Comment on Bosses mean it this time: Return to the office or get a new job! — As office occupancy rates stagnate, employers are giving up on perks and turning to threats

• SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This exactly.
  A year or two back there was an article about companies trying to return to office- the CEO of some upstart engineering company had a quote like ‘every time one of our competitors announces return to office we kick our recruitment into overdrive. We get all the best people that way’.

  The companies that push return to office aren’t going to keep their most productive and intelligent workers. They’re going to keep the ones who can’t find anything better.

  It’s really kind of funny… this is a combination of short-sighted management who think that being able to physically see their employees working somehow makes them more productive, and real estate- lot of dollars invested in commercial real estate and CEOs don’t want to admit their flashy new HQ in Silicon Valley was wasted money.

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  • errer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    This is why big business and the government want a “mild” recession so badly…unemployment is below 4% right now so employees have the upper hand in a lot of things (wages, union negotiations, working from home). Push the unemployment back to 8% or so and big business is hoping the workers lose most of their leverage on these issues.

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    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I wish I could say you’re wrong and that’s tinfoil hat paranoid… but sadly maybe not.

      Right now there’s a resurgence of the workers rights and unionization movement, and low unemployment helps push that. Businesses need their employees more than the employees need their employers and the smart employers are skimming the cream of the crop.

      I don’t think federal government gives a crap but local governments in business districts are pushing return to office as hard as everyone. They see their (way overvalued) commercial office districts sitting empty, and every worker that doesn’t commute is a worker not riding the metro / buying Starbucks / buying a paper / otherwise stimulating the downtown economy.

      Smarter cities are starting to realize that their downtown property values are a fucking bubble that is not sustainable, and they’re exploring turning office space into desperately needed apartments. But that takes time and isn’t easy and it involves hosing a lot of commercial real estate developers and their investors who invested on absurd property values.

      Fact is though- real estate (especially in downtown districts) is a bubble that’s long due to be popped. There’s no valid reasons humans have to cluster together like that, the country’s more than big enough to spread people out and not have people paying through the nose for shitty apartments.

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      • Angry_Maple@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Regarding the unionizing, for me, a big push towards it was seeing what’s happening in many companies without one. A good union can help in so many ways. I’ve seen the writing on the wall with some situations that have happened over the last 5 to 10 years. Bad companies are trying to remove a lot of worker protections, and it feels like we really need to remind them that they aren’t invulnerable.

        My union for example, has some of the best employment lawyers in the country, and we don’t have to pay on the spot if we need one. Previously, fighting a wrongful dismissal over unsafe working conditions would have taken time and money that many of us don’t have. Now, we know we won’t be screwed.

        I would argue that a good company should want a union. They protect and guide both “sides”, and if they’re doing everything right, a union really shouldn’t be a hassle for a company to deal with.

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    • WidowsFavoriteSon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Of course Biden wants a recession now, that looks sooo good on the campaign trail.

      /s

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