Some thoughts on recent RTO announcements
I spent five years working remotely full-time for a startup. After the novelty had worn off, I felt lonely and isolated.
I also worked for a company that required everyone to be in the office during specific hours. Employees had to use their PTO days if they were waiting for a plumber or if their kid was sick.
Ultimately I find that I like balance. I appreciate face-to-face interactions with coworkers. I like the office dynamics, the cupcakes for birthdays, lunches with colleagues, and celebrating our team accomplishments. My ideal setup is a hybrid schedule with flexibility. I seek neither full-time remote nor full-time in-office.
Remote and distributed teams work just fine. Any company with more than one geographical location can't claim that they don't. Certainly not a multinational company. In a company like that, a software developer in the U.S. may work with teammates in four other countries on any given day via Webex or Zoom. It's been like that before the pandemic for decades, and it is true now. Clearly, various claims that people must see each other in person to be productive aren't genuine.
JPMorgan Chase commercial real-estate outlook report from June 6th, 2023 states:
Office space still up in the air: Remote and hybrid work have largely reduced demand for office space. Still, A-class properties are performing well. Office properties with leases of 10 years or more may be able to ride out the market correction. But B- and C-class office buildings—especially those located with shorter leases outside prime locations—face challenges as the workplace evolves.
Aside from the office space, the office economy also supports local businesses. During the pandemic, when the offices were closed, local businesses near people's residences thrived while businesses near offices suffered. There is a strong incentive for municipal officials who built their entire local economies on office space to lobby for disincentivizing telecommuting.
Office workers who commute do so by car. The gas tax economy is an essential source of revenue and funding for infrastructure projects in most states. In my home state of New Jersey, some 72% of highway funding comes from gas taxes and tolls:
States that cannot rely on extractive industries for funding have tried a variety of funding sources to come up with the money necessary for infrastructure upkeep. Though politically unpopular, gas taxes, fees, and tolls are all relatively good applications of the benefit principle—the idea that the people paying the taxes and fees should be the ones to benefit from them.
The tax and tolls revenue decreases if people don't drive to work. If people don't drive anywhere, there is lower demand for cars and car maintenance. Why do you think Elon Musk is telling us to "get off your work-from-home bullshit"? Here is what he said:
"Get off the goddamn moral high horse with the work-from-home bullshit," Musk said, "because they're asking everyone else to not work from home while they do."
He went on to argue that because people who deliver food and build houses can't work from home, neither should office workers, calling the decision "messed up" and a "moral issue."
People who deliver food can't afford Teslas, but knowledge workers can. If the people who can afford to buy Teslas don't need them, Tesla's business model of making overpriced cars that depend on government aid to be affordable collapses.
Why have two cars in the suburbs when one of the adults in the family don't need to commute daily? Why buy an EV if you don't need to drive?
Between the commercial real-estate lobby, automotive lobby, EV lobby, and small business lobby — they all want us to drive around during the day and grease the economy's gears. Without knowledge-workers in Teslas driving for an hour each way to the office and buying avocado sandwiches, capitalism as we know it today will grind to a halt. That is the real reason you are asked to return to the office.
Sadly, rather than re-thinking the economic factors and adapting to the 21st century, the powers that be are falling back to old ways of doing things. The highway funding formula can be updated. The government could stop incentivizing driving and offer tax incentives to businesses to allow telecommuting while also offering tax credits for employees to set up home offices. Unused office space can be re-zoned and turned into affordable housing. We can all enjoy a cleaner environment, less traffic, and less homelessness.
Now, as I mentioned above, I like flexibility. I think most knowledge workers fall into that category. Most of us like to come to the office and socialize with our colleagues. We do like to go out for lunch. What most people want is not absolutes — it is flexibility.