this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
419 points (96.7% liked)

Asklemmy

43945 readers
643 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
419
why are companies trying so hard to have employees back in the office? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
238 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I have posted this on Reddit (askeconomics) a while back but got no good replies. Copying it here because I don't want to send traffic to Reddit.

What do you think?

I see a big push to take employees back to the office. I personally don't mind either working remote or in the office, but I think big companies tend to think rationally in terms of cost/benefit and I haven't seen a convincing explanation yet of why they are so keen to have everyone back.

If remote work was just as productive as in-person, a remote-only company could use it to be more efficient than their work-in-office competitors, so I assume there's no conclusive evidence that this is the case. But I haven't seen conclusive evidence of the contrary either, and I think employers would have good reason to trumpet any findings at least internally to their employees ("we've seen KPI so-and-so drop with everyone working from home" or "project X was severely delayed by lack of in-person coordination" wouldn't make everyone happy to return in presence, but at least it would make a good argument for a manager to explain to their team)

Instead, all I keep hearing is inspirational wish-wash like "we value the power of working together". Which is fine, but why are we valuing it more than the cost of office space?

On the side of employees, I often see arguments like "these companies made a big investment in offices and now they don't want to look stupid by leaving them empty". But all these large companies have spent billions to acquire smaller companies/products and dropped them without a second thought. I can't believe the same companies would now be so sentimentally attached to office buildings if it made any economic sense to close them.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But a business doesn't need to own office space for sporadic meetings. There are rentable meeting rooms in many cities, in libraries, in some coffee shops, universities, colleges, conference buildings, etc. Plus they're a lot nicer than dingy offices.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Sure, but many are probably locked into long leases. These leases also cover things like server rooms, show rooms, and storage areas. All of that can be moved, but there is cost (and risk) in moving them. Plus, it is convenient to have work areas for employees to use between meetings.

Also, some people, like me, prefer to work outside of their home, so it is good to have us in a single place so we can have impromptu meetings.

Some companies are reducing office space, taking desks away from employees that come in rarely or even switching to a hot bunk model (several employees share the same office and come in on different days) or a hotel model (employees sit in any open office and are expected to take all personal items home at the end of the day).