IdiosyncraticIdiot ,

It's about "butts in seats" people.

Big tech companies OWN not rent.

When you OWN an office building, and it is empty, you are LOSING MONEY.

It's about the real estate, nothing else. Open your eyes

Ilovethebomb ,

How? How are they losing money not having people in the office? Where is this money coming from?

Explain your reasoning.

Excrubulent ,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

I disagree that property value is the main driving force behind return to office mandates, but if they do in fact own their offices, then those offices depreciate in value. They also cost money in upkeep. Gardeners, janitors, window cleaners, security, power, maintenance, insurance. Even if nothing is happening, there are contracts with companies that provide these services. Either they'd have an agreed frequency of visits, or a retainer fee. They have managers that want their employees to make on site visits to justify their jobs. The AC and lights would need to be on for anyone onsite, including security, and that is a lot of power. Offices are expensive.

If nothing is getting done in those offices, then those offices are bleeding money. And if they're empty and nobody wants to work (in an office) anymore, then you can't sell them for anything like their old book value. It's a huge loss.

That said, I suspect it's more institutional inertia that drives most of this return to office stuff. Managers justifying their existence or just not being able to cope with the new skills they need. Plus selling or ending leases is a job that someone has to do, and you might fuck that up, so you'd rather not make the change. Plus they've got the offices now, what if they need them soon? Capitalist companies, especially corporations, are fundamentally conservative entities.

Lauchs ,

If you buy a car and don't use it, you're in much the same situation. You have an expensive thing gaining you no value. At worst that money could be in your savings. I imagine a company could find more productive uses for that capital. (A decent chunk of capital mind you, Google paid about 10% of its annual profit for a pair of offices in 2018.)

Sure, you could sell the car but you're going to take a loss as office vacancy rates are at what I assume are historic highs (in Canada it's about 17%).

The more conspiratorial minded may also point out that most CEO level folks or board members are pretty likely to have a lot of their wealth tied into the market, a not insubstantial sum of which is tied to corporate real estate. A significant disruption there could cost those folks and their friends heavily. It's a little conspiracy minded for me but also not so much so that it feels ludicrous.

1984 ,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

Forcing people back to office, firing thousands of tech workers... Yeah I don't see why people don't love working for these guys. Nobody wants to work!

Let's all go to the office for the "collaboration" and team spirit. We are all a family here. :)

The Musk tells people to sleep on the factory floor, that's how much he cares about people.

lapommedeterre ,

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.

Ilovethebomb ,

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.

MeekerThanBeaker ,

Companies likely lose money with more workers in the office. More electricity, more water, more supplies. More unhappy employees, more tired employees, more good employees looking elsewhere for WFH jobs.

SkyezOpen ,

Probably sunk cost fallacy with the lease. Building is paid for, why not use it and also be better able to micromanage your drones?

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • technology@lemmy.world
  • test
  • worldmews
  • mews
  • All magazines
    •