Oddly, real estate is one of the reasons the (smallish) business I work for has moved to permanent hybrid work. We would have either leased more office space in the building or moved to a larger space elsewhere, but that became unnecessary thanks to not having everyone in office.
During the beginning of COVID I asked my boss why we were being forced to risk our lives to come into work where our business model lives 100% online and she seriously responded with, “what am I supposed to do with this building I leased?”
I think that's part of it. However, there is a certain layer of middle management that exists solely to be a corporate hall monitor and make sure everyone is at their desk on time and enforce other arbitrary rules.
I find it same. Wild that seeing me at my desk gives the Headest of Honcho's their thrill… when I could be at home and 2x as productive concentrating on what I'm doing without hallway conversations giving me fragmented brain.
Can’t remember where I saw this but employees were happier, more productive and employee evaluations were more equitable when employees were in the office and managers worked from home. Seems lots of bosses are bad for work and morale
My supervisor was "one of us" in hating RTO until he was promoted to Dir. Now, he's spouting all the BS about "collaboration" - I think he's been brainwashed.
you'd think the solution would be obvious. convert massive 300 story office buildings into low income rental housing. then the people who live there will be working from home anyway.
The company I work for has embraced working from home since Covid. It has worked out well. We can recruit people from a wider pool, not just ibes who live near the office. People are happier without the long expensive commute.
Our CEO raved about what a good idea it was at the Christmas party.
From a personal point of view, I was able to move out of London and live near my family for the first time in 30 years. I have a larger home than I could have afforded in London, and I am now 5 minutes' walk from my brother's home rather than 5 hours' travel away.
Most day afters work we have have a cup of tea and take his dog for a walk together.
I see my nieces and nephews, & great-nieces and great-nephews all the time rather than every few months.
I get to see the kids grow up. I could not be happier.
Working from home has improved my life beyond measure.
Today, I saw both of my great-nieces and had a lovely talk to one of them about her art and her hopes for art college, my great-nephew, and my great-great nephew.
I'll be doing some maths tutoring for one great-niece for her exams this weekend.
I could never have done this before I worked from home.
We were the same until someone in Finance realized how much we spend on empty offices. Luckily for me, I live 225 miles from the nearest office, so I will remain remote regardless of what they do.
We changed our office to have more meeting rooms and fewer desks. Our customers rent time in our meeting rooms for their own meetings and conferences.
I lived about 6 miles from the office. Now I live about 350 miles away.
5 minutes' walk from home, I am in a field full of cows. It's wonderful!
They announced the "return to office" policy recently and it's gone over like a fart in church. Many people think it's a way of forcing attrition. I'm just thankful it doesn't apply to me.
this is a huge part of it, the other part is that there is a layer of middle management that they can't let go because of contracts, and giving them a reason to work.
I give people the benefit of the doubt as long as I get what I need from them, but when they're telling me at 10am on Thursday that they "didn't have time" to finish it when they keep going offline at 2pm every day but billing a full 8 hrs to my project...
Those people are fuck-offs, and it wouldn't matter if they were in the office or at home.
Studies released during the pandemic showed that businesses had productivity increases with remote workers. I worked remotely for 3 1/2 years, and was more productive due to fewer distractions and no driving.
I admit. I had to look that up and now I learned a new word.
But yeah.
There exists a layer of management that is only there to make sure employees are working and they got a big scare at the lockdown when teams had to work from home and all went well.
They are most desperate to get everyone back.
Employee: Too much real estate sounds like a You problem
Employer: And we paid the full year rent in advance for a big discount on this other office but now they won’t fix anything so we’re putting you in there
Also, there are whole layers of management whose existence depends on receiving reports in unnecessary meetings from people trying t be productive. When the offices emptied their redundancy became too obvious.
Addendum: Company probably also went on a giant hiring spree during work from home and simultaneously does not actually have ENOUGH real estate for their current headcount either
Comments
I still can’t believe that was her answer.
http://tinyurl.com/kztym8cw
Graeber describes how a huge % of corporate jobs exist because higher managers get status by having more "reports" under them.
The spectacle of bossing people around is harder to maintain remotely, so it blew the whistle on the reason for all the managerial bloat.
This is one of the things we teach NOT to do in Accounting 1.
Our CEO raved about what a good idea it was at the Christmas party.
I see my nieces and nephews, & great-nieces and great-nephews all the time rather than every few months.
I get to see the kids grow up. I could not be happier.
Working from home has improved my life beyond measure.
I'll be doing some maths tutoring for one great-niece for her exams this weekend.
I could never have done this before I worked from home.
I lived about 6 miles from the office. Now I live about 350 miles away.
5 minutes' walk from home, I am in a field full of cows. It's wonderful!
Studies released during the pandemic showed that businesses had productivity increases with remote workers. I worked remotely for 3 1/2 years, and was more productive due to fewer distractions and no driving.
"Because I think nobody actually works if I can't see them."
But yeah.
There exists a layer of management that is only there to make sure employees are working and they got a big scare at the lockdown when teams had to work from home and all went well.
They are most desperate to get everyone back.
Employer: And we paid the full year rent in advance for a big discount on this other office but now they won’t fix anything so we’re putting you in there
Then they decided they wanted people in the office and had to go aquire real estate to make it physically possible.
Then they fired 2500 people.
Let it crash.
We need fucking houses.
http://tinyurl.com/kztym8cw