I think this article goes to show just how out of touch execs are with employees. The overwhelming majority of people resented RTO and were very vocal about it, execs pushed it hard, and now they’re all surprise Pikachu face when attrition skyrocketed and morale plummeted. People on my team used to somewhat give a shit about our work, but now not a single one of us has the motivation to go the extra mile after we’ve been shown our well being doesn’t mean shit.
It’s interesting to me because I work for a relatively small company. The owners sent out a survey that was basically like “what do you want to do, office hybrid or remote.” The results came in and it was overwhelmingly either full remote or 1-2 days a week. Their next email was basically “this surprised us, but okay. We’ll close the office when the lease is up and move to a smaller one to accommodate. Also we’re now hiring in over a dozen states.” They just…asked. And then they modified their plan based on it. And most people stuck around. It was that simple.
It sounds like they were smart about it. They were like, “Wow, we can pay less rent on office space” and rolled with it. Then they were like, “Now we can look outside the area for employees that might be better than the ones in the area when we’re hiring.” It makes sense for a small company to ask and then take advantage of the pros.
Keep in mind that CNBC is very pro-corporation network, so take everything with a grain of salt.
My corporation is using return to office as weapon to do voluntary layoffs so they don’t have to pay severance
