I have posted this on Reddit (askeconomics) a while back but got no good replies. Copying it here because I don’t want to send traffic to Reddit.

What do you think?

I see a big push to take employees back to the office. I personally don’t mind either working remote or in the office, but I think big companies tend to think rationally in terms of cost/benefit and I haven’t seen a convincing explanation yet of why they are so keen to have everyone back.

If remote work was just as productive as in-person, a remote-only company could use it to be more efficient than their work-in-office competitors, so I assume there’s no conclusive evidence that this is the case. But I haven’t seen conclusive evidence of the contrary either, and I think employers would have good reason to trumpet any findings at least internally to their employees (“we’ve seen KPI so-and-so drop with everyone working from home” or “project X was severely delayed by lack of in-person coordination” wouldn’t make everyone happy to return in presence, but at least it would make a good argument for a manager to explain to their team)

Instead, all I keep hearing is inspirational wish-wash like “we value the power of working together”. Which is fine, but why are we valuing it more than the cost of office space?

On the side of employees, I often see arguments like “these companies made a big investment in offices and now they don’t want to look stupid by leaving them empty”. But all these large companies have spent billions to acquire smaller companies/products and dropped them without a second thought. I can’t believe the same companies would now be so sentimentally attached to office buildings if it made any economic sense to close them.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      1 year ago

      You’re still buying more food from the grocery than you would otherwise and you can make the effort to buy from specialists (like directly from a butcher) instead of going to whole food or similar chains.

      • 𝓢𝓮𝓮𝓙𝓪𝔂𝓔𝓶𝓶
        1·
        1 year ago

        You’re still buying more food from the grocery than you would otherwise

        You are probably correct, but eating at home is way more efficient/cost effective at home than out. I make a little more to have leftovers or I buy an extra lb of cold cuts for the week.

        and you can make the effort to buy from specialists (like directly from a butcher) instead of going to whole food or similar chains.

        Yeah but I don’t. 😆

        Just to be clear I wasn’t making an argument for forcing people back into the office. I’m squarely against it for most jobs that can be performed remotely. I was just pointing out that it’s not just landlords and lazy managers who were effected. I know of at least a couple shops who’s primary business was the lunch crowd that are now closed due to the pandemic.