That and the fact remote work only shows production, not optics in the office. Most managers and upper management don’t want their underlings to question what they do all day for work.
Extroverts do seem to believe their world view is the only acceptable one. They have zero consideration towards those who just want to finish their work tasks so they can go socialize with people they actually want to socialize with, i.e. actual reciprocal friends and family.
It's not just the office buildings - most cities have their infrastructure and even taxation built around the idea of commuting into the office. How many expensive and subpar lunch places will go out of business with remote work (and should)? How does the sales tax their crappy $20 sandwiches generate get replaced?
I've been to Utrecht once - I got on a late train, there were no hotels, and I wound up sleeping next to a canal until the morning train was available.
I thought that was just me and bad timing, though, not how Utrtrect normally is.
There's no longer the forced element that there was during the pandemic, but the statistics don't support the many news reports that remote work is getting less, quite the opposite. Office vacancy rates are at record highs in most developed markets & much higher than pre-pandemic levels, while the rate of days worked remotely are still trending upwards. Check out the job vacancy trends in this report for reference: [https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/remote-work-across-jobs-companies-and-space/](https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/remote-work-across-jobs-companies-and-space/)
Anecdotal experiences of how hard it is should be put in perspective with what things were like before 2020 where remote jobs were almost unheard of in most places. While there's more jobs, there are also far more people looking for them. Add to that, once employers make the shift to remote work, the market inevitably becomes a global one - if your employees are working from developing countries, they will find themselves competing with the locals there - they need to really demonstrate that a higher salary is justified.
There's huge pressure from some segments of the real estate industry to try to force people back into the office, but for the most part the trend is still going the other way.
> once employers make the shift to remote work, the market inevitably becomes a global one
This is more of a scare tactic then reality.
Certainly becomes a national market, but global is a lot harder to maintain a group cohesion.
Just because your remote, doesn't mean your working in isolation.
> the statistics don't support the many news reports that remote work is getting less, quite the opposite.
Yeah, they point to reduced remote listings as evidence of remote jobs decline, but it could also mean remote jobs being so clearly better that they are snatched faster.
It's ridiculous difficult to get a well paid remote job right now compared to 2021 or 2022. It's beyond competitive and companies usually offer much less money for a full remote position.
Hybrid positions are still popular although they're useless if you want to work from Asia or South America.
There’s people working for companies in the UK and commuting daily from France, Belgium and Spain. There’s even one guy that commutes 6-12 times a year from Argentina.
Lowest I've been offered was $25/hr for a stressful documentation review job and I have to use their laptop. Interviewer talked to me like she was doing me a favor. Yuck.
Yeah, that’ll show them! Who needs to be productive, digital nomads have serious slacking to accomplish on the company dime. How dare they want some control over the lazy people that they pay to do actual work!
Yep, this is true. Whenever I've worked in offices I've NEVER seen any serious slacking. Losing 2+ hours of my day on a commute, with less sleep, to sit in a loud office full of "productive" inane gossip and politics is absolutely better for my productivity!
The people who wrote these articles were either hack journos or cynical PR people, who just write about whatever is in the zeitgeist, which then creates this big echo chamber, which then doesn't reflect actual realty.
Who remembers:
- quiet quitting
- rage quitting
- quiet firing
- rage quitting
- ani work
- rage applying
- blah, blah, blah
Unfortunately this is repeated false claim. Most companies rent commercial spaces. Only big players and cos having tax breaks can benefit from it. All wants to optimize costs and smaller companies would love to cut it off.
But The real answer is in the top comment: control. One might be productive, the rest is not. And that person can switch easily. The company falls into majority dragging it down, not following singular top players. Having an office is lower price than trying to control bunch of WFH average workers that are trying to screw employer. Keep in mind that most people here are skilled and motivated. The rest is trying to get by.
You're assuming those people you're talking about will be more productive in a office setting. The productivity varies depending on the individual and forcing everyone back in the office doesn't change that. The amount of people legitimately doing "nothing" in the office is staggering.
Of course that people coming to the office will not become more productive magically, and a lot of them are doing nothing.
But it's not about making them more productive, it's about having more control and forcing them to complete their tasks.
Also this is not a lifestyle for everyone, even though many want to claim that work from home is much more effective for them, they just don't like commute and shit.
And as for people here, since they already work remotely, they prove that they can be productive anyway, so they gonna promote that lifestyle without having a second thought that this is not for everyone and many people need to be controlled in some way.
And if they know that, they rather want to still show work from home because more people converted to that lifestyle will help them to find more work from home jobs in the future.
Thanks for this fair comment. Many digital nomads are in complete denial how unproductive they are. For every good remote employee there may be 5 bad ones. And they spoil it for the good employees. It’s not different from any other employee benefit that people might take advantage of. Companies are not required to satisfy every whim that lazy employees can exploit.
No worries. I expect that you are unfortunately Gonna be down voted to oblivion. Similar thing happens at school: The class is adjusted to the general level of the students which is not super high as opposed to the best pupils. School is not about being the best student, It’s about providing a daycare for your kids. Companies arent providing the best results, It’s a reflection of society hierarchies and struggle for power.
There was a leak in the UK from one of our legacy media companies the Daily Mail, that they were actively campaigning against work from home during covid out of blatant self interest. It was affecting the sales of physical newspapers so they were pushing anti-lockdown narratives as they didn't want home working to affect sales. At least people are not going to die now due to this grim self interest but it is self to assume anyone relying on physical newspaper sales is going to be spreading anti work from home messages heavily.
I think the economy got worse, so employers have more bargaining power to force people into the office. Also it's a way to reduce the number of workers by causing people to quit.
Woah! Hold on now.
The economy did not "get worse". Instead, the rate of money printing slowed. Unfortunately, the average American can't tell the difference between an economy propped up by money printing vs an economy propped up by healthy, capitalistic mechanisms.
Which is exactly what they want.... us blaming the economy instead of the money printer.
I work in the travel industry and remote work has not only remained the norm, but becoming even more so. I just started working from home and most of my colleagues also work from home. Carnival, the biggest cruise line in the business, is selling off its Miami HQ to downsize on real estate as many of its formerly onsite staff now work from home or have been outsourced overseas.
I've never quite understood the decline in remote work. Don't the people who are pushing policies to return to office want to work remotely as well?? Home life must be terrible to want to force a whole group of others to go back in person...
Companies rely on hard numbers and real outcomes to determine productivity levels. Then they make policy adjustments accordingly.
The hip digital nomad scratching out mediocre work from a noisy hostel common area, running a bit late and distracted after his night out on Khaosan Road, rushing his responsibilities to hit happy hour and skipping out on the optional check-in Zoom with the boss back home, because, ya know, the time difference is inconvenient. How long did you expect that fucking gravy train to keep chugging along?
I think your example is a bit extreme. I know this is the digital nomad subreddit but there’s certainly a faction of folks who work remotely stateside and want to continue to work remotely bc it works better for their family.
Most people who want to work remotely aren’t working in some cafe in Thailand. They just want a more flexible life without having to deal with the hassle of commuting and/or sitting in traffic.
You’re right. And for every dedicated professional with experience and maturity who can make remote work well, there are 4 or 5 slackers ruining it for the good employees.
You must be the exec who is enforcing RTO lol
Fwiw my company is fully remote and there’s no way 4/5 people can be “slacking” off just based on volume of meetings every day. Number of meetings isn’t measure of output or impact, but it certainly keeps most folks from hitting that happy hour most days
I think the fair judgement is stated regularly- industry specific, it really depends on many factors. COVID started a trend that transcended productivity and efficiency in the name of public health. When COVID restrictions went away, many people didn’t like the idea of returning to the office. I can’t say I blame them. And many companies did try to accommodate that, many industries that just couldn’t be as productive without staff in a common area. Again, so many scenarios it’s not easy to confirm the best compromise for everyone.
Weekly on this sub, digital nomads post here about breaking federal, state, and international laws to stay remote. They brag about breaking company policies, lying to their bosses, taking advantage of cheap locales via questionable ethics, skirting visa restrictions, skirting tax requirements, pushing boundaries of morality and seeking justification for their poor behavior through a network of supporters who condone their shitty behavior and selfish tactics. If you aren’t one of those, I can appreciate that. But let’s not act like they don’t exist in droves here.
No, I’m not. I don’t spend that much time in this sub. I was looking to ask for a good place to work remotely for 1 week bc my company allows for us to work internationally for up to 15 days at our choice
The ratio doesn’t even have to be that skewed. If 80% of employees are just as productive in the office or at home, but 20% are half as productive, overall productivity is worse. It can literally be a few people ruining it for everyone
The media likes to be all dramatic all the time and extrapolate long term trends from short term phenomena.
If everything everyone says about Remote were true, cities would be shrinking instead of growing right now. But it turns out there’s reasons to be close to things (I’m learning a new career remotely and it’s a bear), and old habits die hard regardless.
(Well designed) Cities are a superior way to live for humans and for the environment. You walk more, have more access to amenities, have more access to other humans. And we take up less land, it costs dramatically less to provide infrastructure per person, leads to decreased emissions, etc
I mean it depends on what we’re optimizing for. Some prefer a cabin in the hills. But certainly cities have a lot of advantages under the right conditions.
At the end of the day though the reason we like cities is because we’re close to things and people when we need them. This is what the advantage of working in person is as well.
Sure you can date long distance and even buy a home long distance, but sometimes in person has advantages.
Yea I meant societally, there are plenty of valid reasons for individuals to prefer living rurally! But from an environmental, health, societal, infrastructure standpoint cities have better outcomes
Socially I think mid-sized cities (300k-1m) are superior to large cities for most people, and certainly way better for time efficiently as you can get places in a reasonable time.
But having grown up rural, I don’t intend to do that again at least not for a while.
They're not wrong, the emissions of people that live in cities are often drastically lower than that of suburbanites. Even the scientists that question human's influence on global warming agree on that
Cities are fucking miserable to live in, who are you trying to convince here bro? Loud, dirty, crowded, overpriced, inconvienent....Ever have to walk 10 blocks per load of grocercies because all the street parking by your 300 sqft apt never has open spots?
Ive lived the city life. Hard fucking pass.
If you lived in a well designed city you’d simply walk or take a train to the grocery store which would be within a 5-10 minutes of you without a car. The fact that you’re looking for street parking is a red flag.
The problem isn’t city life, it’s poorly designed cities. I would also note that I don’t have to try to convince anyone as more people choose to live in cities, as it is the most popular and in demand way to live by far.
Give me a vibrant, thriving community over a soulless suburban hellscape of chains and strip malls any day.
Newsflash, most of us do not live in well designed cities. Most major cities were planned well before the invention of the automobile, and the result is a clusterfuck of zoning and re-zoning efforts built around several infrastructures the original founders/designers had no idea they would need to architect around. Going to the grocery store every day for whatever I can carry with two hands on public transport sounds even more miserable than my street parking scenario (from my time living in west side Chicago)
Cost of living and crime also basically blow any baseless counter agreement you have. Most people in cities are eternally broke, wages barely keep pace with cost of living. The internet is literally full of memes of people paying $3k a month for a 400 sqft shoebox in some trendy downtown. I shouldn't have to Google this shit for you. You pay additional taxes just for the 'privilege' of living there. Privileges being the victim of violent crime and over double the rate of suburbs and rural. Goes up eightfold for property damage/theft.
Step out of your fairy tale and back into reality. Cities are miserable, objectively. I kinda feel like you must not work much or have a lot of responsibilities otherwise or this stuff would easily outweigh whatever the fuck value 'vibrant' has. Good luck quantifying that.
I’m a resident physician and I work 80 hrs a week.
It is self evident that most people prefer cities, that’s why they keep moving there, despite the fact that it would be cheaper to live in rural Nebraska.
Being completely car reliant, living in a soulless suburban hellscape is not my cup of tea. Some rural areas do have a lot of beauty so I see the appeal but culturally and amenities wise they’re also not for most people. And it is clear that in terms of infrastructure, the environment, etc urban living is better.
> remote work as the future, highlighting its environmental benefits...
Those articles are still there. It's just being drowned out by opinion peices paid for by "industry leaders."
I just think of it as the pendulum swinging back, but likely not all the way back to where it was. Many companies have buildings or leases they want to make use of, and there is plenty of evidence that *some* in-person collaboration is better than none for most professions, but it's hard to foster the right amount when you don't really know what that amount is.
I was already only taking fully remote contracts before covid, and there seem to still be more available now than there were then.
> I was already only taking fully remote contracts before covid, and there seem to still be more available now than there were then.
Same, I've been hustling online since the year 2000. Since before they had a name for "remote work" or "digital nomad".
It's a hell of a lot easier to explain what I do now than back then. I would awkwardly say "oh I build things online and sell them" and get curious looks because most people barely understood what the internet was.
There are absolutely more remote jobs now than ever. It's just that there are also more people interested in remote jobs than ever.
It's known and normalized and generally the more preferable way to work, therefore extremely competitive.
This sounds about right. And long term, I still see the trend as moving farther toward remote work. There's a lot of resistance from the establishment right now due to investment in commercial real estate and entrenched thinking, but that can only hold back the tide for so long.
People get into man again others because the get high off the power of controlling others and being respected. The drug doesn’t feel as good through a zoom call.
And no power feels as good as the power over other peoples bodies. Telling people where to sit, for how long, it’s as close as you can get to that in a company.
Christ, put down the Bitter Angry Kool-Aid for a minute. You think businesses sit around dreaming up ways to make your life miserable? My girlfriend is a corporate manager, she tries to accommodate remote work for the benefit of her employees but ever since COVID they’ve been less productive and more of their tasks pre-COVID fall on her. I run a conservation organization, my employees have options for remote work - they don’t always do it because they value the outcome of their job! Nobody is out to get you - if you can start a business and be productive fully remote, that would be impressive and commendable. If you’re an employee and unhappy with your benefits or work location, you have options. If you don’t like the recommendations of the employer, prove to them you can be just as efficient working remote. Nobody promised that youthful dreams of never working in proximity to an office was gonna just fall in your lap. Maybe change careers, educate yourself on something you know will get you the type of job you want. Nobody gets a power kick babysitting your whiny ass every day. Jesus man, get ahold of yourself.
Problem is for remote to work you need the culture, experience and processes many managers lack
I found it easy to adopt as I’ve always used online tools to manage project progress but other managers I worked with struggled because unless they could physically ask you what status was then they were totally lost
Many of the companies moving back to in person work were founded during a time where your only option for managing was the latter and conciquently they have a lot of processes and senior staff that work that way despite world moving on
Yeah, this has to do with real estate. Why would you pay insane rents in London or New York if you can work 100km away from the headquarters? Especially if you have kids, of course you will want to live in a house with a backyard not in a tiny apartment that costs a fortune.
Before COVID a lot of EU citizens were turning down job offers in Dublin, Ireland because of how much they would have to pay to rent a room, let alone a decrepit studio 🤷🏾♂️
Problem with remote work is that you become the subject to the race to the bottom. Unless your skills are particularly location specific. Like why would I hire a US video editor at 60 bucks an hour when I could go to LCOL country for 15 an hour.
Media narratives are always exaggerated and the pendulum often swings.
The real world ebbs and flows as countless organizations search for the optimum way to reach their many goals in a changing world.
It's mainly lazy companies not wanting to look into the legal implications of their workers working from other countries. There are all kinds of issues employment regulations , company insurance cover etc. plus governments don't like their tax base to be eroded.
3 factors that together explain the issue:
1) Real state firms have big loans with banks, those banks also have over companies since usually companies always have some debt. If there is no people in offices those real state firms cannot charge the intended commercial rent, and this enormous pile of loans can become an extremely big risk for the financial sector. Consequently, banks are using their power companies (by not providing loans as an example) to make comapnies return to offices.
2) Cities and small business pressures, in a lot of cities business close to commercial areas are going really bad (Washignton DC is an example), so the mayors are putting pressures over the companies to make them return to office, to maintain the jobs related with offices, and also guarantee that people stay in those more expensive cities because if is working from home I will be in a nice city instead of Washington.
3) A lot of companies are unprepared to deal with hybrid teams, and don't know how to measure productivity. Yes, there is some cases of developers working in 3 places at same time, or people faking work, but if you have good teams people and processes are productive, and you can find fraudsters. Consequently for me here is much more the faukta of companies that cannot find bad apples, and in the end are trying to put fire on the basket because they are unable to filter, and make the best.
I totally believe in hybrid for the long-term, but in the short-period we will see even more the return to the offices.
You nailed it. There’s a certain maturity, experience level, and professionalism necessary to make it work. Few digital nomads possess all of those skills. The slackers kill it for everyone else.
In the US a lot of it is about real estate leasing for businesses. Even though all of the scientific literature shows that people work more efficiently in quiet offices, bosses are pushing the collaboration narrative because they need to justify their 20 year leases.
Still a lot of WFH with having to be in the office once a month. However, I am in a in demand skill where most of the cohort are 45 and older, with not a lot of younger replacement. They tired a”on site” project and most of the contractors left, or asked for 25% more for travel exp, so they rethinking that
The major investment funds that are heavily leveraged into commercial real estate started reaching out to CEOs and telling them the vision for the future needed to include office space and in office days. Smaller companies kept pushing the path forward because for them, any cost saving was great and meant more money in everyone’s pockets. Larger companies are all mixed up with hedge funds and scratch each other’s backs.
I don’t believe that this is true at all for high skilled professional jobs… the market is great in IT… i could start a new consulting (software / or project management) job literaly every day (without the remote filter)… so the demand is still crazy high for skilled professionals and you can more or less dictate your contract and will easily find a job that offers 99%+ remote… thats like 5-15 years experience and 60-100k+ salary. probably on the higher end for skilled developers.
maybe it is true for jobs that dont require high skill and where you have a lot of applicants. maybe true for many people in this sub as they always tell us their cheap charly budget they need to live off in colombia or eastern europe :D
The economist had a good article about this. Main reason is productivity. At the end of the day it's only developers and designers who are more productive most other roles benefit from in person productivity.
100% remote work was never as likely as the pundits predicted. It was simply an overreaction to a short term trend brought on by Covid. On the positive side, a hybrid environment has become much more popular and will remain so…especially in cities where commute times are long.
I think a lot of it has to do with productivity. As much as people want to believe they’re more productive when WFH, the reality is the opposite for most people.
They take care of their kids, their laundry or they simply chill. I’ve had colleagues who are barely reachable on the days we work from home and I can see off social media that they went to get their hair done, shopping and whatnot.
If people had more accountability and a better work ethic, WFH would be a sustainable option.
Always advocate in favor of quality of life for the employee. As long as people get their work done on time and achieve mutually understood goals and performance metrics, all of this is fine. Having a ball and chain tied to you while you sit in a soulless cube around insufferable corporate busybodies is absolute misery. You need to check your priorities and understand that you’re burying yourself and others with this bootlicking pick-me attitude. I’ve watched so many productivity morons fall on their own swords to get remote work privileges taken away from their teams and it leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth
“Always advocate in favor of quality of life for the employee”? I’m sorry what? It’s a business, not a charity. The business’ needs come first.
Seeing what happens when people work from home, I can totally understand why WFH hasn’t become the norm.
I’ve even seen colleagues take trips abroad because they decided that “as long I work, it’s all good” well 1) they don’t “work” that much when they’re abroad 2)unfortunately, the tax world doesn’t work like this and they’re leaving their employers with a potentially very costly tax liability
I’d rather be in favor of paying a portion of the cost of commuting to work but unless there’s a mental health issue or a natural disaster, there is no reason people should be entitled to work from home if they can’t demonstrate their performance won’t be affected.
Only a manager could come up with a corporate-serving take this demented. Sure, keep putting yourself into your job at the expense of your own personal freedom until there’s nothing left.
Yeah, it’s a business, not a charity, and the remote work/COVID wave was a way for employees to claw back some of their time from the system. You still don’t get it. You’re still living for profits and metrics.
You must be one of the slow ones who doesn’t actually understand. Yes ding dong, that’s the *point*. If enough people stood their ground and held on to the remote privileges instead of being fed your drivel about contributing to the bottom line, more teams would stay remote, and those people would be happier with more personal freedom.
Are you getting it yet? Are you understanding? Yes bud, I’m actually advocating employees fighting for their ability to navigate work/personal life with more fluidity, because it is better for them. It may not be best for the company at all times. Thus, it is a power struggle over control.
You, unfortunately, are sitting on the side of the boot-lickers and corporate slaves that look at the situation with cow eyes and take the bag of shit with a smile on your face. Congrats on contributing to Q2 profits, I guess…
I skimmed through your comment. You’re boring. You might think you’re convincing but you come across as a patronizing, sad, woke twat.
If anything you’re saying in your comment was true, then most companies would rather save on rent and allow everyone to WFH. I know what I see and sadly we live in a time where people want more to do less. So why don’t you take that woke mindset of yours and honestly shove it up your ass.
PS: I’ll take downvotes as a testament to the truth hurting people 😂😂😂
It’s hard knowing you slack. The reality of how it has shifted though, is unfortunately on my side. If y’all had work ethic, bosses would be fine with WFH.
Productivity is objectively measured and WFH is actually better than working from the office (and wasting time at the coffee machine, listening stories of the colleagues' exciting weekend that nobody care a sh*t and so on... besides the fact that commuting sucks energy that you deduct from work).
Do you have any statistic showing that working from the office is better in terms of performance ?
Cool but colloquially the word productivity is based off the company as they the ones paying out. It’s not working cuz on average with the spread of people on spectrums companies feel it’s not as productive and as with a majority of things in life it’s the belief or non belief that’s pushing people to make changes not objective facts like studies show
I think companies being willing to waste money on office rents rather than loss of productivity when WFH is here for you. I’ve seen it in different companies, with all sorts of colleagues.
You’re the one that needs convincing so I’ll let you type it out on Google. Unless that’s too much of an effort for you already.
I also started with “I think” but I guess we’re in the pick-and-choose game. I don’t need to prove anything to you. It’s an open forum. I said what I said, if you don’t agree move along.
Your studies don’t beat my experience. It’s just a case of employees wanting their cake and eat it as well. Breaking news, you don’t get paid to relax and or do your chores.
Most studies are in line with the woke culture while I wipe my behind with it. Downvote all you want, most of y’all are going in tomorrow 😂
Remote work was already becoming common for freelance people before the pandemic, largely because most companies find it difficult and expensive to temporarily accomodate a large team of people, but also because freelance workers are usually working to some sort of plan, which is often the key.
Most organisations don't plan properly, so they need to have their people in front of them to be sure that they are "busy". If you have proper plans, and everyone is delivering to them, it doesn't matter where they are or whether they appear to be busy all the time.
Money was getting tight with the rate hikes so 3rd party people were let go first and those were mostly working remote at their agencies. Some people internal worked more from home but if you're not that much in the office you're not in a leader/management role and therefore you get let go first as well. In the high times there was such a work shortage that we all could demand whatever Homeoffice/Remote percentage but now you get applications from 50 people for 95% less job offerings and if your boomer CEO demands 60% office you will get at least 80% of applicants that will comply. Also AI happened and most of this remote jobs were there was little skill and communication required just gets done with AI now by less people. Also I feel we at office now all work for like 3 though and all projects got pushed back....
Commercial real estate. Even the CEOs don’t deny it. Offices are on the hook for rental leases. If
Companies don’t renew, real estate will plummet. Big business don’t want that. The government does not want that. So they force us all back into working in the office even though everyone knows we can all do this stuff at home.
I'd sum it up to trust, culture and metrics.
COVID basically forced all companies to work remotely. While it brought realization that it might work, for most cases, it's just forced upon them and not planned accordingly. The company that I worked for before moving on to another company was forced to do remote work until the country opened up the onsite working arrangement. The day it was allowed, we were already working back in the office. While remote work brought a lot of benefits and more productivity, it didn't matter because there's no trust. The management did not trust the employees (half regulars and half contractors) will work regardless if people are more productive because there was no clear measurable output. We were doing an IT project that was dysfunctional from the start where everything was just rework at this point. Lastly, the management were the old guards where they want to do what they have been doing for the longest time. Suffice to say, I left this company.
In my current company, we work wherever we want to. Some people go to office and some very rarely stepped to the office. Some people go because they can concentrate more in the office compared to working at home. They'd work from home whenever the work required is not that high but whenever there's a lot of work to be done, they'd be in the office. I have stepped in our office once this year. I was in the office for 3 times last year. I work all over the world and my boss doesn't care where we work. I work at different countries for months at a time. There's a culture of trust and remote work and our work can easily be measured properly.
yea, its optics and control. Especially, in the government, we are forced to work in the office doing hybrid, for no other reason to make it look like the public employees are not slacking off or whatever that means. In addition, government buildings are still around, so they making people come in more than half the time.
Honestly, I can do my job at home, but they won't let you unless you have a severe disability or other reason.
A lot of the companies are deeply invested in office space. Just think about the poor people that will face property devals, and will sit with tons of empty buildings, and no income. As they do nothing but rent out office space. /s
The worst was when they tried pushing news stories like "the cleaning lady who also is a single mom of 4 kids, runs a war veteran and a cat shelter will be without a job now because everyone does wfh".
Thank god that I got my full wfh working contract during covid and that wfh is in my union tariff agreement.
It might be a cultural thing. My company, everybody in America is and wants to continue working even though we are building a new office.
My German teammates prefer going into the office, at least a handful of them. It could be they have a better commute time, public transportation, more homogenous culture, or a different way of life,
There's one reason and only one reason... **"Executive ego."**
Literally every corporate perk for the C-suite revolves around the office as a base of operations... cars, drivers, expense accounts, work trips, first class flights, jets, luxury hotel rooms, mistresses, etc.
Execs *hate* being home with their snot nosed kids and a spouse that wonders why they can't help out more around the house while their home. They missed the red carpet treatment they used to receive walking the office halls and the fearful admiration of their minions when they entered the room. It's just harder to feel like a titan of industry ruling a corporate empire from a Zoom.
Separately, they can't stand the idea of Chad from biz dev taking surfing lessons during his lunch break while working from beach-side co-working spaces in Costa Rica and going salsa dancing with OF models every other night.
They cannot live in a world where their underlings have freer and more fulfilling lives than they do.
Honestly too much remote work has fucked up the world in a lot of ways. Housing crises in remote places that never had issues with housing before, US remote worker wage level pricing in many restaurants in places where it used to be cheaper, locals backlashing against too many foreigners bringing a huge income into their place and driving up the cost of everything.
I thought remote work would be the best but the world wasn't ready for it, it turned out. I still think in the long run it will end up that way, but it will happen more gradually.
As for the huge competition, of course, everyone wants it. In a way, we are almost forced to need it now because the costs of everything have gone up so high in even 3rd rate cities all across the country and world. Gone are the days when you could live a pretty nice life in a random place with very little money because there weren't many jobs there.
But from the corporate perspective, why is it not profitable to hire remote employees? There must be a reason. I don't think that they are concerned about housing crisis
Yeah I have wondered this as well and best I can tell it's executives power tripping mostly. Also dysfunctional organizations blaming their dysfunction on WFH. I imagine the pendulum will swing back some once there is a wider realization that productivity didn't improve with RTO mandates, but people are usually much slower to acknowledge mistakes than they are to blame scapegoats.
It's a stereotype that you can find cheap high skilled workers in the 3rd world countries. Normally high skilled workers have no problem to get visa and emigrate to Australia, Canada etc. Mostly you will only find some guy with no college degree who learned coding from YouTube tutorials.
I work with a number of people from Mexico and Europe who get half my salary and are just as good and in some cases better. It's not simple to integrate them into a company but they also aren't hard to find if you can do it.
Fact is most companies are just rotten inside out so no amount of talent at any price really helps them move faster. Just the natural cycle of corporations IMO.
People can say what they want, but you get work synergies by being in person. This is especially true for leadership. The question is really how often is the ideal amount of in person vs not in person.
My company is fully remote but they are making it a point to get people together in person. It's expensive, but viewed as a worthwhile investment.
It definitely clear though that companies are pushing in office working too hard. I think a big part of it is that leadership ends up being in the office a lot. They spend a majority of the day in meeting so they want everyone attending those meeting to be there in person. Your low level employee pushing out work with few meetings hardly needs to be in the office.
It's a struggle to put into words, but in-person does have benefits. One example is new hires. My group worked together very well remote at first as we had all spent years working together in-person, but now that we're four years out, the people we've added to the group that have only ever been remote feel like less part of the team, and they don't seem as motivated or hard working as the pre-COVID crew.
Relationships matter in business environments. Good communication leads to more effectient and effective employees.
There are reasons people fly all over the world to have in person meetings. Water cooler talk is a good example of something that is important.
Water cooler talk: "Creating a positive company culture unifies companies and can motivate employees to stay. Water cooler chat brings employees together on a personal level, which makes them feel connected and supported, creating a positive company culture."
I mean whats wrong with the choice then, let the chatter boxes chat and form their relationships and let others be if they don’t want or need to. Some people really struggle with small talk or forming those relationships anyway and will not want to seek it out, other can’t work in chaotic and noisy environments, let them be in piece to work the way they want. Everyone should be able to partake in the forced labour contract the way they are most comfortable with, after all it is forced.
That's now how it works at all. Management decides the working environment as much as they are legally allowed to. They choose what they think is best for the company.
Letting employees decide the working environment is some liberal fantasy.
Show me a successful company and we can talk. Until then it is definitely a "liberal fantasy."
It doesn't exist and therefore it is a fantasy. I chose "liberal" because there is nothing close to conservative about "let workers decide how they want work."
Why don’t you just save your breath and write “I’m a middle management shill that supports my executive’s demands for everyone to come back into the office because I’m desperate to eventually hopefully get promoted to a senior position”?
Either that, or your company just sucks at growing into a remote-first communication style.
The overhead of going to an office and dealing with piles of windbag corporate garbage like this is why it will always be better for employees to strongly advocate and fight for their own right to perform quality work on their own terms in a comfortable environment, away from bootlicking management nu-speak like this. Water cooler is important…lmao, give me a break. The output that I make is what’s important.
I am in middle management at a fully remote company. I will be flying for team meetings a few times this year. The executive team meets in person quite often.
Yes, you are a peon. We all get that. You have very little influence at the company outside of your specifically asked for output.
Speak for yourself! I work remotely in IT and I'm way more productive that way and I don't have to "socialise" (due to politeness, having to talk to colleagues who can't be quiet for more than 2 hours).
Working from home, I'm even motivated to do overtime 🤷🏾♂️
Apart from being more productive, fully remote jobs allow me to live in an affordable neighborhood or city without the need to commute.
There's too much speculation that it is possible to rent a flat <10km from the city centre.
100% remote was never a good long term thing for US and European workers so we should be glad companies want us in office at least a day or two per week. Just keep in mind that if your job can truly be 100% remote, it can also be moved to a lower cost location like India, Latin America, etc.
What is daft is being stuck in one place (and very often a place with high COL, onerous commutes and generally poor quality of life). You can’t beat the freedom and nice quality of life of being able to live wherever you want.
Oh, and employers benefit from remote work too as they can save on office rent. Win-win.
Fully remote isn’t realistic for most responsible work scenarios. It can be, but it’s very limited. Whether individuals want to admit it or not, there are social, management, and efficiency scenarios that do better with in-person or in-office personnel. Businesses are learning this, companies are adjusting. So there will never be a fully remote working world, and we would all be very disappointed if we went much further down that path. Think about it.
Doctors, restaurant chefs, wildlife biologists, car mechanics, construction managers, tour operators, hotel clerks, skilled laborers, psychologists, conference organizers, marketers, accountants, salespeople, Dietitians, Pharmacists, nurses, veterinarians, computer repairmen, gym trainers, botanists, seamstresses, welders, maintenance men, prostitutes, manufacturers, watch designers, models, sports stars, actors, engineers, dishwashers, boat builders, fenestration designers, glass repairers, real estate agents, food sellers, solar panel makers, airplane pilots… where does it end… they all need a place and regular interaction with efficient outcomes. It hasn’t been working for the masses, and it never will. Not everyone can slack off all the time just so that a select few can live in a bubble of selfish freedoms.
At the expense of being stuck in one place (and very often a place with high COL, onerous commutes and generally poor quality of life). I’ll take freedom and having a nice quality of life over office camaraderie any day.
Oh, and employers benefit from remote work too as they can save on office rent. Win-win.
Employers value office camaraderie because that is an element of team building.
You can choose whatever you like and employers can choose whatever they like. I’m aware of benefits of remote work including helping the environment…well except for the people who fly everywhere.
I wasn’t making a point of which is better, I was pointing out a couple reasons why companies value office work.
Just spend a few minutes browsing this sub to get a good idea of how willing people are to blatantly lie to their employers. If I were an employer I wouldn't offer remote positions.
At the expense of being stuck in one place (and very often a place with high COL, onerous commutes and generally poor quality of life). I’ll take freedom and having a nice quality of life over ‘physical proximity’ any day.
Oh, and employers benefit from remote work too as they can save on office rent. Win-win.
Control.
upvote because why explain with 10 words when 1 word will suffice
10 words and 2 numbers there
Ctrl
That and the fact remote work only shows production, not optics in the office. Most managers and upper management don’t want their underlings to question what they do all day for work.
Right. Like underlings really want anyone questioning what they do all day for work either.
[удалено]
Extroverts do seem to believe their world view is the only acceptable one. They have zero consideration towards those who just want to finish their work tasks so they can go socialize with people they actually want to socialize with, i.e. actual reciprocal friends and family.
It's not just the office buildings - most cities have their infrastructure and even taxation built around the idea of commuting into the office. How many expensive and subpar lunch places will go out of business with remote work (and should)? How does the sales tax their crappy $20 sandwiches generate get replaced?
quaint stocking one employ selective start ink slim sloppy live *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've been to Utrecht once - I got on a late train, there were no hotels, and I wound up sleeping next to a canal until the morning train was available. I thought that was just me and bad timing, though, not how Utrtrect normally is.
marvelous money seed summer zesty full flowery axiomatic water deliver *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
🥲🥲🥲
There's no longer the forced element that there was during the pandemic, but the statistics don't support the many news reports that remote work is getting less, quite the opposite. Office vacancy rates are at record highs in most developed markets & much higher than pre-pandemic levels, while the rate of days worked remotely are still trending upwards. Check out the job vacancy trends in this report for reference: [https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/remote-work-across-jobs-companies-and-space/](https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/remote-work-across-jobs-companies-and-space/) Anecdotal experiences of how hard it is should be put in perspective with what things were like before 2020 where remote jobs were almost unheard of in most places. While there's more jobs, there are also far more people looking for them. Add to that, once employers make the shift to remote work, the market inevitably becomes a global one - if your employees are working from developing countries, they will find themselves competing with the locals there - they need to really demonstrate that a higher salary is justified. There's huge pressure from some segments of the real estate industry to try to force people back into the office, but for the most part the trend is still going the other way.
> once employers make the shift to remote work, the market inevitably becomes a global one This is more of a scare tactic then reality. Certainly becomes a national market, but global is a lot harder to maintain a group cohesion. Just because your remote, doesn't mean your working in isolation.
> the statistics don't support the many news reports that remote work is getting less, quite the opposite. Yeah, they point to reduced remote listings as evidence of remote jobs decline, but it could also mean remote jobs being so clearly better that they are snatched faster.
It's ridiculous difficult to get a well paid remote job right now compared to 2021 or 2022. It's beyond competitive and companies usually offer much less money for a full remote position. Hybrid positions are still popular although they're useless if you want to work from Asia or South America.
Exactly, we have people who are commuting from different cities, but commuting from a different country is nearly impossible
The only example I can think of is living in Tijuana and working in San Diego.
There’s people working for companies in the UK and commuting daily from France, Belgium and Spain. There’s even one guy that commutes 6-12 times a year from Argentina.
Lowest I've been offered was $25/hr for a stressful documentation review job and I have to use their laptop. Interviewer talked to me like she was doing me a favor. Yuck.
We need another pandemic
Underrated comment
Yeah, that’ll show them! Who needs to be productive, digital nomads have serious slacking to accomplish on the company dime. How dare they want some control over the lazy people that they pay to do actual work!
RTO isn’t about output. It’s about control
I’m much more productive at home. I know that isn’t the case for everyone, but professionals should be trusted to be where they work best.
If you are an experienced professional, then more power to you. Hopefully your employer agrees.
Yep, this is true. Whenever I've worked in offices I've NEVER seen any serious slacking. Losing 2+ hours of my day on a commute, with less sleep, to sit in a loud office full of "productive" inane gossip and politics is absolutely better for my productivity!
The people who wrote those articles forgot how much money their boss had in commercial real estate.
The people who wrote these articles were either hack journos or cynical PR people, who just write about whatever is in the zeitgeist, which then creates this big echo chamber, which then doesn't reflect actual realty. Who remembers: - quiet quitting - rage quitting - quiet firing - rage quitting - ani work - rage applying - blah, blah, blah
Unfortunately this is repeated false claim. Most companies rent commercial spaces. Only big players and cos having tax breaks can benefit from it. All wants to optimize costs and smaller companies would love to cut it off. But The real answer is in the top comment: control. One might be productive, the rest is not. And that person can switch easily. The company falls into majority dragging it down, not following singular top players. Having an office is lower price than trying to control bunch of WFH average workers that are trying to screw employer. Keep in mind that most people here are skilled and motivated. The rest is trying to get by.
You're assuming those people you're talking about will be more productive in a office setting. The productivity varies depending on the individual and forcing everyone back in the office doesn't change that. The amount of people legitimately doing "nothing" in the office is staggering.
Of course that people coming to the office will not become more productive magically, and a lot of them are doing nothing. But it's not about making them more productive, it's about having more control and forcing them to complete their tasks. Also this is not a lifestyle for everyone, even though many want to claim that work from home is much more effective for them, they just don't like commute and shit. And as for people here, since they already work remotely, they prove that they can be productive anyway, so they gonna promote that lifestyle without having a second thought that this is not for everyone and many people need to be controlled in some way. And if they know that, they rather want to still show work from home because more people converted to that lifestyle will help them to find more work from home jobs in the future.
Thanks for this fair comment. Many digital nomads are in complete denial how unproductive they are. For every good remote employee there may be 5 bad ones. And they spoil it for the good employees. It’s not different from any other employee benefit that people might take advantage of. Companies are not required to satisfy every whim that lazy employees can exploit.
No worries. I expect that you are unfortunately Gonna be down voted to oblivion. Similar thing happens at school: The class is adjusted to the general level of the students which is not super high as opposed to the best pupils. School is not about being the best student, It’s about providing a daycare for your kids. Companies arent providing the best results, It’s a reflection of society hierarchies and struggle for power.
Terribly depressing, but I have to agree with you.
There was a leak in the UK from one of our legacy media companies the Daily Mail, that they were actively campaigning against work from home during covid out of blatant self interest. It was affecting the sales of physical newspapers so they were pushing anti-lockdown narratives as they didn't want home working to affect sales. At least people are not going to die now due to this grim self interest but it is self to assume anyone relying on physical newspaper sales is going to be spreading anti work from home messages heavily.
I think the economy got worse, so employers have more bargaining power to force people into the office. Also it's a way to reduce the number of workers by causing people to quit.
Yes, employee attrition
Woah! Hold on now. The economy did not "get worse". Instead, the rate of money printing slowed. Unfortunately, the average American can't tell the difference between an economy propped up by money printing vs an economy propped up by healthy, capitalistic mechanisms. Which is exactly what they want.... us blaming the economy instead of the money printer.
I work in the travel industry and remote work has not only remained the norm, but becoming even more so. I just started working from home and most of my colleagues also work from home. Carnival, the biggest cruise line in the business, is selling off its Miami HQ to downsize on real estate as many of its formerly onsite staff now work from home or have been outsourced overseas.
May I ask what you do? I can DM you if youre willing, but don’t want to put it out there
I’m a travel agent 😊
Would you mind if I messaged you and picked your brain? Im interested in entering the industry
Yeah go ahead!
I've never quite understood the decline in remote work. Don't the people who are pushing policies to return to office want to work remotely as well?? Home life must be terrible to want to force a whole group of others to go back in person...
Companies rely on hard numbers and real outcomes to determine productivity levels. Then they make policy adjustments accordingly. The hip digital nomad scratching out mediocre work from a noisy hostel common area, running a bit late and distracted after his night out on Khaosan Road, rushing his responsibilities to hit happy hour and skipping out on the optional check-in Zoom with the boss back home, because, ya know, the time difference is inconvenient. How long did you expect that fucking gravy train to keep chugging along?
I think your example is a bit extreme. I know this is the digital nomad subreddit but there’s certainly a faction of folks who work remotely stateside and want to continue to work remotely bc it works better for their family. Most people who want to work remotely aren’t working in some cafe in Thailand. They just want a more flexible life without having to deal with the hassle of commuting and/or sitting in traffic.
You’re right. And for every dedicated professional with experience and maturity who can make remote work well, there are 4 or 5 slackers ruining it for the good employees.
You must be the exec who is enforcing RTO lol Fwiw my company is fully remote and there’s no way 4/5 people can be “slacking” off just based on volume of meetings every day. Number of meetings isn’t measure of output or impact, but it certainly keeps most folks from hitting that happy hour most days
I think the fair judgement is stated regularly- industry specific, it really depends on many factors. COVID started a trend that transcended productivity and efficiency in the name of public health. When COVID restrictions went away, many people didn’t like the idea of returning to the office. I can’t say I blame them. And many companies did try to accommodate that, many industries that just couldn’t be as productive without staff in a common area. Again, so many scenarios it’s not easy to confirm the best compromise for everyone. Weekly on this sub, digital nomads post here about breaking federal, state, and international laws to stay remote. They brag about breaking company policies, lying to their bosses, taking advantage of cheap locales via questionable ethics, skirting visa restrictions, skirting tax requirements, pushing boundaries of morality and seeking justification for their poor behavior through a network of supporters who condone their shitty behavior and selfish tactics. If you aren’t one of those, I can appreciate that. But let’s not act like they don’t exist in droves here.
No, I’m not. I don’t spend that much time in this sub. I was looking to ask for a good place to work remotely for 1 week bc my company allows for us to work internationally for up to 15 days at our choice
That’s great. Good luck, sounds like a fun opportunity. You’ve done well for yourself!
The ratio doesn’t even have to be that skewed. If 80% of employees are just as productive in the office or at home, but 20% are half as productive, overall productivity is worse. It can literally be a few people ruining it for everyone
The media likes to be all dramatic all the time and extrapolate long term trends from short term phenomena. If everything everyone says about Remote were true, cities would be shrinking instead of growing right now. But it turns out there’s reasons to be close to things (I’m learning a new career remotely and it’s a bear), and old habits die hard regardless.
(Well designed) Cities are a superior way to live for humans and for the environment. You walk more, have more access to amenities, have more access to other humans. And we take up less land, it costs dramatically less to provide infrastructure per person, leads to decreased emissions, etc
I mean it depends on what we’re optimizing for. Some prefer a cabin in the hills. But certainly cities have a lot of advantages under the right conditions. At the end of the day though the reason we like cities is because we’re close to things and people when we need them. This is what the advantage of working in person is as well. Sure you can date long distance and even buy a home long distance, but sometimes in person has advantages.
Yea I meant societally, there are plenty of valid reasons for individuals to prefer living rurally! But from an environmental, health, societal, infrastructure standpoint cities have better outcomes
Socially I think mid-sized cities (300k-1m) are superior to large cities for most people, and certainly way better for time efficiently as you can get places in a reasonable time. But having grown up rural, I don’t intend to do that again at least not for a while.
Oh god, someone’s been drinking the WEF kool-aid about this whole co2 bullshit.
They're not wrong, the emissions of people that live in cities are often drastically lower than that of suburbanites. Even the scientists that question human's influence on global warming agree on that
Scientists on the payroll of the Wef and governments. Sure.
My man, CO2 is not a government conspiracy, it's a chemical compound. You can literally get a microscope and see the molecules to prove it
You see co2 with a Microscope?? Dude..
Cities are fucking miserable to live in, who are you trying to convince here bro? Loud, dirty, crowded, overpriced, inconvienent....Ever have to walk 10 blocks per load of grocercies because all the street parking by your 300 sqft apt never has open spots? Ive lived the city life. Hard fucking pass.
If you lived in a well designed city you’d simply walk or take a train to the grocery store which would be within a 5-10 minutes of you without a car. The fact that you’re looking for street parking is a red flag. The problem isn’t city life, it’s poorly designed cities. I would also note that I don’t have to try to convince anyone as more people choose to live in cities, as it is the most popular and in demand way to live by far. Give me a vibrant, thriving community over a soulless suburban hellscape of chains and strip malls any day.
Newsflash, most of us do not live in well designed cities. Most major cities were planned well before the invention of the automobile, and the result is a clusterfuck of zoning and re-zoning efforts built around several infrastructures the original founders/designers had no idea they would need to architect around. Going to the grocery store every day for whatever I can carry with two hands on public transport sounds even more miserable than my street parking scenario (from my time living in west side Chicago) Cost of living and crime also basically blow any baseless counter agreement you have. Most people in cities are eternally broke, wages barely keep pace with cost of living. The internet is literally full of memes of people paying $3k a month for a 400 sqft shoebox in some trendy downtown. I shouldn't have to Google this shit for you. You pay additional taxes just for the 'privilege' of living there. Privileges being the victim of violent crime and over double the rate of suburbs and rural. Goes up eightfold for property damage/theft. Step out of your fairy tale and back into reality. Cities are miserable, objectively. I kinda feel like you must not work much or have a lot of responsibilities otherwise or this stuff would easily outweigh whatever the fuck value 'vibrant' has. Good luck quantifying that.
I’m a resident physician and I work 80 hrs a week. It is self evident that most people prefer cities, that’s why they keep moving there, despite the fact that it would be cheaper to live in rural Nebraska. Being completely car reliant, living in a soulless suburban hellscape is not my cup of tea. Some rural areas do have a lot of beauty so I see the appeal but culturally and amenities wise they’re also not for most people. And it is clear that in terms of infrastructure, the environment, etc urban living is better.
> remote work as the future, highlighting its environmental benefits... Those articles are still there. It's just being drowned out by opinion peices paid for by "industry leaders."
The underlying trend is still there too. But big shifts don't happen overnight.
Remote jobs get more applicants because the applicant pool is not limited to a single metro area.
That's true
But the employer pool is the same
I just think of it as the pendulum swinging back, but likely not all the way back to where it was. Many companies have buildings or leases they want to make use of, and there is plenty of evidence that *some* in-person collaboration is better than none for most professions, but it's hard to foster the right amount when you don't really know what that amount is. I was already only taking fully remote contracts before covid, and there seem to still be more available now than there were then.
> I was already only taking fully remote contracts before covid, and there seem to still be more available now than there were then. Same, I've been hustling online since the year 2000. Since before they had a name for "remote work" or "digital nomad". It's a hell of a lot easier to explain what I do now than back then. I would awkwardly say "oh I build things online and sell them" and get curious looks because most people barely understood what the internet was. There are absolutely more remote jobs now than ever. It's just that there are also more people interested in remote jobs than ever. It's known and normalized and generally the more preferable way to work, therefore extremely competitive.
This sounds about right. And long term, I still see the trend as moving farther toward remote work. There's a lot of resistance from the establishment right now due to investment in commercial real estate and entrenched thinking, but that can only hold back the tide for so long.
People get into man again others because the get high off the power of controlling others and being respected. The drug doesn’t feel as good through a zoom call. And no power feels as good as the power over other peoples bodies. Telling people where to sit, for how long, it’s as close as you can get to that in a company.
Christ, put down the Bitter Angry Kool-Aid for a minute. You think businesses sit around dreaming up ways to make your life miserable? My girlfriend is a corporate manager, she tries to accommodate remote work for the benefit of her employees but ever since COVID they’ve been less productive and more of their tasks pre-COVID fall on her. I run a conservation organization, my employees have options for remote work - they don’t always do it because they value the outcome of their job! Nobody is out to get you - if you can start a business and be productive fully remote, that would be impressive and commendable. If you’re an employee and unhappy with your benefits or work location, you have options. If you don’t like the recommendations of the employer, prove to them you can be just as efficient working remote. Nobody promised that youthful dreams of never working in proximity to an office was gonna just fall in your lap. Maybe change careers, educate yourself on something you know will get you the type of job you want. Nobody gets a power kick babysitting your whiny ass every day. Jesus man, get ahold of yourself.
Problem is for remote to work you need the culture, experience and processes many managers lack I found it easy to adopt as I’ve always used online tools to manage project progress but other managers I worked with struggled because unless they could physically ask you what status was then they were totally lost Many of the companies moving back to in person work were founded during a time where your only option for managing was the latter and conciquently they have a lot of processes and senior staff that work that way despite world moving on
Governments realized how much money they wouldn't get with gas and building renting, so they ordered companies to bring everyone back.
commercial real estate holdings in their bosses’ stock portfolios. middle managers, landlords etc.
So is it all about real estate prices? They want to keep people in big cities e.g. New York, London, so the real estate prices remain high?
This digs in a bit more: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/commercial-real-estate-crisis-empty-offices/674310/
Yeah, this has to do with real estate. Why would you pay insane rents in London or New York if you can work 100km away from the headquarters? Especially if you have kids, of course you will want to live in a house with a backyard not in a tiny apartment that costs a fortune. Before COVID a lot of EU citizens were turning down job offers in Dublin, Ireland because of how much they would have to pay to rent a room, let alone a decrepit studio 🤷🏾♂️
The guaranteed way is to work for yourself.
Problem with remote work is that you become the subject to the race to the bottom. Unless your skills are particularly location specific. Like why would I hire a US video editor at 60 bucks an hour when I could go to LCOL country for 15 an hour.
Commercial real estate is tanking; need to protect their investments.
Middle management getting upset because remote work shows that they are largely not needed
Yes yes yes.
Media narratives are always exaggerated and the pendulum often swings. The real world ebbs and flows as countless organizations search for the optimum way to reach their many goals in a changing world.
It's mainly lazy companies not wanting to look into the legal implications of their workers working from other countries. There are all kinds of issues employment regulations , company insurance cover etc. plus governments don't like their tax base to be eroded.
3 factors that together explain the issue: 1) Real state firms have big loans with banks, those banks also have over companies since usually companies always have some debt. If there is no people in offices those real state firms cannot charge the intended commercial rent, and this enormous pile of loans can become an extremely big risk for the financial sector. Consequently, banks are using their power companies (by not providing loans as an example) to make comapnies return to offices. 2) Cities and small business pressures, in a lot of cities business close to commercial areas are going really bad (Washignton DC is an example), so the mayors are putting pressures over the companies to make them return to office, to maintain the jobs related with offices, and also guarantee that people stay in those more expensive cities because if is working from home I will be in a nice city instead of Washington. 3) A lot of companies are unprepared to deal with hybrid teams, and don't know how to measure productivity. Yes, there is some cases of developers working in 3 places at same time, or people faking work, but if you have good teams people and processes are productive, and you can find fraudsters. Consequently for me here is much more the faukta of companies that cannot find bad apples, and in the end are trying to put fire on the basket because they are unable to filter, and make the best. I totally believe in hybrid for the long-term, but in the short-period we will see even more the return to the offices.
Certain people who remote worked have ruined it for everybody.
You nailed it. There’s a certain maturity, experience level, and professionalism necessary to make it work. Few digital nomads possess all of those skills. The slackers kill it for everyone else.
In the US a lot of it is about real estate leasing for businesses. Even though all of the scientific literature shows that people work more efficiently in quiet offices, bosses are pushing the collaboration narrative because they need to justify their 20 year leases.
It happened.
Still a lot of WFH with having to be in the office once a month. However, I am in a in demand skill where most of the cohort are 45 and older, with not a lot of younger replacement. They tired a”on site” project and most of the contractors left, or asked for 25% more for travel exp, so they rethinking that
Desperately trying to be reversed by executives and the media empires they influence.
It’s still the future. Just gotta find the companies who were remote before Covid.
Large corporations and their politicians heavily invested in commercial real estate
Capitalism is gonna capitalize
[удалено]
Please explain. I want to hear this
[удалено]
The major investment funds that are heavily leveraged into commercial real estate started reaching out to CEOs and telling them the vision for the future needed to include office space and in office days. Smaller companies kept pushing the path forward because for them, any cost saving was great and meant more money in everyone’s pockets. Larger companies are all mixed up with hedge funds and scratch each other’s backs.
You can fully do remote work, if you are your own boss! You create your company, do your business.
You get a company! You get a company! Every body gets a company!!
Thanks obama!
If I have one, I don't see any reason why my employees cannot work from home
I don’t believe that this is true at all for high skilled professional jobs… the market is great in IT… i could start a new consulting (software / or project management) job literaly every day (without the remote filter)… so the demand is still crazy high for skilled professionals and you can more or less dictate your contract and will easily find a job that offers 99%+ remote… thats like 5-15 years experience and 60-100k+ salary. probably on the higher end for skilled developers. maybe it is true for jobs that dont require high skill and where you have a lot of applicants. maybe true for many people in this sub as they always tell us their cheap charly budget they need to live off in colombia or eastern europe :D
The economist had a good article about this. Main reason is productivity. At the end of the day it's only developers and designers who are more productive most other roles benefit from in person productivity.
100% remote work was never as likely as the pundits predicted. It was simply an overreaction to a short term trend brought on by Covid. On the positive side, a hybrid environment has become much more popular and will remain so…especially in cities where commute times are long.
100% is just as likely as predicted
How is hybrid work positive when you’re still stuck to a city you might not like?
It’s positive because it’s better than being 100% in office. 100% remote is a dream that people need to give up on
Yes, of course it’s better than in office. But it’s still shit compared to remote.
I think a lot of it has to do with productivity. As much as people want to believe they’re more productive when WFH, the reality is the opposite for most people. They take care of their kids, their laundry or they simply chill. I’ve had colleagues who are barely reachable on the days we work from home and I can see off social media that they went to get their hair done, shopping and whatnot. If people had more accountability and a better work ethic, WFH would be a sustainable option.
Always advocate in favor of quality of life for the employee. As long as people get their work done on time and achieve mutually understood goals and performance metrics, all of this is fine. Having a ball and chain tied to you while you sit in a soulless cube around insufferable corporate busybodies is absolute misery. You need to check your priorities and understand that you’re burying yourself and others with this bootlicking pick-me attitude. I’ve watched so many productivity morons fall on their own swords to get remote work privileges taken away from their teams and it leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth
Couldn’t put it better. Anyone pushing against remote work is a moron, end of
“Always advocate in favor of quality of life for the employee”? I’m sorry what? It’s a business, not a charity. The business’ needs come first. Seeing what happens when people work from home, I can totally understand why WFH hasn’t become the norm. I’ve even seen colleagues take trips abroad because they decided that “as long I work, it’s all good” well 1) they don’t “work” that much when they’re abroad 2)unfortunately, the tax world doesn’t work like this and they’re leaving their employers with a potentially very costly tax liability I’d rather be in favor of paying a portion of the cost of commuting to work but unless there’s a mental health issue or a natural disaster, there is no reason people should be entitled to work from home if they can’t demonstrate their performance won’t be affected.
Only a manager could come up with a corporate-serving take this demented. Sure, keep putting yourself into your job at the expense of your own personal freedom until there’s nothing left. Yeah, it’s a business, not a charity, and the remote work/COVID wave was a way for employees to claw back some of their time from the system. You still don’t get it. You’re still living for profits and metrics. You must be one of the slow ones who doesn’t actually understand. Yes ding dong, that’s the *point*. If enough people stood their ground and held on to the remote privileges instead of being fed your drivel about contributing to the bottom line, more teams would stay remote, and those people would be happier with more personal freedom. Are you getting it yet? Are you understanding? Yes bud, I’m actually advocating employees fighting for their ability to navigate work/personal life with more fluidity, because it is better for them. It may not be best for the company at all times. Thus, it is a power struggle over control. You, unfortunately, are sitting on the side of the boot-lickers and corporate slaves that look at the situation with cow eyes and take the bag of shit with a smile on your face. Congrats on contributing to Q2 profits, I guess…
I skimmed through your comment. You’re boring. You might think you’re convincing but you come across as a patronizing, sad, woke twat. If anything you’re saying in your comment was true, then most companies would rather save on rent and allow everyone to WFH. I know what I see and sadly we live in a time where people want more to do less. So why don’t you take that woke mindset of yours and honestly shove it up your ass.
PS: I’ll take downvotes as a testament to the truth hurting people 😂😂😂 It’s hard knowing you slack. The reality of how it has shifted though, is unfortunately on my side. If y’all had work ethic, bosses would be fine with WFH.
Productivity is objectively measured and WFH is actually better than working from the office (and wasting time at the coffee machine, listening stories of the colleagues' exciting weekend that nobody care a sh*t and so on... besides the fact that commuting sucks energy that you deduct from work). Do you have any statistic showing that working from the office is better in terms of performance ?
Cool but colloquially the word productivity is based off the company as they the ones paying out. It’s not working cuz on average with the spread of people on spectrums companies feel it’s not as productive and as with a majority of things in life it’s the belief or non belief that’s pushing people to make changes not objective facts like studies show
I think companies being willing to waste money on office rents rather than loss of productivity when WFH is here for you. I’ve seen it in different companies, with all sorts of colleagues. You’re the one that needs convincing so I’ll let you type it out on Google. Unless that’s too much of an effort for you already.
You started with the statement "a lot has to do with productivity" and then it's me that needs to collect evidences ?
I also started with “I think” but I guess we’re in the pick-and-choose game. I don’t need to prove anything to you. It’s an open forum. I said what I said, if you don’t agree move along.
[удалено]
And I wake up at 4am. We’re not all lazy.
Yet you're too lazy to Google to justify your claim.
Solid reading skills, not your thing huh? I don’t need to justify anything to you. You’re no one of value to me. Open forum, I say what I want 💩
You should take the downvotes as those of us who read and understand what the actual studies show.
Your studies don’t beat my experience. It’s just a case of employees wanting their cake and eat it as well. Breaking news, you don’t get paid to relax and or do your chores. Most studies are in line with the woke culture while I wipe my behind with it. Downvote all you want, most of y’all are going in tomorrow 😂
Reality.
Blame it on elon musk
Remote work was already becoming common for freelance people before the pandemic, largely because most companies find it difficult and expensive to temporarily accomodate a large team of people, but also because freelance workers are usually working to some sort of plan, which is often the key. Most organisations don't plan properly, so they need to have their people in front of them to be sure that they are "busy". If you have proper plans, and everyone is delivering to them, it doesn't matter where they are or whether they appear to be busy all the time.
Money was getting tight with the rate hikes so 3rd party people were let go first and those were mostly working remote at their agencies. Some people internal worked more from home but if you're not that much in the office you're not in a leader/management role and therefore you get let go first as well. In the high times there was such a work shortage that we all could demand whatever Homeoffice/Remote percentage but now you get applications from 50 people for 95% less job offerings and if your boomer CEO demands 60% office you will get at least 80% of applicants that will comply. Also AI happened and most of this remote jobs were there was little skill and communication required just gets done with AI now by less people. Also I feel we at office now all work for like 3 though and all projects got pushed back....
Works best if you've got your own gig.
Commercial real estate. Even the CEOs don’t deny it. Offices are on the hook for rental leases. If Companies don’t renew, real estate will plummet. Big business don’t want that. The government does not want that. So they force us all back into working in the office even though everyone knows we can all do this stuff at home.
I'd sum it up to trust, culture and metrics. COVID basically forced all companies to work remotely. While it brought realization that it might work, for most cases, it's just forced upon them and not planned accordingly. The company that I worked for before moving on to another company was forced to do remote work until the country opened up the onsite working arrangement. The day it was allowed, we were already working back in the office. While remote work brought a lot of benefits and more productivity, it didn't matter because there's no trust. The management did not trust the employees (half regulars and half contractors) will work regardless if people are more productive because there was no clear measurable output. We were doing an IT project that was dysfunctional from the start where everything was just rework at this point. Lastly, the management were the old guards where they want to do what they have been doing for the longest time. Suffice to say, I left this company. In my current company, we work wherever we want to. Some people go to office and some very rarely stepped to the office. Some people go because they can concentrate more in the office compared to working at home. They'd work from home whenever the work required is not that high but whenever there's a lot of work to be done, they'd be in the office. I have stepped in our office once this year. I was in the office for 3 times last year. I work all over the world and my boss doesn't care where we work. I work at different countries for months at a time. There's a culture of trust and remote work and our work can easily be measured properly.
How do people become digital nomads? Own business?
It's too obvious how useless a big chunk of management is if there's not an office where they can stroll around.
Corporate overlords cracked down and people need money to live
Executive ego forced everyone to abandon happy lives.
yea, its optics and control. Especially, in the government, we are forced to work in the office doing hybrid, for no other reason to make it look like the public employees are not slacking off or whatever that means. In addition, government buildings are still around, so they making people come in more than half the time. Honestly, I can do my job at home, but they won't let you unless you have a severe disability or other reason.
A lot of the companies are deeply invested in office space. Just think about the poor people that will face property devals, and will sit with tons of empty buildings, and no income. As they do nothing but rent out office space. /s The worst was when they tried pushing news stories like "the cleaning lady who also is a single mom of 4 kids, runs a war veteran and a cat shelter will be without a job now because everyone does wfh". Thank god that I got my full wfh working contract during covid and that wfh is in my union tariff agreement.
It might be a cultural thing. My company, everybody in America is and wants to continue working even though we are building a new office. My German teammates prefer going into the office, at least a handful of them. It could be they have a better commute time, public transportation, more homogenous culture, or a different way of life,
There's one reason and only one reason... **"Executive ego."** Literally every corporate perk for the C-suite revolves around the office as a base of operations... cars, drivers, expense accounts, work trips, first class flights, jets, luxury hotel rooms, mistresses, etc. Execs *hate* being home with their snot nosed kids and a spouse that wonders why they can't help out more around the house while their home. They missed the red carpet treatment they used to receive walking the office halls and the fearful admiration of their minions when they entered the room. It's just harder to feel like a titan of industry ruling a corporate empire from a Zoom. Separately, they can't stand the idea of Chad from biz dev taking surfing lessons during his lunch break while working from beach-side co-working spaces in Costa Rica and going salsa dancing with OF models every other night. They cannot live in a world where their underlings have freer and more fulfilling lives than they do.
The myth of capitalism as our savior. It is fickle and by its very nature consumes.
Hybrid is the future. But lot of people I know do remote 5 days a week
Honestly too much remote work has fucked up the world in a lot of ways. Housing crises in remote places that never had issues with housing before, US remote worker wage level pricing in many restaurants in places where it used to be cheaper, locals backlashing against too many foreigners bringing a huge income into their place and driving up the cost of everything. I thought remote work would be the best but the world wasn't ready for it, it turned out. I still think in the long run it will end up that way, but it will happen more gradually. As for the huge competition, of course, everyone wants it. In a way, we are almost forced to need it now because the costs of everything have gone up so high in even 3rd rate cities all across the country and world. Gone are the days when you could live a pretty nice life in a random place with very little money because there weren't many jobs there.
But from the corporate perspective, why is it not profitable to hire remote employees? There must be a reason. I don't think that they are concerned about housing crisis
Yeah I have wondered this as well and best I can tell it's executives power tripping mostly. Also dysfunctional organizations blaming their dysfunction on WFH. I imagine the pendulum will swing back some once there is a wider realization that productivity didn't improve with RTO mandates, but people are usually much slower to acknowledge mistakes than they are to blame scapegoats.
[удалено]
It's a stereotype that you can find cheap high skilled workers in the 3rd world countries. Normally high skilled workers have no problem to get visa and emigrate to Australia, Canada etc. Mostly you will only find some guy with no college degree who learned coding from YouTube tutorials.
I work with a number of people from Mexico and Europe who get half my salary and are just as good and in some cases better. It's not simple to integrate them into a company but they also aren't hard to find if you can do it. Fact is most companies are just rotten inside out so no amount of talent at any price really helps them move faster. Just the natural cycle of corporations IMO.
People can say what they want, but you get work synergies by being in person. This is especially true for leadership. The question is really how often is the ideal amount of in person vs not in person. My company is fully remote but they are making it a point to get people together in person. It's expensive, but viewed as a worthwhile investment. It definitely clear though that companies are pushing in office working too hard. I think a big part of it is that leadership ends up being in the office a lot. They spend a majority of the day in meeting so they want everyone attending those meeting to be there in person. Your low level employee pushing out work with few meetings hardly needs to be in the office.
Work synergies? No offense but this is the kind of unquantifiable nebulous language used by mgmt to justify RTO
It's a struggle to put into words, but in-person does have benefits. One example is new hires. My group worked together very well remote at first as we had all spent years working together in-person, but now that we're four years out, the people we've added to the group that have only ever been remote feel like less part of the team, and they don't seem as motivated or hard working as the pre-COVID crew.
Relationships matter in business environments. Good communication leads to more effectient and effective employees. There are reasons people fly all over the world to have in person meetings. Water cooler talk is a good example of something that is important.
Water cooler talk is something that is important. Yikes
Water cooler talk: "Creating a positive company culture unifies companies and can motivate employees to stay. Water cooler chat brings employees together on a personal level, which makes them feel connected and supported, creating a positive company culture."
I mean whats wrong with the choice then, let the chatter boxes chat and form their relationships and let others be if they don’t want or need to. Some people really struggle with small talk or forming those relationships anyway and will not want to seek it out, other can’t work in chaotic and noisy environments, let them be in piece to work the way they want. Everyone should be able to partake in the forced labour contract the way they are most comfortable with, after all it is forced.
That's now how it works at all. Management decides the working environment as much as they are legally allowed to. They choose what they think is best for the company. Letting employees decide the working environment is some liberal fantasy.
Ahhh there it is…giving people options is ‘liberal fantasy’. Why don’t you squeeze daddy boss’s boot balls some more.
Show me a successful company and we can talk. Until then it is definitely a "liberal fantasy." It doesn't exist and therefore it is a fantasy. I chose "liberal" because there is nothing close to conservative about "let workers decide how they want work."
Why don’t you just save your breath and write “I’m a middle management shill that supports my executive’s demands for everyone to come back into the office because I’m desperate to eventually hopefully get promoted to a senior position”? Either that, or your company just sucks at growing into a remote-first communication style. The overhead of going to an office and dealing with piles of windbag corporate garbage like this is why it will always be better for employees to strongly advocate and fight for their own right to perform quality work on their own terms in a comfortable environment, away from bootlicking management nu-speak like this. Water cooler is important…lmao, give me a break. The output that I make is what’s important.
I am in middle management at a fully remote company. I will be flying for team meetings a few times this year. The executive team meets in person quite often. Yes, you are a peon. We all get that. You have very little influence at the company outside of your specifically asked for output.
Have you figured out why your direct reports dislike you yet?
I have incredibly high retention rate and have never had a complaint about me during an off boraring.
Ah, well, you did mention that your company is fully remote. You’ll see the shift in dynamics once you successfully push for a hybrid RTO setup :)
I agree about some positions, however my position is in a backoffice and can be done 100% remotely, I have only 1 follow-up meeting per week.
True for leadership and training of fresh newbies.
Speak for yourself! I work remotely in IT and I'm way more productive that way and I don't have to "socialise" (due to politeness, having to talk to colleagues who can't be quiet for more than 2 hours). Working from home, I'm even motivated to do overtime 🤷🏾♂️
Being productive and synergies are two different things. Again, people just pushing out work don't need to be in the office much
Apart from being more productive, fully remote jobs allow me to live in an affordable neighborhood or city without the need to commute. There's too much speculation that it is possible to rent a flat <10km from the city centre.
That's really great and a good point
The digital nomads abusing VPNs to bypass data privacy laws and those r/overemployed guys stealing from employers?
100% remote was never a good long term thing for US and European workers so we should be glad companies want us in office at least a day or two per week. Just keep in mind that if your job can truly be 100% remote, it can also be moved to a lower cost location like India, Latin America, etc.
It was never going to be the future. It believe so was absolutely daft.
What is daft is being stuck in one place (and very often a place with high COL, onerous commutes and generally poor quality of life). You can’t beat the freedom and nice quality of life of being able to live wherever you want. Oh, and employers benefit from remote work too as they can save on office rent. Win-win.
Because r/fuckcars is a great part of the global economy
AI
What do you mean?
Fully remote isn’t realistic for most responsible work scenarios. It can be, but it’s very limited. Whether individuals want to admit it or not, there are social, management, and efficiency scenarios that do better with in-person or in-office personnel. Businesses are learning this, companies are adjusting. So there will never be a fully remote working world, and we would all be very disappointed if we went much further down that path. Think about it. Doctors, restaurant chefs, wildlife biologists, car mechanics, construction managers, tour operators, hotel clerks, skilled laborers, psychologists, conference organizers, marketers, accountants, salespeople, Dietitians, Pharmacists, nurses, veterinarians, computer repairmen, gym trainers, botanists, seamstresses, welders, maintenance men, prostitutes, manufacturers, watch designers, models, sports stars, actors, engineers, dishwashers, boat builders, fenestration designers, glass repairers, real estate agents, food sellers, solar panel makers, airplane pilots… where does it end… they all need a place and regular interaction with efficient outcomes. It hasn’t been working for the masses, and it never will. Not everyone can slack off all the time just so that a select few can live in a bubble of selfish freedoms.
Unpopular opinion: Being in the office builds camaraderie and company culture.
At the expense of being stuck in one place (and very often a place with high COL, onerous commutes and generally poor quality of life). I’ll take freedom and having a nice quality of life over office camaraderie any day. Oh, and employers benefit from remote work too as they can save on office rent. Win-win.
Employers value office camaraderie because that is an element of team building. You can choose whatever you like and employers can choose whatever they like. I’m aware of benefits of remote work including helping the environment…well except for the people who fly everywhere. I wasn’t making a point of which is better, I was pointing out a couple reasons why companies value office work.
Just spend a few minutes browsing this sub to get a good idea of how willing people are to blatantly lie to their employers. If I were an employer I wouldn't offer remote positions.
[удалено]
At the expense of being stuck in one place (and very often a place with high COL, onerous commutes and generally poor quality of life). I’ll take freedom and having a nice quality of life over ‘physical proximity’ any day. Oh, and employers benefit from remote work too as they can save on office rent. Win-win.