[fathomdeez]

Why do these companies keep trying to fire remote employees? Is it so hard to let them keep working from home? Is the company's real estate portfolio that important? You could probably even pay remote workers less (or give non-remote employees a "bonus" for coming in) and everyone would still be happy.

[frollogaston]

Too many issues with remote employees disappearing to do other stuff during the day. Amazon and others are requiring employees to go to any office, not necessarily the one with their teammates, so it's evidently not about in-person collaboration. My manager (different company) told me straight up, the dept is ok with me working remote but not other people.

Older than this is the "open office" thing. We saw over time how this wasn't about collaboration or even space-saving, but about keeping employees under watch.

[lurking_swe]

isn’t it trivial for management to see a higher bar, and enforce it? If expectations are not met, just fire them. The solution is simple IMO.

Are the managers competent? Do they know how to evaluate if work/goals are being met without counting how many hours the employee is online?

[bediger4000]

My guess is that there's tax breaks on the line in most cases. That is, corporations got some tax breaks on the basis of so many humans in downtown (or whatever office). If they don't meet those obligations, they loose some overly generous subsidy.

[abirch]

From what I can tell, it's currently an employers' market.

1) Companies are reducing salaries when they hire new workers.

2) Companies are not having problems finding in person employees.

I'm going to have a surprised pikachu face when the market flips and everyone resigns from these companies.

[frollogaston]

Yeah there's this too, some overhired in 2020-21 and want to get rid of people, and it's cheaper if they resign than if they're laid off.

[quectophoton]

Look at it from the companies' point of view:

- Human contact is more important than efficiency gains, hence mandating return-to-office.

- At the same time, efficiency gains are more important than human contact, hence reducing human headcount in favor of increased AI use.

If you read between the lines, you can see how those two points are related: humans find difficult to feel connected when their communication partner is just pixels on a screen, so that's why remote workers are being replaced with AI.

[yks]

> Human contact is more important than efficiency gains, hence mandating return-to-office.

First, citation needed. Second, in this day and age companies try whatever they can to ruin in-office employees' morale as well, which goes counter to the position that social quality of life is important for efficiency.