Let's play a predict the future game as we get summoned back to our little desks. Tech execs have been pushing return to office: the "magic hallway conversations" and highlighting the positives. What if the rosey view backfires and we end up with: - Less hours worked because of commute - More time off to take care of chores - Increase in harassment and HR-related cases - Increase in operational cost (office services/amenities/food) - Increase in travel budgets between offices - Executive themselves wanting more cushiness - Difficulty hiring in HCOL areas, increasing cost to hire and reducing output due to short staffing Especially if the above ends up reducing net revenue and trickles to impacting stock prices and executive bottom lines, how do you foresee the RTO adaptations working out into the near future? TC: 550k
Everything overshadows the real estate tech companies and tech execs own. The workers are their consumers. The Los Altos homes will not be worth 10s of millions if workers do not go back to office. Google’s parent company gobbled up commercial RE during pandemic in south bay. The big players need their parked money to stay safe and grow. This is why workers need to vote with their feet and prioritize their own life and time. Honestly, it has been so hard for me to leave SAP because of non monetary perks even though pay is 🥜 But I can buy a nice house by Santa Cruz beach 🏝
The big players don’t get their money from the net worth of their homes, I’m sure they couldn’t care less. It’s the small players, people in the 5-100M net worth who care about real state prices but they have no say on the matter.
Wow 5-100M are “small players”
Did WFH result in a decrease in all that you mentioned? Just curious
They'll never admit it even if it happens worse than their worst expectations...
This. They simply won’t admit it.
Engineers: do actual work, must have accountability, will be fired if they have a bad manager or are hire to fire, everything they say gets written down, management uses key loggers to track their productivity Useless Management: delegate work, no accountability, unfireable even if they're objectively bad at what they do, they prefer in person conversations so that what they say isn't recorded, assign useless meetings that won't translate to code so that they look more important
I have friends at a large company that RTO-d back to 5 days a week in 2021, and the result has been mass attrition, with employees jumping ship for companies that offer wfh as an option. They have openings they can't fill for the same reason. This is leading to existing staff working crazy hours to cover the shortfall in staffing, burning out and even more quitting en masse. More than half the team will be gone after bonus hits this month. But the pay was never great at this company to begin with and hiring was a challenge even during the best of times. I doubt this would happen to google as it pays very well, employees have relatively good wlb and it has no trouble hiring given its solid reputation (still), but it's one scenario that could happen if RTO backfires.
There just aren’t enough roles for everyone jumping ship though. I’ve been interviewing elsewhere, don’t really care about RTO or commute though as I already own a house. Nearly every high-paying company wants you back in the office.
Not true that every high paying company wants folks back in the office. You're not looking hard enough
It will eventually. People are ready to switch if forced
They got to use those rented office spaces!
If you didn’t realize it there are huge amounts dollars in the “work in the office” economy and many city governments need the cash. You heard it in Biden’s speech. Get back to work and spend money on gas, food and other services.
“Don’t stop your enemy when he is making a mistake”
Haha it will definitely backfire! No wonder companies like Google will feel the heat! In fact one thing that I am finding surprising that Amazon is getting better at responding to current job market conditions and Google with billions of data points still stuck in things of the past. PS: Google already falls in Tier 2 category in terms of pay.
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You won’t be working less hours….you’ll just be adding commute on top of it
This is the way.
And lets break that down a bit - The opportunity cost of commute time is spending time with family/kids, exercising, cooking healthy food or just napping. Be stuck in traffic and/or also pay the tolls But you know what - you can be productive by listening to podcasts during commute (supposed to make up for all the lost time)