Work Reform

X [Doubt]

CEOs, admit they used feelings over logic and everyone had to just pretend it made sense?

I thought the point was to get people to resign so they didn't have to pay severance?

CEOs will admit nothing.

Shareholders like to hear that employees are having to come to the office, being fired, or pissing in bottles. It means more money for the shareholders.

"Every hour we'll beat our lowest performing employee with a pool ball in a sock."

The line goes up.

I sincerely thought this headline was from the onion. I don't think a lot of CEOs have the humility to admit fault.

It wasn't ever about productivity, it was about control.

Alternate headline: CEOs still out of touch with rank and file employees, continue to set policy based on enormous egos and to assuage shareholders

Admit wrongdoing? Ahahahahwhwhhahahahahahahahahahah

CEOs will never admit shit until they're paid to do so.

Just let people work remote. It is the best way for me to be productive and not have to spend extra money on travel.

Anybody with a job that isn't in a warehouse will tell you productivity went up with work from home, not down. Fuck the media for always sleeping through reality.

CEOs won't admit anything. We had some downsizing over the pandemic but they still want us in the office while claiming that we all miss the "magic meeting in an elevator/hallway moments" and that supposedly collaboration is greatly enhanced. Meanwhile when asked if we'd have adequate facilities, there was a pause before being told an empty "...yes". So what are the adequate facilities? Open spaces and unassigned seating so you don't know where you'll be sitting the next day. Instead of a well-furnished home office with peace and quiet, I will get to enjoy a spartan open space with many distractions.

Real estate prices has been mentioned as a reason for CEOs to do this and I'm sure that plays a part since they're often invested in such things, but also, it's likely a way to get people to quit so that they don't have to have formal layoffs.

I think this is because the reason to get people to get back into office was to protect commercial real estate values.

Now that the third tallest tower in LA sold for 45% its previous selling price, the dominoes have started to fall.

Now, it will be about getting people to work from home and trying to get out of these buildings as they are a failed investment.

So we are going to start seeing companies “offer” to let people work from home. They may even ask you to take a pay cut or something for the privilege.

This is just my prediction and I’m not an expert in these fields. So take this with a grain of salt.

If you are working in an office by force and they offer to let you work from home with a pay cut, I’d hold out a few months as they may start forcing people to work from home at full pay.

But they helped their buddies with empty real estate downtown so it's all good.

This won't happen because no one is measuring productivity. If they had any way to measure productivity or even cared about it, there wouldn't be bullshit jobs. CEOs will never admit this, because it was never the point.

They didn't do it because productivity. They did it because real estate prices. Also they like to watch people work.

My perspective on this after all my experiences over the past three years or so, working at three different jobs that service hundreds of customer sites and thousands of professional workers, is simply: forcing either work from office, work from home, or a combination of both (aka hybrid), is the wrong move. Your best talent will walk of you force them to do something that they don't want to do. I have seen coworkers and users alike, find new jobs both when forced to WFH and RTO and even with hybrid.

The take away is, work should be flexible. It should be where the workers are most effectively able to complete their duties. If that's the office, workers should have the ability to do that. If that's at home, they should be able to do that. If it's some combination of home/office, again, they should be able to do that.

If I've learned only one thing about work over the pandemic and this "post pandemic" hell, it's that above all, people want to be able to make that choice for themselves. Any worker worth employing is going to be productive regardless of their location, and for short durations, workers can accept working from home or the office or whatever, even if it's not their preference (eg, the 2020/1 lockdowns). A bad worker will be able to find ways to look busy will while not doing work regardless of if they're working remotely or not, though, in my experience most workers just want to put in the effort, and get paid, and they do. Those that are there to do as little as possible and collect a paycheck are actually pretty rare. People want to work. Giving them the option of choosing where and when to do that is empowering and beneficial to their attitude and work ethic; not to mention, it's also beneficial to their mental health.

Simply, forcing them into either working from home, or the office, or both via "hybrid" is going to have at least a few, wanting to walk.

We have the technology to support both styles of work and taking that choice away from workers will only serve to make those that want the opposite, disgruntled. If you value your workers, then let them choose.

Bluntly, given what I've seen from business owners over the same three+ year time period, they don't care enough about workers to make them happy. It demonstrates a complete lack of shits given about what works want.

If you're a business owner and you have any consideration for those you employ, give them the choice and you will be rewarded with more work, and better work done by those you employ. Anyone who forces the issue, one way or the other, will have some that are happy and some that are very unhappy about it. Choose wisely.

Is being a future of work expert a good-paying career?

When did we stop using the Oracle of Delphi and switch to future of work experts for our predictions?

It's easy to laugh at the term 'Future of Work Expert' because it is inherently ridiculous but some of the actual individuals cited here are people that CEOs will listen to:

• Annie Dean, a panelist and the global head of Team Anywhere at software firm Atlassian, and Meta’s former director of remote work
• Robert Sadow, Scoop’s ('Powerful planning tools for hybrid employees.') CEO and cofounder
• Cara Allamano, who heads up people operations at management software firm Lattice—which, like Atlassian, is remote-first

All of these people are very clearly on the 'remote' side of the argument but they are also in leadership positions where they are walking it, not just talking it. All of their companies provide tooling solutions for orchestrating staff and projects. At least two of these companies are successful. We already know that the data does not back up RTO mandates. We're on the Sarah Cycle/Change curve: We've done Shock and Anger, we are now at the 'Bargaining' stage.

The drain for those companies is happening or has happened and is unlikely to improve just because they finally realize they were wrong.

Return to office mandates were never about productivity. They are about fulfilling obligations to municipalities that gave them tax breaks on real-estate in exchange for hiring a certain number of local employees.

As an employee at a company that has asked people to come back 3 days a week, and forced those that couldn't to "voluntarily resign", I very much doubt this will happen at large companies.

Sure, many companies will shift towards hybrid models, taking smaller office spaces where needed, and letting people work remotely when they want...but RTO became a culture war of sorts rather than a data-driven benefit. To switch back after being so anti-worker would be admitting fault, which CEO's rarely do.

Even if remote was the future, there are instances where I don't see it working:

1. If remote work is the future, what becomes of migration? Controlled migration is a huge boost for many cities that want the best and brightest to move there. Without a need for employees to move, either migration worldwide drops, or cities/countries find another way to bring people in.

2. Big companies have a huge number of applications, and even if the likes of Google and Amazon say "fuck you, 5 days a week in office" you'll find hundreds of people that'll happily work there and be treated like shit. It's not just tech either - finance, law, insurance, lots of industries that have tried to bring people back, and who have no shortage of people that'll take jobs there.

I love working remotely, but I do appreciate that there needs to be a balance. The smartest thing to do would be to have smaller, shared offices for people that want a desk, and to set up "virtual locations" for tax/salary reasons for people that want to be remote. That way, people get the best of both worlds.