Why do companies insist employees return to the office??

Why are companies demanding that employees go back to the office when we've been productive for 2 years from home? It's a bit silly. In this video I talk about 2 main reasons companies want you back. If you don't want to go back fulltime to an office, resist! Let's move on from the 20th Century cubicle-life into a new way of working for the 21st Century.

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For entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice. It’s not tax advice. It’s not career advice. I’m just some dude giving my opinion on YouTube. :)

[jonathan]

I got fired for refusing to return to the office in September. I got a fully remote job that is $25k more in November. Hold the line!

[KH-ctzr]

I feel that face-to-face meetings and conversations sometimes help, but working in the office is really distracting and unproductive when I try to focus, and commute is simply a waste of time and money.

[PabloTBrave]

If people can work from home then there is obviously no need for most of the managers and that upsets managers .

[ThrivingwithOneil]

I’ve been remote for almost 20 years as a people leader and individual contributor. The cost in time and money traveling to and from work adds up. Living in states where you have to pay income taxes because of your employment. The list goes on and on.

[JasonTaylor-poxc]

Partly because of a legacy baby-sitter managerial mindset that is often spun as "office culture" - you can have a company culture with remote workers too - we've adapted already. Also, I think managers, which are often more extroverted, thinks everyone _wants_ to be in the office like they do. Let's be honest - the old office culture was often pretty toxic. Why revive that? I'm over giving up 2-3 hours of my life just so someone can justify having a pointless job? Nope. Not anymore. This isn't new - many tech companies have been remote-first since before the world ended - that's why we had tools like company VPNs, online video services, chat tools and remote IT support. It all existed before COVID and that's why many companies were successful in the remote-only model when forced to do so. The problem is that it reminded folks how much precious time was wasted for soul-crushing Dilbertopia. If employers are concerned about unproductive employees - fire the lazy bums and hire folks with a good work ethic that don't need baby-sitting services and pay them accordingly. Everyone wins (except lazy bums). I still get plenty of recruiters reaching out to me about remote positions - and I'm very blunt with the ones that want on-site.

[jackcarraway]

It's all about control. We the people need to send a message that WFH is the future.

[Meritumas]

Many of m friends agreed to start coming to office 1-2 a week. Most of workers visit the office purely for social reasons. Chat, 2h lunch with colleagues, coffee and tea breaks. Zero productivity. But that’s what mangers wanted: improved corporate culture!

[jonathan]

If these companies cared about the environment as much as they say they do, they wouldn't make us commute.

[gennyjustdownthelane]

Absolutely makes no solid sense for most cubicle workers. At all.

[JasonTaylor-poxc]

Yeah, for the past 15 years - I would work out a day or so to work from home just so I could get my work done because being in the office is so unproductive - especially if you work in a field that requires high levels of attention and focus. As a software engineer - we have this concept known as "the zone" which means you are hyper-focused on your work and blissfully coding away. The moment someone walks up to your desk and asks you a question - you're out of the zone. It takes another 15-20 minutes to get back into the zone. Then factor in coffee breaks, lunch, bathroom breaks, and the worst - meetings - and most of your day is unproductive. While at home, I get very few interruptions to the point I have to set reminders to get up and stretch. Going from 1-2 days at home to fully remote was a game changer.

[huey]

Part of it has to do with micromanagement by middle managers, but the bigger factor has to do with justifying paying their long term office leases they signed before the pandemic. In fact, one of the reasons some people have been screaming about how the country is going into a recession as to do with the upcoming crash in commercial real estate; particularly office and retail space.

[simeonovs]

Nice video man, and cheers, cuz I am not going back to office again. Remote working since 2018 ^^

[NDGOJericho]

Sending people back to the office doesn't make since when they're pushing climate bills. If they want climate change policies, they need to keep in mind that forcing people to commute to and from work means more automobiles using fuel and resources(whether it be electric or gasoline there's always an expense). And you notice it's always CEOs that want people to show up. In my experience, the employees are being used. As long as the employees are doing their jobs, managers, supervisors and uppermanagement can sit back and chill.

[rsls]

As a middle manager I am pro-remote. But unfortunately I am 5 days a week on site. Last week our office was allowed to work remotely for the holiday week. We surpassed our quotas and productivity was way up. We’re back now as upper management mandated, productivity down. They said “it’s the eggnog hangover 😂 “. What does the customer want from us as a company? Us to have damn culture or get stuff done with high productivity? I’m a manager not a babysitter. We have slack, Activetrak, zoom, asana, Dialpad Salesforce to help us track productivity in a data perspective

[mikekay]

Companies don't like crashing commercial real estate values and empty leases on their bottom line..

[arthuslim]

Here, we are "punished" for efficiency. If i can complete a job in half a day instead of a given 8 hours, i need to stay till late, pretend to work, due to governement regulation and company's policy. I cannot leave early to be with my family or pursue my passion. Talk about work-life balance bs, which i never believe.

[rickr]

The sad thing is that many of us quietly worked remote and hybrid for years before the pandemic but that is now harder to float because of the massive return to office battle. Remote work has been a part of my life since 1999 and was never a problem before, but now I'm treated like I just joined the rebel alliance. HR also invented new rules and job classifications to try to punish us for working and living more efficiently. Corporations hire people for their creativity and intellect and then immediately force them to regress to the mean.

[pfxqlqi]

So many angry people have been brought back to my giant office.
They missed nothing! The water-cooler gossip, the office politics, the commute, the overpriced food at the deli nearby.
The real reason:
Real Estate.
That giant building is worth nothing now. They will refill it then sell it, or crooked accountants will revalue it as a useful asset.

[TonyZmex]

They want to reduce cost by “forcing” people who have moved to another place to work remotely to quit their job

[Ricocase]

No tax write off for building unless it's used.