Ask HN: Why are some companies still trying to force return to office? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why are some companies still trying to force return to office?

17 pointschandler76732 comments

Seems like the consensus is that you can do just fine (if not better) if your employees are remote. So why are some companies still trying to force workers back to the office knowing many would rather quit?

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Lots of execs and managers believe that groups of people are more innovative and productive when they discuss things in-person.

You may think they are wrong. You may not like that they believe this. But they really do believe that in-person is better for getting stuff done, and that's why they want it.

I'm concerned that execs and managers believe discussing thing in-person is more productive when there's lots of evidence that suggests wfh or hybrid is comparable or better.

Two years ago there's wasn't enough data to know what would work long term. There is now.

A mistake a lot of people make is thinking that which is “better” or “more productive” matters in every situation.

All that matters is what the current decision makers want to do — and of course that depends on their motivations. Unless you understand their motivations, how can you say what is “better”?

Why does it happen in big orgs where most meetings are virtual meetings between different offices?

They still believe that being in-person with a handful of peers helps productivity.

For example, you might not work directly with Karl, but he could still give some suggestions for using git that could be helpful.

I think this is the biggest factor, but also important to note that commercial leases tend to be long and very difficult / expensive to break.

…they’ve had years at this point to plan for that

What is there to plan? If you signed a 10 year lease in 2019, it is what it is.

I really don't get that reasoning.

If a company accepts that remote work is better and in the end gets more done, then why care about the lease at all?

Simply pay the rent for the remainder of the lease and file it under "bad decision". Really, what's the alternative? Force people to come back to the office just to justify the rent? If it's not in the best interest of the company? (remember we determined earlier one that the productivity is higher with people working remotely).

YMMV, but having worked at a remote-first big-tech company, then an in-person startup, then a big-tech remote-first company that bought our in-person startup, I feel a stark difference in engineering velocity.

This doesn't mean that in-person is always better - but corporate leadership is hearing enough anecdotes such as mine to push for RTO again.

+1. It’s really as simple as what lostdog mentioned.

I will add that this will last a generation but no more. There are tons of companies make it work remotely note that these “old schoolers” once they are gone and replace buy gen z and gen z+1 will have a completely diff modus operandi. The only way this accelerates is the next google /apple / meta is a remote first company. This will unleash fully remote to the mainstream

I'm guessing most people on HN are employees, not employers. It's therefore not surprising that the "concensus" seems to revolve around "employee think".

When I've responded in the past, with an employer point of view, I get down-voted. That's OK. You may not like what i have to say.

Of course companies are different. There are many reasons for office work. Many of them bad. You may work for a company with many layers of useless management. I commiserate with you, and clearly my experience, and answer, isn't relevant to you. I can only speak to my situation.

I only have a short commute, so I go into the office about 3 days a week. I usually work from home a couple days as well.

When I'm in the office, people ask me questions. When I'm at home they don't. For me this is good, I'd like people to ask rather than waste time. Those who are never in the office never ask.

Which brings me to the next observation. People in the office are growing faster than those at home. Or perhaps my perception is that those in the office are growing. Peoplecat home seem to "do their thing", which includes making the same mistakes, and taking longer to do things.

Equally people at home are not challenged with questions, they are not pushed out of their comfort zones. They are not helping others along.

All of this plays out when folk are being promoted. For some I can see their evolution. For others their stagnation. Long-term it'll be interesting to see if this progresses.

For the record, we all come to the office on Wednesday, for the rest they're free to choose. Their has been un uptick in morale since we started coming back for that. I think some folk get very lonely and isolated being permanently at home.

Ultimately full-remote is not actually ideal for either party, but YMMV depending on pretty much every other part of the business culture.

Do what works for you best as an employer. As an employer, it is not easy to have remote teams especially if you are not designed to work remotely. Junior folks need more in person collaboration as well in my experience. So it really depends and there is no one size fits all answer. Most proponents of remote work take an extreme position and that is a problem.

Don't underestimate the paranoia of useless middle management who cannot justify their existence by Teams meetings alone and cannot easily brown-nose from home.

Wouldn’t it easier for management of this kind to hide? You can’t see that they are not actually doing anything if they are working from home. In the office they have to justify themselves because otherwise they’re just sitting there.

In large organisations, these kinds of managers get to where they are by maximising visibility and building their brand. That can be hard to do remotely unless they’re used to it.

It's usually the opposite. People who accomplish little often do a lot. You can see ineffective managers multitasking in meetings all the time, then they're at home responding to messages until midnight. A lot of managing might also be wikis and such, but it's easier to schedule 1-1s every week and then have a meeting about when the next meeting is.

If that's the case, why aren't companies firing them, saving on their salaries AND saving on leases?

Not only can you do fine, but you can save a ton of money on office operations. The economics will win out in the end, I don't doubt it. A lot of executives and managers are simply in denial.

"The economics will win out in the end". This is what frustrates me. It seems so obvious. Sunk-cost fallacy is a terrible reason to mess with a workers employment.

Some of it is culture. I worked for a large F50 company pre-pandemic that was remote friendly (at least in our org) and all communication was async, all serious discussion happened on mailing lists and the internal github, ad-hoc meetings were generally discouraged.

I have joined a FAANG recently and by comparison their culture is painful for remote, despite them having 2 years to refine during the pandemic. It is slowly getting better this last year, but culturally they are still years away from being effective at remote.

For those who say Real Estate is the reason, that math doesn't add up there. Apple doesn't give a shit about 5 billion dollars in real estate that is wasted if they think it will make employees less productive. That's a rounding error on most of their products. They genuinely believe it's at worst neutral to demand RTO.

Do you think it's important for a companies culture to evolve as the environment changes? With your FAANG example I have to wonder what else may be stuck that's blocking the organization from doing more. Are they bad at evolving in general or is there something unique about RTO?

> the consensus is that you can do just fine

Consensus where? many managers quote the Microsoft study that Remote work is making productivity and innovation harder for example

My 2 cents,

If I need to push a project I'd really love to work face to face, it takes me 5 min to spot the problem or to slip in a conversation easily. Or even just observing what's happening is fun and educating.

But in large corps I understand the dilemma, even if you go to the office your job is to hop in remote meetings, that sucks. Then the office might just be cancelled.

Because the banks and local govt bet a lot on commercial leases.

Banks says they are solvent because they have "hard" assets to borrow against. Govts promises the paradise with future taxes.

Got to the office? Pay toll

Got a coffee? Pay taxes

Consume more petrol/gas for your car? Pay taxes.

More electricity? pay taxes.

You can't expect they let you out so easy right?

Yeah, but why would the startup I work for care about that?

Becase the fund that invest on your startup does.

because the board members have leases nearby.

because someone that is invested want you to go there, spend money or create expenses (consume food from cafeteria,etc.)

If the student does not go in person to a university how valuable is the commercial lease at the university?

Its amazing how banks are offering reduced interest rates and more money if you are willing to rent out a building at a loss. If it's happening here, it's happening everywhere.

Because they have no idea of what they are doing. At best they are copying others but most likely they are afraid you will not be working without someone looking over your shoulder. A lot of times they do it as staging theater for investors (look at my team working in a cool hub) others to impressive customers (having an address in a locale is part of branding). No one does it for better ideas. Cheaper to fly everyone for a retreat if that was the case.

"We don't know what we're doing so we are copying you" - Explains most weird startup behaviors.

Our CEO's decision was based entirely on "Elon Musk revoked WFH so it must be genius." End-of-argument.

When pressed, he also suggested that new hires need hands-on, one-on-one mentorship to grow and learn the business. At least that's a legitimate reason.

But for mature, distributed teams who already work remotely (COVID or not), return to office is a huge drain of employees time and attention, IMO.

commercial real estate obligations. "culture"

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