Regarding RTO: From my vantage point there seems to be three drivers
1. Productivity: An honest belief that in-person collaboration significantly improves the results of some roles or tasks. It's arguable which roles or tasks those are, so easier to just ask everyone to come back in. Early-career professionals almost certainly benefit from in-person mentorship.
2. Management Control: A non-trivial number of managers feel somewhat powerless or ineffective if they if they can't visibly monitor their direct reports. They may honestly believe that they are pushing for RTO in the name of productivity, eg. that their team is more productive if they are in person with the manager to "lead" them. But really this one is about control.
3. Sunk Cost: Business that own or have long-term leases to buildings don't want to admit to the bad investment (and certainly executives don't want that on their performance review!). So they need some reason to bring people back in, and given #1 and #2 productivity is an easy claim to make.
The author's thesis is kind of an extreme version of #3, where "corporate landlords" have a significant amount of control over the businesses they lease to. Or maybe that "the elite" who lead business also all own commercial real estate. I don't buy that argument. It doesn't match my understanding of the current reality.
I think all of the your points are each individually valid and together make a powerful case. OP has overstated the point in order to make it, though I do not dismiss entirely the subterranean motivations which drive the headlines - at the level of national economies, I suspect support of the office + night economies are significant, seeing how much they contribute to tax revenue / employment and so on. This in turn impacts the value of the commercial real estate, to which an unknown degree of investments might have exposure to.
In short, I would agree with your analysis, but also have sympathy for OP's general case, even though it was oversimplified!
Hung, I'd be delighted to come talk about the research I've been doing with women in tech (400 women tech leaders in 60 countries) - lots of findings your community might find interesting, including some demographic surprises, the underappreciated #1 booster of tech women's success, what women in tech really want from their next job - and why they might consider leaving where they are now.
Yes, we (two senior women in tech - practitioners not academics or journalists) have pretty much completed the research & analyses and are in discussions with publishers right now about a book...but we're happy to share key findings from autumn onwards. Nobody's looked in depth at what actually works for women in tech around the world (lots of research on what doesn't work, lots of un-evidenced and un-helpful theories about what should work), so we went straight to the source and asked women in tech about their experiences, needs, challenges, wants, support etc. There's lots we found that recruiters, managers, HR etc could do quickly and relatively easily that would make a big difference to hiring, retaining, boosting high performance and innovation by women and other under-represented populations in tech...and possibly by tech bros too!
Bruce Daisly has a great newsletter about RTO and estate, it’s called Make Work Better.
Regarding RTO: From my vantage point there seems to be three drivers
1. Productivity: An honest belief that in-person collaboration significantly improves the results of some roles or tasks. It's arguable which roles or tasks those are, so easier to just ask everyone to come back in. Early-career professionals almost certainly benefit from in-person mentorship.
2. Management Control: A non-trivial number of managers feel somewhat powerless or ineffective if they if they can't visibly monitor their direct reports. They may honestly believe that they are pushing for RTO in the name of productivity, eg. that their team is more productive if they are in person with the manager to "lead" them. But really this one is about control.
3. Sunk Cost: Business that own or have long-term leases to buildings don't want to admit to the bad investment (and certainly executives don't want that on their performance review!). So they need some reason to bring people back in, and given #1 and #2 productivity is an easy claim to make.
The author's thesis is kind of an extreme version of #3, where "corporate landlords" have a significant amount of control over the businesses they lease to. Or maybe that "the elite" who lead business also all own commercial real estate. I don't buy that argument. It doesn't match my understanding of the current reality.
Thank you for your thoughtful response Will!
I think all of the your points are each individually valid and together make a powerful case. OP has overstated the point in order to make it, though I do not dismiss entirely the subterranean motivations which drive the headlines - at the level of national economies, I suspect support of the office + night economies are significant, seeing how much they contribute to tax revenue / employment and so on. This in turn impacts the value of the commercial real estate, to which an unknown degree of investments might have exposure to.
In short, I would agree with your analysis, but also have sympathy for OP's general case, even though it was oversimplified!
Hung, I'd be delighted to come talk about the research I've been doing with women in tech (400 women tech leaders in 60 countries) - lots of findings your community might find interesting, including some demographic surprises, the underappreciated #1 booster of tech women's success, what women in tech really want from their next job - and why they might consider leaving where they are now.
Love to hear more about this Fionnuala!
How far along are you with the research - is it close to public disclosure?
Yes, we (two senior women in tech - practitioners not academics or journalists) have pretty much completed the research & analyses and are in discussions with publishers right now about a book...but we're happy to share key findings from autumn onwards. Nobody's looked in depth at what actually works for women in tech around the world (lots of research on what doesn't work, lots of un-evidenced and un-helpful theories about what should work), so we went straight to the source and asked women in tech about their experiences, needs, challenges, wants, support etc. There's lots we found that recruiters, managers, HR etc could do quickly and relatively easily that would make a big difference to hiring, retaining, boosting high performance and innovation by women and other under-represented populations in tech...and possibly by tech bros too!
ok this sounds important. Lets set this up for a Brainfood Live...how does the 13th Oct sound Fionnuala?
That's great - looking forward!