Companies issuing RTO mandates "lose their best talent": Study | Hacker News Reader

Companies issuing RTO mandates "lose their best talent": Study

arstechnica.com

From the article:

"We also obtain information about employees’ gender, seniority, and the number of skills listed on their individual LinkedIn profiles, which serves as a proxy for employees’ skill level."

'Best talent' can be defined only in relation to a particular role, i.e. the job title, expectations and credentials.

If the study were to show that, of the software engineers at level X at a particular company, RTO mandates caused the loss of a greater percentage of the better performers, than of the lower performers, that would:

- be interesting

- match my intuition.

Unfortunately, the study does not seek to estimate this, nor does its design make that possible.

Using seniority as proxy for 'best talent' seems flawed because seniority doesn't mean someone isn't underperforming, as this is always relative to expectations.

I also suspect those who have decided to leave their employer will be more likely to create, maintain, and even keyword stuff the skills listed on their LinkedIn profile. This would be a poor proxy for real world skill level and their impact on the departed organisation.

Can't good people leave and get a job elsewhere? easily?

I would think people who aren't as good would take time to move.

Similar study mentioned from earlier in the year:

Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40339852

Paper: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/50314...

That hardly matters to the friendless losers who support the RTO; these people have had literal years to acquire some other social outlet but would rather sit in commuter traffic than have hobbies or join a club; they must have you in the office so they don't feel the need for introspection about the confluence of bad life choices that led them to such a position.

They will never yield on the RTO because its not being driven by anything more than vibes.

Most people, for a long time, lose the ability to simply "make friends" as they age. Work, family, etc. A lot of the time when you've got mouthes to feed you really only have work to make friends.

I support remote work entirely and I don't want a job that makes me go to an office. I will however note that there were several times in my life I could go a month without seeing another person. It's hard to start hobbies, it's hard to make friends as you get older, etc. Even when remote work allegedly provides all this time to do so.

This post sounds tone deaf and unaware of the actual social problems most normal people have.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com