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.
That’s not the only real-estate game in the business… Think owners and landlords of the building who used to make a killing leasing these commercial spaces out. If remote work continues, there is no incentive for companies / tenants to renew their lease, meaning less income for landlords and increasing risk that they will default on their loans. A lot of people are invested in that space and would love to see the gravy train continue, or at least not crash and burn. Hence the propaganda push about how crappy remote work is, an attempt to drive people back.
So…real estate companies? You realize there are other businesses with employees right?
Yes? I’m not understanding your point. What I’m saying is the anti-remote work push is likely due to the influence of the investors in said properties and companies.
My point is the overwhelming majority of businesses in existence are not in the business of real estate so why would they give a shit if it’s impacted?
You wildly overestimate the influence of these companies.
What does the absolute number of businesses in an industry have to do with anything? Most companies in the world are not tech or even oil and gas either and you can’t deny the impact of these industries.
What matters is the amount of money and influence in the industry, and in the case of commercial real estate in the US, the market size is in the trillions.
And like another poster said it’s not just real estate either. Sectors like retail, services, transportation are also impacted by remote work culture, not to mention government revenue streams like property taxes.
No but those industries directly impact a wide variety of other industries. You don’t see employers demanding their employees drive around in circles to burn more gas because oil prices dip.
What other poster?
WTF is “remote work culture”? Why does Amazon give a shit about what Target is doing?
Why would Facebook give a shit about how much money the government makes from property taxes?
It really just seems like you’re chalking all this up to some giant inter-corporate-government conspiracy, rather than the Occam’s Razor simple explanation of employees are just more productive in the workplace…
I have no idea what you are trying to say here.
https://lemmy.myserv.one/comment/1326851
See the linked post above.
Governments give a shit in this case. Who said anything about Facebook?
It doesn’t need to be a conspiracy. Business by definition does what they need to do to reduce cost, it’s in their DNA. In fact I posit via Occam’s Razor that the simplest explanation for the back-to-work push is it protects government, business and investors loss from their investments / revenue streams. That’s it, just follow the money. It’s not rocket surgery.
Your position that in-person workstyle is more productive largely depends on the type of job and the company culture. It’s not an one-size-fits-all solution and certainly isn’t “simple”.
Your have this insane idea that the whole country is one big “business”.
Facebook is a business that doesn’t give a single shit about real estate, because they’re not in the business of real estate, and yet they’re bringing their workers back to the office.
Your words, not mine. But businesses tend to want to make money, cut costs and protect their investments (surprise), so you do the math.
I don’t 100% agree, and for every Facebook there is a Microsoft.
But this discussion isn’t going anywhere, mostly about you blowing steam and probably more interesting to you than it is to me, so let’s just agree to disagree.