing the risk to the employer.
See https://www.canada.ca/en/emplo... [canada.ca], or google for "lawyer constructive dismissal" if you're not in Canada
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You mean Betteridge's law of headlines is broken? I would not be so cavalier...
For IT certainly (Score:5, Insightful)
Now in latter 2024 and early 2025, without much recognition of the past 5 years, we got a new set of IT upper manager hired outside our ranks, "because we insiders are to busy to be replaced" who want the team to get together in person for a monday meeting. The first one worked because it was during a change freeze, the rest have been an attendance disaster, everyone you want doing standup reporting was on the call on sat and sunday with dozens and dozens of changes. We have a entire 5 years of management experience who still cannot get themselves off of Mute either online or standing up. If you have been doing you own thing, lacking any day to day manangment other than change meetings, why would you put yourself back to Jan of 2020?
Time to go find a new role contracting remote again.
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For 1% personalty types (Score:3)
It's about the 1% personality types who want to see in person the effects of their words, presence and actions on other employees.
It is to confirm their own self-scored self-worth and importance with in person feedback, deference and ."Can do what you want!" from others
It's about control (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of these mandates are 'quiet firing' for sure, but the bigger picture thing is that a lot of bosses get off on bossing around people and feel like the alpha ape. And they can't do that very well through slack.
They want to be controlling their little minions.
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Here's another little thing to consider: information is power.
When you're in your cubicle at work, the company is collecting information on you. When you arrive, when you leave, how you chit-chat with people who pass your desk, if you leave the building for lunch, etc. And if the boss is a controlling asshole, you can bet they're not documenting that, or at least they can control whether the evidence gets out.
When you're at home, they have no such control over information. Even if you work via remote d
Re: It's about control (Score:2)
Assuming we're taking about the US, if the company wants to get rid of you they just do it. No evidence needed, no requirement to show cause.
Not true (Score:2)
Re: Not true (Score:2)
Sure, but refusing to do assigned work isn't grounds for wrongful termination. CYA would be documenting that they assigned the employee (legal, safe) work and they refused to do it.
https://www.usa.gov/wrongful-t... [usa.gov]
Re: Not true (Score:2)
I should have heard phrased that better. Disagreement about appropriate quantity of work is not grounds for wrongful termination.
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Yes. That is the "slave-holder" mindset type of employer. Probably a recipe for disaster now, even if it takes a while. An enterprise will stumble on like a zombie on pure inertia. But when the people with the actual insight and ideas are gone, it has no future.
Hiding the real issue (Score:5, Informative)
Mostly a matter of being too lazy or unable to learn is the central issue.
There are people you can employ that work better in the office, some work better remote. Many are crap that don't work well no matter where you put them.
Then there are employer/manager who can get the "most" out of people only when they are in the office. Talented and informed managers can get productivity regardless if they are here or there.
If you can't trust your employees, don't hire them and hire those that you can trust. That takes a lot of effort and know how, and the way the corporate world reacts to this is of course mostly wrong. 40 hours of interviews. Background checks that uncover incidents from middle school. Coding tests. Micromanagement 24/7. Monitoring software that tracks every keystroke and mouse click. Seriously WTF.
Employer/Managers have to up their game or just go out of business. This is a nearly impossible hurdle for most of them, but they have to stop thinking in terms of HR regulations, rigorously policed procedure, merit/demerit counts, "incentives." Instead they need to cultivate livable corporate culture, relationships, fair compensation, and motivations other than being terrified to be caught with a card game on your monitor.
I'm lucky to be in a new-world situation now. I wish everyone could have it. But in the day of high bandwidth internet running really usable remote-work software they have to realize the world has changed and they -- both employees and employers -- have to change their mindset and adapt to it.
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I think this is right, some groups of people don't work in any location, some work better in others. In the pre-covid days, WFH was something available to people after a while of proving themselves in the office. That might make some sense, but you still have to be geographically close to the office for that. Job specs are getting very niche now and I think employers will reduce potential candidates too much. But they want cake and to eat it right?
Not entirely (Score:4, Insightful)
It always surprises me that Americans refuse to admit they have an upper class. And that upper class might not have their best interests at heart. So because some of us managed to buy an electric car we're basically all in on the oligarchy taking over. It's weird and nonsensical
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The real estate value argument never made sense to me.
It seems it would only work if everyone plays along. Every single individual profits by saving money if they don't keep their employees in the office. They only profit from return-to-office if everyone does it.
And I don't see how thousands of narcissistic, egomaniacs that would sell their own grandmother if it raised the stock price by 1%, could possibly coordinate a conspiracy without a lot of them trying cheat.
Oh ffs (Score:2)
Work from home has its place but so does having a desk in an office in earshot of your coworkers.
Zoom meetings are good (and even better than in-person) for some things, and they're decidedly worse for others.
Put on your big-boy pants and make the assessment of which is which honestly rather than self-interestedly.
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Work from home has its place but so does having a desk in an office in earshot of your coworkers.
There are many, many examples of companies that simply do not have a desk for every employee that comes into the office. For example, Dell. Their HQ in Texas did not have enough desks for everyone long before CoVID. That has not changed in the decades since they built their HQ. As a result, Dell was very remote friendly. I personally know of people who worked in other states nowhere near a Dell office. Now they are pushing RTO which means these people have to get on a plane to get into the office. Or reloca
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There was an open position posted for a forklift driver in our warehouse during the pandemic; I joked with the manager while I was WFH as a programmer, asking him whether I could take the job and just drive the forklift up and down my home's driveway.
I was pleased to be WFH, but now I see value in driving the short trip to the office--I am on a di
Re: Oh ffs (Score:2)
Good for wfh: concentrating on writing code, documentation, or the like without distractions.
Good for in the office: whiteboard sessions, hands-on hardware work, some standup presentations to small groups.
My take. Yours may differ but most people will have items in both buckets.
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Good for in the office: whiteboard sessions, hands-on hardware work, some standup presentations to small groups.
Of those, you gave one good example: hands on hardware work. Even that, most of it can be done remotely. Designing design-for-test features has been part of most mature hardware companies since 2010.
There are still a few times when you have to go touch the hardware, but depending on what you're building those are infrequent and well planned events that, at least for me, I have to fly somewhere t
Schrödinger's employee (Score:2)
Apparently these businesses are so stupid that they cannot see the metrics, whereupon only the worst unproductive employees will go to an office, so they must be committing purposeful businesscide. They want only the worst employees.
I know it firsthand. I am perfect during the half of my work done from hom
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Superposition: The employee is both employed and fired at the same time, that is until you look at them.
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I know you are joking but fictionally in "Office Space" Milton was fired officially but still "employed" in that he got a paycheck.
Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
But which employees quit? Not the ones with no hope (no skills) of ever finding another job. The best employees will already have a few offers lined up. And one of the perks for taking that new job may very well be a liberal WFH policy.
Re:Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah on every level it's incompetent. "Let's find a way to fire our brightest and best, while ensuring that the only people who stay are either incompetent or have imposter syndrome. Oh and we'll have to pay the people left more because even they will quit now we raised their cost of living by forcing them to have good reliable transportation and spend $200 on gas every month. Because that'll definitely help productivity and improve our bottom line!"
But that seems to be the state of America right now, incompetence and power is worshipped, doing sane rational things that lift up everyone is frowned upon.
What the fuck went wrong with this country?
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What the fuck went wrong with this country?
Chinese companies are hiring. If you are really competent in the things they are trying to build, like AI, Semiconductor design and fabrication etc. they will give you a big big joining bonus and you can work remotely.
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But that seems to be the state of America right now, incompetence and power is worshipped, doing sane rational things that lift up everyone is frowned upon.
What the fuck went wrong with this country?
Too much believe in its own power, expectation that believe shapes reality without bounds, and, frankly, a failure to go with the times due to mental incapability and inflexibility, and hence being deeply stuck in the past.
Empires die slowly. We see it happen in real time with the US. In 20 years, there will be no superpower left on this planet. About time too.
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But which employees quit?
The ones with few choices. If they were hired with remote work as a necessary condition of their job, then there is little choice but to quit. Remember RTO affects not only employees that have to commute under an hour. The commute might be very far and the employee only took the job because remote work fit into their life.
Of course, employees that have a choice will want to leave as a company making these kind of changes will make other changes that might affect them. This is a cost cutting move. Other cost
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Fully Remote and Sweet Spot (Score:2)
I take issue with the idea that only 16 of the Fortune 500 are fully remote implying that hybrid is better. The reality is that being fully remote requires a different business structure than a fully in-office setup. Hybrid is a loosening of fully in-office in structure, rather than a tightening of fully-remote. More Fortune 500 companies aren't fully remote because they are too old and established to flip their business and management setup.
In some states, going from fully remote to fully in-office cons
Yes (Score:2)
Never ever quit (Score:2)
Always negotiate a separation package. Even when you already have the new job lined up. Sometimes will require taking a three month holiday between jobs, but what's to hate about that?
The Jobs Bubble (Score:2)
There was a jobs bubble for a few years. Some industries shrank from the pandemic, but some surged. Plus all the money that had been flowing in from the stock market and other new industries had VCs flush with cash and they were tossing it around more and more.
It had to burst at some point, there is only so much money. Finally they all realized they weren't making any money for the VCs, so funding started to dry up, so companies no longer could employ an excess of people.
People had joined the job force in d
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It's almost as if VC investment is a terrible basis to support an economy.
If (Score:2)
That's just fine (Score:2)
Companies that permit work from home will attract the best talent, for *cheaper* than in office only companies.
Overall, this makes them MUCH more competitive in their various markets.
All it takes is one of the small firms to go big and it can challenge the giants in it's industry due to it's inherent edge.
Over time, the in office only companies will die out. Unless we are all in company towns by then.
That's silly. (Score:2)
All this excuse that companies want out of paying the severance package is just that. If they want you gone, you are gone. If they do this to allow self-selection of reducing head count, then you already aren't of any value to them over anyone else.
Maybe some people. (Score:2)
In other cases, it's probably a recognition that people are more likely to focus on their jobs when in a work environment (there are exceptions of course), and in still other cases, it's probably recognizing that having people physically in the same building increases the level of corroboration.
But yeah, I suspect in many cases it's just trying to get people to quit. Usually non-producers.
The Power Dynamic Has Shifted (Score:2)
Folks, you got to live high off the hog for years. But the power dynamic has shifted back in favor of the employer. It's the way of things. I know that's little consolation to the people affected, but it had to happen at some point.
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The reasoning they have for making people come back after 3 yrs of working at home and keeping these companies afloat. It is 100% them trying to cover their butts for the leases they have for space. I think my company signed a 5 or 10 yr lease. They only require us to come in 2 days/week and don't force us to be there all day long.
But not always. There have been a few examples to where the company does not have enough desks for everyone and did not before CoVID. Starling Bank [slashdot.org], Amazon [slashdot.org], etc.