Leaked Zoom all-hands: CEO says employees must return to offices because they can’t be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom::Zoom CEO Eric Yuan discussed the benefits of in-person work in a leaked meeting.
Leaked Zoom all-hands: CEO says employees must return to offices because they can’t be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom::Zoom CEO Eric Yuan discussed the benefits of in-person work in a leaked meeting.
It’s not about improving productivity, increasing innovation or ‘sharing best practice’, as a former workplace put it. Corporations are forcing a return to office work in an attempt to curb a post-COVID real estate crash - which we honestly need since we have far too many luxury offices being built and not enough homes.
For one place where I used to work, RTO drove down staff morale to an all-time low (already low due to high workloads and bad wages) and pushed the staff turnover rate in my department to 95%. They ended up having to outsource the function to an overseas firm.
Corporations are pushing RTO because their senior leadership doesn’t know how to lead in a modern system.
I won’t argue some amount of “responding to waste” isn’t there, but this “problem” only exists when the culture isn’t healthy enough to be properly managed remotely, which frankly is not that hard.
“Oh no, how terrible”
Why would companies that generally avoid owning real estate act against its own self interest for the profits of real estate companies?? I don’t see the connection.
Lots of companies and executives invest in real estate. They see their holdings dwindling and decide its time for the unwashed masses to get their asses back in the office
there might be exceptions. but as a rule tech companies AVOID investing in real estate.
This has always been the method. I’ve worked in startups for years, and there’s always a game-changing pivot that causes a staff exodus. They replace the with contractors until the company succeeds in the pivot or crashes and burns.
Return to office is just a pivot. If the talent leaves and gets replaced, hopefully their leadership can right the ship. Otherwise it’s those who departed who made the right call.
Sounds like their reason behind implementing the RTO plan was successful then.
People keep bringing up real estate because everyone thinks the rich are evil and this move must be money related somehow.
Now, I too think they’re pretty rotten for the most part.
But returning to office is not about real estate.
Companies are ruthless and if they can increase profits at all, they will do pretty much anything to do so. Firing long-time workers, destroying the planet, etc. So if they had to destroy the real estate market to make more money, they would.
My point here is that if it was just about money, everyone would remain WFH. They could downsize the office, or even lease out the space to the companies that are returning to the office.
So then why are they doing it? It’s their preference. They prefer having their underlings in the building and enjoy seeing everyone from their corner office. They like feeling powerful which is harder to do when everyone who works for them is at home.
They might also have the kind of personality where they get more work done with others around, and they can’t imagine it being different for other people. Many high-up executives only got that far because they have very extroverted personalities.
Not everything a rich person does is strictly about money. Otherwise they wouldn’t buy mansions, supercars, private planes, etc. Apple wouldn’t have built the billion dollar donut office. They do these things because they’re powerful and want others to know.
Or, it’s a combination of numerous factors, including commercial real estate. There’s no one single explanation that fits for every company reverting WFH.
It’s not commercial real estate. There’s no reason for a CEO to care about real estate. This is just the reason given by people who believe all companies only ever do things for the money. So they’ve made up a reason they think fits.