Die Argumente für hybrides Arbeiten liegen auf der Hand. Warum ignorieren so viele Arbeitgeber es?

It likely has to do with control.

If the ‚boss‘ thinks that they need to be able to see you 24/7 in order to make sure your work is done correctly, then they’re a shitty boss.

Because anything that makes us peons think better working conditions are a realistic option is considered a threat to the ownership class’ grip on society. 

Like, sure their cover story will be some crock about productivity or “culture”, and ok maybe the billionaires’ commercial real estate portfolios play a minor role, but at the end of the day it’s the same reason as for most of the demeaningly pointless stresses the owners put on the workers: to remind us that we are powerless before their whims. 

I think this is less about controlling employees and more about money. Not to say that there isn’t an element of control but I think that’s a lot of BS corporate spin to justify rather than the source.

in Toronto our mayor took meetings with all the bank CEOs to encourage RTO to revitalize the downtown core – particularly the PATH and surrounding restaurants. I read an article about Ottawa suggesting a similar view with businesses looking forward to more business with RTO. They are all excited that we are coming back you guys!!

More importantly you have the commercial real estate issue, which suffered under WFH and we saw article after article from commercial real estate reps going on about the benefits of being in office. Important people were losing money, and that’s unacceptable.

City economies were and are largely dependent on the old working model, and they’re not interested in changing their model – so we the employees have to go back in time and buy salads that used to be $13 and are now $18 ($22 with water), commute hours a day for Teams meetings and for those with kids, go back to paying for pre and after school care.

We are all now financially worse off because the success of Jimmy the Greek, and the rent they pay, trumps employee quality of life.

Because those with the power to make the change to the more efficient model have a lot of wealth in real estate. Hybrid would drastically reduce office values and even potentially reduce housing values within cities.

First, its a social extraverted feeling thing. There is a very significant portion of society that feels better equipped to deal with any human interaction when they can read faces and body language more clearly, and observe people in group dynamics outside of their 1 on 1 interaction. They view remote meetings as a handicap on that skill, and can’t read the vibes in the room or the feelings on people’s faces to help navigate situations at work. People who are good at this (or at least know how to leverage this) are disproportionately stratified in senior leadership. They’re also disproportionately more sensitive to making mistakes in a social context they misread, as it directly questions their competency for a leadership role.

Second, its a control and status thing. People at the top are also somewhat removed from the day to day happenings, and execution of work. They rarely know any of the details. To partially compensate, they rely on passive observation and information from side conversations around them to help fill in the blanks, but also to feel assured that stuff is happening and that they’re actively making it happen. The information alone, even if not directly useful, is an emotional safety blanket. Put these same people on remote where they can’t observe, and they start to recognize the impact of not having that information. To the average person, all that stuff was noise to begin with because their scope and job role expectations are much narrower. In terms of status, senior leaders receive much less social deference virtually. In person there is constant and daily evidence of their status in the organizational hierarchy, just by virtue of walking around the office. When they don’t get this, many will start to worry they’re not as important or indispensable as once thought.

Third, it’s an easy bait and switch to force people out and downsize without ever calling for layoffs. Sometimes, organizations don’t care where the cuts happen, and may even welcome it among higher paid positions where those employees have easier options to move. This helps them reset salary levels downward, even if they don’t always understand how badly it can impact them in the long term. But truthfully speaking, any company that has good procedures shouldn’t be afraid of losing people due to some ‚forced attrition‘. Its only bad management if they piss off enough people too quickly, affecting operations, or don’t have any knowledge transfer mechanisms.

In other words, the people who make these decisions are the ones most likely to be negatively affected by them, even if the financial model strongly supports remote and hybrid work. Don’t forget that senior leaders are no more rational and no less emotional than the average peon they manage. The fact that these moves are useful to downsizing is why you’ll see this sort of bait and switch over the long term.