Work Reform

I work in commercial real estate. Two years before the start of the pandemic, my company considered downsizing our office to have most employees work from home and just come in when needed. We also discussed how we expected the office building market to struggle in the future. (Thinking in 10 years, not two).

Anyways, we got a deal from the property owners to sign another lease, so we stayed put. And now, big surprise, they forced RTO. Someone asked our president about it in a quarterly call. He basically said “we’re never ever going back to WFH and you can quit if you don’t like it”.

So, naturally, we’re struggling with turn over and our headcount is down about around 10% so far.

For many of us, our teams are split up amongst multiple offices so there is no difference from working in the office and working from home. It’s all about that empty lease.

At least one in three bosses are shitty bosses. If their responsibility is to the company and the shareholders, telecommuting saves a ton of time and money.

Convert to apartments

Make profit

Tada!

You would think that of all people, rich CEOs would understand the concept of the sunk cost fallacy.

The money on desks, rent, insurance, etc. is already spent. You're not getting it back. Asking people to come back to the office "so that it doesn't go to waste" assumes that you aren't taking on additional costs for people coming to the office.

You now have worn carpet, doors, pens, paper, etc...money you could have saved if you weren't such a knob.

Early in the pandemic, our CEO asked why we paid so much for real estate if everyone could work from home. They've been trimming leases as quickly as they can.

We've been hiring people who live out of state. They only come onsite very rarely, maybe only once a year.

Anyone who does not understand the sunk cost fallacy should not be in management.

You've spent $x on office space. You can:

A. Use it, and make your employees hate working for you or

B. Let it go unused, and your employees are happier to continue working for you.

The money is spent either way. The only difference is morale, which does in fact directly contribute to your bottom line.

We had some slight pushing into going into the office more, but instead of firing people, it was decided to switch to a smaller office space, so the people who like to work in an office can do so, and less money is wasted on a mostly empty office

Understandable that this is not an option for all companies, but insane that people are happier losing talent than at least trying to work something out

How was this not obvious when the panic set in with the pandemic.

It's never about productivity, it's always about increasing value.

I guess they should enjoy the consequences of their actions like... regular people do?

Or maybe these bosses just aren't good at what they do. After all, they wasted millions on real estate and empty desks. Shouldn't the shareholders be demanding new leadership?

We don't even have the office space anymore for full RTO. If at some day too many people would go into the office some wouldn't have desks to work on...

I thought it was because they couldn't make friends & wanted to force people to be around them.

I think some of them are also doing it for the tax breaks they get if they pump a bunch of employees into the local area's economy.

And we all know how difficult is is to get companies to voluntarily give up free tax money from the government. It's like trying to take drugs away from an addict.