A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
Our Goals
My company did a forced RTO. Moral dropped. In one category, it dropped to 14%. We couldn’t hire anyone and people were quitting. Our president kept saying “We will never return to WFH.”
Less than 6 months after he said that, we went fully remote. The whole RTO thing lasted about a year before they gave up.
What is it about CEOs that makes this the ego power trip issue for them?
Tax breaks for having asses in seats at certain geographic locations.
Actually, I work in commercial real estate.
It’s not uncommon for there to be triggers on these loans that go into effect when a tenant vacates a property, even if they are still paying rent.
They direct control of their rents and they have to pay a monthly fee for management.
I can promise you, the only reason we returned to remote is luck. Our lease happened to be up at the same time our moral dropped.
Still, many of our employees cheered and celebrated the announcement. Take the wins where you can.
Sorry for the ignorance, but why would a lender care about the occupancy of a building?
No worries! Ask as many questions as you like!
It affects the value of the surrounding spaces.
Example: A strip mall has a grocery store. If the grocery is active on the property, the surrounding spaces are more valuable to rent. The landlord can rent the spaces to restaurants retail stores because the grocery store has a lot of foot traffic.
If the grocery store “goes dark” or stops operating at the strip mall, the neighboring Chipotles and Game Stops lose money and close. The landlord can’t fill those spaces as easily as when the grocery store was there.
If the spaces are empty, no rent comes in. No rent means no mortgage payments.
Edit: I forgot to add. Commercial mortgages are different than residential for lots of reasons but a big one is the dollar amount. Some of these properties are $100M loans so the trusts and banks involved have a lot more say as to what goes on at the property.
If you want to fix your sink, you do it. If they want to, they have to get permission to make changes.
That does make sense, thanks.
The best half cocked reason I've heard from my own employer, is optics when clients are visiting and tours and shit. It's not a good reason, but it was the only reason I've heard with any explanation.
There are plenty of people that I know that like going to the office and others that like hybrid. I am hybrid 3 days at home, and I'm okay with that, and if I want to, I'll just say I'm not coming in, and nobody asks questions. The point is, if you need asses in seats, find the people in the company that want to, and work within those bounds, or incentives fringe people if you need more. If my company required RTO, I'd immediately update my resume and start shopping around.
lol if I was visiting a vendor and heard they had forced RTO I'd question working with them because they clearly don't make good decisions.
I wish this was more prolific. It seems half the people I know who get forced into RTO...the company suffers but it is never RTO's fault.
Aye. It's always ok to simply go "shit, we were wrong, let's do this different this time" because we're all humans. It's when you refuse to even consider something a failure and then everyone has to show up and step in that pile of shit every day... Great for morale.
That was the point. It's an unstructured layoff, where they create conditions that will force people to quit which reduces costs. But it does not carry the same scrutiny and regulation of a formal layoff.
Edit: The other factor I think is causing these return to office requirements, is that the venn diagram of commercial real estate investors and sitting corporate board members is a circle.
Investors should be demanding the paper trail for how these RTO decisions are made. It's going to hurt a company's ability to hire the best candidates in the long run and that's going to affect profits.
The only problem with this tactic as an unstructured layoff is that the first people to walk out the door are the people who can easily get jobs else where. You lose your best talent and retain the people who are less likely to find a new job
Execs dont really care tho. Each person is a number and skill sets dont matter
Most stocks are held by institutions who also hold most real estate.
thats called constructive dismissal, basically pressuring people to resign, by creating a toxic work environment. it was all people could talk about in the "work" subs '23-'24
So they want to make their employees sick and have proof but continue anyway?
I am so glad that I wield enough power to tell my employer to fuck off when it comes to time in the office.
I’m thankful I haven’t worked for a company with an office for over a decade.
My job has completely sold all real estate they owned. They couldn't go RTO even if they wanted. Makes me happy.
Well, 90% isn’t very statistically significant.
Your sentiment is on the right direction, but statistical significance and effect intensity are only indirectly related and one does really not imply much about the other.