Three years after the coronavirus pandemic sent people to work from home in record numbers, U.S. employers are still struggling to get people back to the office.

Office mandates don’t help companies make more money, study finds::Three years after the coronavirus pandemic sent people to work from home in record numbers, U.S. employers are still struggling to get people back to the office.

  • @[email protected]English
    22•1 year ago

    I think return to office mandates are silly. Regardless, it’s more about maintaining the office market values, right? So basically need to accept that’s where things are going and that will inevitably happen.

    I’m not an economist, so I don’t know the full implications of it all, but I know things will be in for a ride.

    • @[email protected]English
      8•1 year ago

      I don’t know how this property values thing just became accepted knowledge, but it’s nonsense. Most companies don’t own their own office space, and for the ones that do, it’s a cost centre they’d prefer not to have on the books.

      I’ve also seen absolutely no evidence that this is a factor in their decisions, and you’d expect at least one CEO to let the truth slip if this was the case.

      And yet people keep parroting it.

      • @[email protected]English
        4•1 year ago

        Commercial leases are not always a 1 year lease though, like an apartment. They could be in a 10 year lease so I think it’s still valid a lot of times. Obviously there are also additional factors but some companies are still stuck paying for a building they can’t use.

    • @[email protected]English
      5•1 year ago

      There was an article a while back about how RTO brings profits to stores inside the office buildings - gift shops, restaurants, etc. Externally speaking: oil companies. There is a lot of vampirism involved in RTO that is obvious… and far more that’s not.

    • NeshuraEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      Iirc a key problem is a lot of these companies used their office space as collateral for loans. They literally cannot afford to have the value of that office space degrade so forcing everyone back into the office seems like the only solution to them.

      Nevermind that it’s not a sustainable tactic long term but smart business decisions isn’t something I expect from companies operating with permanent debt anyway.