I wonder how many people here who are defending Activision-Blizzard’s RTO policy actually have experience managing staff or running businesses in a world where WFH is gaining traction.
Even if you remove WFH/RTO from the discussion, it doesn’t require any stretch of the imagination to understand that treating employees well is good for them and good for your enterprise. If they’re not doing their jobs, then let them go and find better replacements, but don’t force talented employees out because you’re short-sighted and shackled to old ways.
Why are you calling it a policy? It’s literally normalcy and the default. Anything other than working in office is abnormal anyone seeking permanent WFH is abnormal.
My family’s companies certainly don’t treat WFH as “abnormal”. While we do have a conglomerate-wide RTO policy, it only applies to critical positions that require on-site access to personnel, facilities, or resources. For everybody else who wants to take advantage of WFH, we have a hybrid two-in, three-out system. I want to see us move towards full WFH for staff who don’t need to be physically present at any of our offices, but for what is effectively a multi-national of our size, it’ll take awhile to implement.
This is literally the crux of the issue. People having to return to work after a pandemic and then suddenly deciding that they’re too good to go to work, expecting their employer to bend to their whims, for some reason.
The issue is that major corporations have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in “prime” real estate, and they WILL NOT let those properties have their values tanked by making Working From Home the norm.
They don’t care if nuking any chance at remote work makes good talent and employees seek opportunities elsewhere. They’d rather run off every worker than see that big fat asset slowly loose value as people transition away to decentralized employment.
They’re free to ask for employer accommodation and employers are free to say no, at which point workers can either accept the decision or look for better options elsewhere.
Employers have to be practical about things though. If you’re insisting on RTO simply because “that’s how it was before” and not seriously considering the costs/benefits of a WFH or hybrid arrangement, then you - as a company - deserve whatever impacts terrible decision making have on your bottom line.
How is it impractical to return to the office? WFH was for a pandemic, not a lifestyle change. The cost/benefits of WFH must not be that spectacular since less people are WFH now than during the pandemic.
There was a time when owning a horse was the norm, and having a car was abnormal.
There was a time when applying for a job was done in person with a firm handshake, now online applications and resume submission and job portals are the norm.
There was a time when most communication between businesses was done by paper form and by phone, now email is the norm.
Technology has advanced to the point that people can do basic office jobs from home for the most part, and when that was the only choice during the pandemic in a lot of industries the infrastructure was put in place. Workers had one of the first big increases in their quality of life in ages as a result of technology actually advancing in a way that affected them instead of just increasing overall productivity in ways that earned them no more compensation or replacing them.
Companies blindly implementing return-to-the-office policies without looking at the situation of how much is gained by being able to employ people all over the country and that specific business’s sustained productivity and employee burnout rate just because “well, work is done in an office because that’s how it’s always done” are going to have problems retaining good employees going forward, and are going to have limited hire pools depending on who is in their geographic location. That kind of stubborn, hidebound thinking doesn’t make for good business decisions and will start showing through in their bottom lines as they struggle to retain skilled workers.
Using “every” is pretty incorrect. Not every tech company has an RTO policy. My husband works for a big 3 gaming company and they have zero initiative to return to the office, ever. His company even repurposed his department’s office space during the pandemic with the goal of keeping everyone wfh permanently because it was saving them huge amounts of money.
Studies are starting to come out from both the World Economic Forum and Golman Sachs that a majority of people WFH exclusively are experiencing faster work burnout and less hours logged.
While the benefits of WFH can help businesses in the short term, long term looks markedly different in both the wellbeing of the company and its employees.
Most companies are opting for a Hybrid RTO schedule, but there’s pushback even on that front.
We have Amazon to shop from, but still have brick-and-mortar stores.
We have grocery stores to buy food from, but people still grow their own food.
We have drones to make deliveries, but people still deliver by person.
We have the internet to do our thinking for us, but people still ask questions.
We have email, but people still use the mail.
Just because technology has advanced doesn’t mean it transitions perfectly into society.
Companies implement RTO because it establishes a work ethic, culture, and ecosystem. WFH not only isolates people more, but other businesses that would rely on the traffic (restaurants, bars, entertainment, stores, etc) lose business and lay off their workers.
Speaking from a corporate perspective, real estate is a big overhead. Imagine a company like my family’s where we have offices all over the world and have to rent commercial space for staff like shipping agents, local marketing and communications workers, and other support crew. Even a small branch office for our parent company can include upwards of a dozen people. Commercial rent in major cities (let alone major PORT cities) costs a lot money and it doesn’t matter how many people you stuff into a building or floor because you’re still paying for premium for space in CBDs since that’s where the action is.
Our shipping arm scaled down and consolidated several regional offices in the Asia Pacific in the last two years because of the pandemic. I don’t know the exact figures, but based on what I’ve been told we saved a tonne of money from having to rent and maintain facilities. Some of the staff quit, some were relocated to other regional offices or back to HQ, and others still were given remote work options where it made sense. It wouldn’t be financially practical for us to go back to the way things were.
I can’t speak for other companies, but ours definitely benefited - and still benefit - from WFH. The flexibility saves us money in the long run, employees aren’t complaining or quitting en masse, and our financials are still healthy, if not pretty damn awesome.
Because you intentionally cut down your own company, dude. Of course you’re going to make more money intentionally shrinking what you had. You pay less staff, you hire less staff, and profits artificially inflate.
The long term is not even here. Wait until the influx of money saved thins out.
i don’t see that as confirmation myself about what he was talking about. Looks to me to just be a disgrunted employee dogpiling on an employer they should really just leave if they are so unhappy they have to air this in public.
IF indeed he was talking about return to work and complained about ‘diversity of thought’ he is a terrible communicator and it is no wonder members of his team are leaving.
Pretty much. I feel like some of the posters here are using this logic.
“I don’t believe the utilities are due, therefore they aren’t.”
Later…
Electric Company: “Hey. Your bill is overdue.”
Forumite: “I do not believe I will pay because I owe you nothing.”
Electric Company: “Ok. Have a late penalty.”
Forumite: “I do not believe that I will pay the late fee because I am not late.”
Electric Company: “…” -disconnects individual-
Forumite: “I don’t believe the power is off, so therefore it is on.” - Forumite proceeds to stare at the blank screen. Play World of Warcraft in their head, as well as engage in several forum arguments all from the confines of a totally black room for close to 12 hours.-
