Hacker News Reader

Comment by Brystephor | Hacker News Reader

I understand what you're saying about entitlement. It can be tiresome to hear the same topics brought up repeatedly. With the constant negativity that surrounds it, it gets exhausting to listen to.

At the same time, most of those complaints are coming from generally reasonable people. If a company promised no RTO and then went back on it, that'd be frustrating for them. If a company can't state why they want to go RTO, then I'd be frustrated with needing to change my life for the reason of "because I said so". If the company has grown a significant amount and been able to manage the growth and whatnot while working remotely, then it also brings up the question of "why is there a RTO mandate?" I think more people are frustrated with the lack of reasoning and justification beyond some hand-wavey "collaboration" answer that companies are giving.

View on HN

> beyond some hand-wavey "collaboration" answer that companies are giving

I'm confused what the alternative is that you would like. I'm sure they can link a bunch of studies that show its more productive to work in office, and I'm guessing those that want to stay remote will show a bunch of other studies that say its not; which continues ad nauseam.

If a company claims they're data driven, then they should use data to make choices.

In this case, they'd need to look at the cost. "will my employees being in office perform so much better despite having to drive through an hour of traffic?" I'm not sure how you'd go about this one.

"Will increasing risk of becoming sick be worth the extra productivity increase, assuming there is one?" If there's a 10% increase in getting sick, and the median number of sick days per year is 5, then will 0.5 more days of being sick for every employee be a justifiable cost?

RTO also has all the costs associated with office space, employees to manage those facilities as well. I always hear that building costs are miniscule in the grand scheme of the business, but I never hear the number as a percent of overall costs.

At the end of the day, some attempt to justify the decision beyond "collaboration" is what I personally want. I don't think putting a bunch of introverts in a room together is going to suddenly increase socializing.

I went down this rabbit hole on another RTO thread. Bottom line, it’s all a matter of feeling. Management wanting RTO feels it’s more productive for the org. WFH advocates wants remote work because they feel that they are more productive at home. Reality, both sides cannot really provide a lot of hard evidence to support their position, but the only position that really matters is the company’s position. If they want to RTO, it’s up to the employees to sell the company on WFH…and then be able to deliver measurable results exceeding expectations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com