They must have some data that shows people are more productive (whether it's against their will or not/whether they hate their lives sitting in traffic to and from work or not/whether they thinking being in the office surrounded by a bunch of people who are mostly fake is soul sucking or not) in the office. There's no way Google + Apple + Amazon + Meta are all aligned on "work from home isn't a viable option" without dating backing it.
It's just an echo chamber here on HackerNews that we begrudgingly don't want to believe it.
Worked at one of those four companies you mentioned on one of the teams analyzing employee productivity during the pandemic through EOY 2022. The one liner (that ignores all nuance) is that remote work does not negatively affect productivity, at least for the company I was at. Decisions by leadership are not significantly influenced by what the data shows.
> Decisions by leadership are not significantly influenced by what the data shows.
If it isn't productivity (or morale) driving their decision on "putting their foot down and demanding no work from home", what is it? I don't believe it's some simple reductionist "they're evil and want employee control" narrative.
because it's genuinely better for the way THEY work. ie, meetings with people 100% of the day, dropping in on people, status checks, etc. Standing up in front of rooms of people presenting and feeding off the energy. Leadership is blind to the fact that thats not how regular employees work. Or just doesnt care, in office is better for them personally and thats all that matters.
My theory is it makes people less likely to job hop - its much easier to schedule job interviews when working from home and you aren't drained from a daily commute.
> 1) Working in an office full of people is what they personally prefer
Why does it matter what leadership prefers/why do they prefer it if 80% of their employees are saying "I'd rather work from home / going into the office in inconvenient for me / I'm just as productive at home"?
I keep thinking that; I don't want to believe this is just people who don't know how to use email and slack, enforcing their habits on everybody else. But, why has nobody come out and shared that data? All I keep hearing is these nice anecdotes about meeting random people accidentally, and vague hand-waving about collaboration.
(my own team is operations/application maintenance, and we are WAY more effective and efficient now that everybody is remote and on the same level. I understand that may not be the case in all fields/areas/teams).
> They must have some data that shows people are more productive
I think it comes down to not liking the idea of paying $$$ on lavish offices that are ghost towns. And I also wouldn’t doubt cities are “encouraging” companies to force BTO because local economies have been hit hard by the lack of office workers.
The city I live in did this. Gave all sorts of tax breaks to companies downtown to get people back in the office because lack of employees was hurting all the other small businesses that were built up around downtown to service those employees during the day (think restaurants, coffee shops, dry cleaners, day care, etc).
I've heard this a million times, but isn't that a sunk cost fallacy? They don't get their money back when people come back, and they can either stop renting or sell. They aren't charging employee's rent for using the offices.
Maybe? But it's human nature to feel a little better about shelling out cash on something if it actually gets used.
To make an analogy, let's say your kid insisted you buy them a car. Not some lame Toyota, it has to be a Ferrari (read: lavish office in expensive downtown location). They use it, they're happy. Then some event happens that makes them not want to use the car anymore, but for contractual reasons you still have to keep it around for several more years (read: pay insurance and maintenance). It doesn't ever get used, but you're still paying for it (read: paying for maintenance and utilities for a mostly empty office). You'd feel at least a LITTLE better if your kid at least attempted to drive the car a few times per week, but they just want to stay home and call you an asshole.
I strongly prefer WFH, but I get the thinking. Also keep in mind that city governments are probably breathing down the necks of these companies telling them to get workers back into the office ASAP because the local economy is going to shit without thousands of office workers buying Starbucks, going to lunch, etc. every single day.
Yes, what you describe is a sunk cost fallacy. I get it, people do fall for them, we're wired that way. But a public company with stockholders shouldn't make decisions like this. It's either better for the company to make the people come back, or it isn't. "The CEO has buyer's remorse" is not an argument for such a highly impacting decision.
You might be onto something with the cities asking for this, but I have not seen any data or anecdotes pointing to that.
Yes. It is a sunk cost fallacy. That doesn't mean that they're not engaging in it. The fact that it's named shows how common of a fallacy it is.
Amazon spent $2.5 BILLION on HQ2. It's not just a some normal office complex, but rather a massive custom complex with domes full of trees and all sorts of weird stuff.
It's the same thing with Facebook's MPK 2x, Apple's Apple Park, and Google's "circus tents". These buildings aren't just for housing people, they're statements to the companies' -- and through extension their executives' -- greatness.
They're modern day temples... and they're empty.
Selling or renting out these buildings is literally unthinkable for the executives, but also impractical. It's humiliating to have have to part with your custom shrine to yourself. You can't sell item because the only companies that have the money buy it, and the people to fill it, are your competitors, and they have their own shrines to fill. You can't subdivide it and rent it out, because the buildings are giant aircraft hangers that no one wants, and they're not easily subdivided due to the location of cafeterias and bathrooms.
So what do you do?
Exercise your capricious and unaccountable power to force the serfs back into the temple. You like seeing the building filled because it makes you feel important. They'll even admit this to an extent when they talk about the joys of seeing people in the office, being able to ask people what they're doing. If we want to be charitable, we can call it the primacy of management by random encounter.
But they know, we know it's all bullshit, because everyone has witnessed the growth and effectiveness of when the company was (almost) fully remote.
I like the way you put this… best plausible explanation (for me)
. In this regard upper management isn’t driven by data, like you said it’s mainly about them and how it makes them feel to be in control again.
It's just an echo chamber here on HackerNews that we begrudgingly don't want to believe it.