My company extolled the amazing productivity results of the connected culture through the pandemic but is pushing for RTO. Worse, during the pandemic they hire people like me as permanent remote. Now we’re getting pressures… denied promotions because we’re not in the office. Probably time to start looking for permanent remote employers.
It seems to me like there's a sunk cost fallacy going on with larger companies (i.e. companies that were larger prior to the pandemic). They've got these beautiful buildings and campuses that represent significant capital and personal investment -- that all have no reason to exist without an RTO policy.
My company is 5x the size it was prior to the pandemic, but only has office space to accommodate ~1/7 of its workforce.
The office functions as a space individuals and teams can reserve for limited times if they want to. So there's no big building tempting leadership to implement RTO.
Most companies just lease office space. You would think that they would be eager to get out of having to lease these sorts of spaces if their employees are willing to foot the bill of maintaining an office themselves through working from home. Emotion is beating logic here I think. It should come as no surprise that the only people pushing for return to office are the managers against the wishes of many employees. They are the ones who felt slighted and made obsolete when the world showed it could do the same computer work at a desk at home versus one in an office that you are probably burning CO2 to get to. What a disaster for the planet. Visibility was like 50 miles early in the pandemic from the mountaintops in LA county with no one driving and generating dust from their tires. No longer.
Emotion may be beating logic for many of the people in this thread.
Our company has been super transparent with us from the outset that we're about 30% less productive as a remote-first company compared to everyone being in the office. This was deemed acceptable. We're biotech, we employee an army of medical doctors, and as long as COVID remains a real threat, we'll remain remote-first.
We got rid of maybe a quarter of our office space, but our company has made it clear that it intends to eventually move us back into the office at least once or twice a week for most employees to regain some of that lost productivity and especially to help new hires get up to speed more quickly.
Some high performing, individual contributor, highly self-motivated knowledge workers may be more productive in a fully remote environment, but I think it's very much the exception. For better or for worse, most people just want to do the bare minimum amount of work that they can get away with while still keeping their job, and they can get away with doing far less remotely than they can in real life.
Remote is real life. I'm so confused by these claims of poor productivety among employees. Why aren't you talking to your problem employees about them not carrying water then? It seems like its better to figure out how to get engagement from remote work than to do all the inefficiencies of working from the office. For one suddenly you have to build a new office building versus using peoples homes, that costs CO2 in construction and maintenance. Then you have to heat and or cool that building as well as your home, that costs more CO2. Then there is the going to the office from your home, that also costs CO2.
If you are in biotech, all the more reason your company should be focused on limiting its harm to the ecology of the planet as much as it can, and only keep employees whose job can't happen remotely onsite.
> Some high performing, individual contributor, highly self-motivated knowledge workers may be more productive in a fully remote environment, but I think it's very much the exception.
This probably depends on industry and job function.
For software developers working for a software company, I think it's the rule, not the exception. Our company saw a significant productivity boost as soon as the engineering department went remote, and I've heard the same from other companies as well.
Even better, being remote-first means a software company opens itself up to a much larger, more diverse talent pool. Hiring excellent ICs wherever they may be allows you to compete with the best for the best.
I live in an area with only one large software company in a 25 mile radius - one I used to work for. But I left it for a remote-first startup in Los Angeles. I still live in the same house with my wife and kids; we didn't have to move them and start over, something for which I am deeply grateful. More is expected of me (which I am thrilled to deliver) and I'm paid a lot more too.
>> the only people pushing for return to office are the managers against the wishes of many employees. They are the ones who felt slighted and made obsolete
