RTO in many cases is the height of hubris.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just cannot imagine another situation where I would ask people to spend 10-20h per week, and hundreds of dollars, so they can physically sit in a different location for absolutely no reason other than that I can force them to be in the same location as myself because 'they have a choice to work here or not'. I would be so embarrassed and ashamed to enact that policy if it was not 100% necessary. RTO is the Bill Lumbergh from Office Space of policies.
It would be one thing if someone is in the medical profession or needs to physically interact with someone else. But to take 10-20h away from other human beings, away from their family and their health and their rest, given we have one life to live, when we KNOW it's not necessary, is to me downright cruel and just the height of hubris and arrogance. I cannot imagine wanting my employees lives to be worse, instead of better, if better was an option.
We're all going to die. Sure we have to work, but do you really need me to sit on a train for hours each week so I can do zoom calls from a specific room you designate, when we've proven that we are now a digital society and do not need to do this?
It's just so amazingly tone deaf and selfish.

Your post is stupid. Sorry -- no other way around it. You do need to be in the same room with people for any job where you plan to either learn something or get promoted. Not needed for other types of jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Its just harder to manage remote peoole. You have to actively set up projects and metrics and deliverables instead of assuming everyone is at the office working. I think letting everyone who can (and wants to) work remote, should. And then have in person team meets once a quarter or once a month to build team cohesion etc.

It's super easy to not meet metrics being in the office, too. Projects, metrics, deliverables aren't a new thing with remote work.

Lots of (poor) managers had been skating by with no metrics and no clear idea of what their people do, because they could see bodies at desks. That was never good management, but widespread WFH really shone a light on it.

I am truly amazed at the poor quality of some managers out there. I can't imagine not knowing what people are doing and whether they are accomplishing their tasks in a timely manner. Manager...literally in the job title that their job is to manage.

[Anonymous]

I've been managing in a corporate environment for 20+ years and I think 2/week is the sweet spot. I don't need it to be 9-5 -- wanna do your calls with India from home and come in for 5 focused hours? Great idea. You don't need to choose between a free-for-all and a work camp. Feedback from our younger folks was that they found all online difficult to navigate outside of their daily work, which makes sense. It puts you completely in the hands of your line manager to understand the lay of the land, you learn so much early on via observation. You also get diminishing returns by making people miserable with too many pointless hours in office for no reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been managing in a corporate environment for 20+ years and I think 2/week is the sweet spot. I don't need it to be 9-5 -- wanna do your calls with India from home and come in for 5 focused hours? Great idea. You don't need to choose between a free-for-all and a work camp. Feedback from our younger folks was that they found all online difficult to navigate outside of their daily work, which makes sense. It puts you completely in the hands of your line manager to understand the lay of the land, you learn so much early on via observation. You also get diminishing returns by making people miserable with too many pointless hours in office for no reason.

Agreed. 2x per week seems to be the sweet spot. And let people be flexible with their in-person hours. Having people come in 4+ days per week to do Teams/Zoom calls is the height of silliness.

I can’t wait until office leases turnover and all these companies pushing RTO will backtrack once they see how much money they can save by eliminating square footage and pushing a flexible hybrid program (1-2 days per week max, some folks back to permanent RTO with salaries indexed to locality)

The cost savings for companies are way too big to ignore in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Its just harder to manage remote peoole. You have to actively set up projects and metrics and deliverables instead of assuming everyone is at the office working. I think letting everyone who can (and wants to) work remote, should. And then have in person team meets once a quarter or once a month to build team cohesion etc.

It's super easy to not meet metrics being in the office, too. Projects, metrics, deliverables aren't a new thing with remote work.

Lots of (poor) managers had been skating by with no metrics and no clear idea of what their people do, because they could see bodies at desks. That was never good management, but widespread WFH really shone a light on it.

I am truly amazed at the poor quality of some managers out there. I can't imagine not knowing what people are doing and whether they are accomplishing their tasks in a timely manner. Manager...literally in the job title that their job is to manage.

There was discussion earlier in this thread of how the people making RTO decisions are in fact people who have commutes and kids and equally enjoyed the benefits of WFH. The response was that no, they were Bezos/Musk uber rich CEOs who couldn't care less about peons.

But then the thread becomes about middle managers being awful. Managers are not the ones making these decisions, and many of them also would prefer continued extended WFH and are only doing what they are directed to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Its just harder to manage remote peoole. You have to actively set up projects and metrics and deliverables instead of assuming everyone is at the office working. I think letting everyone who can (and wants to) work remote, should. And then have in person team meets once a quarter or once a month to build team cohesion etc.

It's super easy to not meet metrics being in the office, too. Projects, metrics, deliverables aren't a new thing with remote work.

Lots of (poor) managers had been skating by with no metrics and no clear idea of what their people do, because they could see bodies at desks. That was never good management, but widespread WFH really shone a light on it.

I am truly amazed at the poor quality of some managers out there. I can't imagine not knowing what people are doing and whether they are accomplishing their tasks in a timely manner. Manager...literally in the job title that their job is to manage.

There was discussion earlier in this thread of how the people making RTO decisions are in fact people who have commutes and kids and equally enjoyed the benefits of WFH. The response was that no, they were Bezos/Musk uber rich CEOs who couldn't care less about peons.

But then the thread becomes about middle managers being awful. Managers are not the ones making these decisions, and many of them also would prefer continued extended WFH and are only doing what they are directed to do.

There was also a discussion in the thread from managers about apparently how hard it is to manage remotely because they don't know what people are doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GM CEO just told people get back to work.

Bottom line way back in 2007 my company started remote. Any employee with children was required to show proof of child care or a nanny, my facilities dept. would visit home to set up office and ensure they had an appropriate place to work at home and had to be online business hours and available.

Most women were looking for free child care or run errands or go bus stop.

My co worker did get approval. He had a home office identical to work, one kid in after school program and they rocked it 830 - 530 pm every day.

Most washed out .

Because the GM CEO is going to need to lay off a lot of the white collar workforce in order to pay the UAW's new compensation package. Stellantis just offered buyouts to 50% of its white collar workforce to pay for the new union contract. In GM's case, RTO is a good way to weed out the people who will be the first to get laid off. That's all it is. Plus, GM owns all its real estate and can't monetize the empty square footage. And it sure as hell doesn't want to dump CRE in Detroit, which already faces a lot of downward pressures. No-win situation for GM white collar employees right now.

I think it's also much harder for manufacturing companies to have lots of WFH employees. I mean, you have shift workers at your plants that are required to be there at all times, and then you have the procurement team sitting at home in their pajamas. How does that look to those running the plant?

+1. I work in-house in a white-collar job for an airline (not in DC). It would create great tension with our frontline employees if all of the "headquarters" employees were allowed to work from home. It is just not tenable. Hence, the headquarters employees must be in the office 3x per week. (The company is still able to attract top talent to work at headquarters, even with the 3x per week in the office. However, I'm sure the company misses out on some top prospective employees who would be unwilling to come to the office 3x per week.)

[Anonymous]

Question for OP -- what if your children's teachers all said that they would like to work from home?

Sure, WFH is great. But I can understand having to go in for a few days per week or month, because the interaction of the groups is useful (at least in my line of work - legal services.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Its just harder to manage remote peoole. You have to actively set up projects and metrics and deliverables instead of assuming everyone is at the office working. I think letting everyone who can (and wants to) work remote, should. And then have in person team meets once a quarter or once a month to build team cohesion etc.

It's super easy to not meet metrics being in the office, too. Projects, metrics, deliverables aren't a new thing with remote work.

Lots of (poor) managers had been skating by with no metrics and no clear idea of what their people do, because they could see bodies at desks. That was never good management, but widespread WFH really shone a light on it.

I am truly amazed at the poor quality of some managers out there. I can't imagine not knowing what people are doing and whether they are accomplishing their tasks in a timely manner. Manager...literally in the job title that their job is to manage.

There was discussion earlier in this thread of how the people making RTO decisions are in fact people who have commutes and kids and equally enjoyed the benefits of WFH. The response was that no, they were Bezos/Musk uber rich CEOs who couldn't care less about peons.

But then the thread becomes about middle managers being awful. Managers are not the ones making these decisions, and many of them also would prefer continued extended WFH and are only doing what they are directed to do.

There was also a discussion in the thread from managers about apparently how hard it is to manage remotely because they don't know what people are doing.

Is it your opinion that the majority of middle managers want RTO?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had some quit this week due to RTO. Quite Frankly she was good and smart but no longer worth the effort.

It was embarrassing near the end her reign to dial in and zoom into in person meetings that were in person. when she did come, late, leaving early, calling out. In the end she tried to get at 15 hour in person work week. 5 hours a day three days and when she attempted that first 15 minutes were breakfast, then a 30 minute lunch and another 15 minute of coffee bathroom breaks. So really a 4 hour day. She kept fighting for 2021 and 100 percent remote.

More power to her I am sure she will find it at another place. But don’t try to bend a company to your will.

It is beyond creepy to me that you were micromanaging and spying on her time like this. You said yourself she was a good worker and smart and yet you spent time at your office obsessively watching your recording her? I’m betting she didn’t leave because of return to work.

Also, work has changed and unless she was doing data entry, it makes no sense to sit and bang a keyboard for hours on end. If you are a knowledge worker of course you need some time to disconnect your mind from the task… 20 minutes is about the average productivity time Most people can focus on something maybe stretching to 45 but otherwise you really need to get up and walk around and disconnect.

This is completely normal and appropriate behavior and I’m so glad this woman found a better fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for OP -- what if your children's teachers all said that they would like to work from home?

Sure, WFH is great. But I can understand having to go in for a few days per week or month, because the interaction of the groups is useful (at least in my line of work - legal services.)

There is a huge difference between teaching (young) children, teaching adults, and your run of the mill office job. For one thing, a classroom isn’t an office. Let’s stop the disingenuous comparisons and compare comparable things. If your job is to work on a computer all day,
talking to someone from time to time, then you likely don’t need to be in the office more than once, maybe twice a week, unless you prefer to be there. This is what my job is like, and even in the before times, I’d commute to the office, only to stare at a screen. My work is solitary, my boss knows it gets done because I’m sending them things to edit/review etc. We’d often go an entire week without having a substantive convo, we didn’t need to. I didn’t mind the (short) commute so much because I lived in a small apartment, and didn’t have a better work space at home. But now, it seems a waste of time (we moved and I have a nice home office now, vs a cubicle in a shared space at the office). We do two days in the office. That’s ok, though for my job, once a week would suffice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Its just harder to manage remote peoole. You have to actively set up projects and metrics and deliverables instead of assuming everyone is at the office working. I think letting everyone who can (and wants to) work remote, should. And then have in person team meets once a quarter or once a month to build team cohesion etc.

It's super easy to not meet metrics being in the office, too. Projects, metrics, deliverables aren't a new thing with remote work.

Lots of (poor) managers had been skating by with no metrics and no clear idea of what their people do, because they could see bodies at desks. That was never good management, but widespread WFH really shone a light on it.

I am truly amazed at the poor quality of some managers out there. I can't imagine not knowing what people are doing and whether they are accomplishing their tasks in a timely manner. Manager...literally in the job title that their job is to manage.

And that was done in the office, too.

^PP must've been working at a poorly managed project. I have *always* worked on projects with clear deliverables, metrics, tasks, long before covid hit. If you didn't, then you had a poorly managed project, and a terrible project manager.

[Anonymous]

"If you can't measure what is important, make what you can measure important"

- Crappy managers who insist on RTO

[Anonymous]

to think if the pandemic never happened these conversations would be moot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the private sector studies have shown people are 18 percent more effective in office.

Let’s say I have 100,000 employees I force RTO hard. No exceptions. If 18 percent quit does it matter.

And I know it can save on rent. My particular company is rare we own our headquarters as well as our other back up facility. Both mortgage free. The other small sites are customer facing so no remote. Many companies are locked into physical space.

When I do remote which I am doing on Friday I am getting haircut, going dry cleaners. Picking up prescription, doing dentist appointment, etc. it frees up my weekend. Great for me.

Why do you force your employees to do what you will not do yourself? So shitty and hypocritical.