GRM Selling the HQ had be thinking

Tommy said "But we do have plans to move to a smaller office, as most of us are working from home now. We no longer need 5000 square feet of space."
 

Those are perfectly reasonable words right there. I'm trying to figure out why corporate America is so resistant to allowing workers to work from home, maybe even downsizing to save money?
The company I work for has been pulling back on the WFH, I understand GM and I think Ford are doing the same. I can't understand it. If business went on for 3 years, why pull back?
Is it a control thing?
Is it a trust thing?
is it that managers don't feel they can manage a remote workforce?
Is it just being stuck in old ways?
Is it better to have folks in the office?

It's a corporate culture thing from the leadership. I had a global team for years. I never even met some of them face to face with Covid. I never had an issue with that. TBH I didn't care where they worked from as long as the work got done and we met our KPIs. I never had a problem with either one. I always kept the option open for them to work out of the office if they wanted. I only had one take me up on it and they were younger based out of Singapore and lived with their parents. 

If you look at who is making the decisions, it's the sr management which in most case is 50+ Y/O. All they know is the office environment. Remote working really was never thought of outside of sales/service teams.

Combine that with long term leases on commercial property, they need to show utility for the office space that they are locked into.

It'll take the older millennial generation to get planted in leadership roles to change that mindset. A lot of middle management really don't care. They are only following what the upper leadership told them to do. 

There is value to have workers in the office if their entire team or at least the majority is in one location. Having an office day or 2 a week to collaborate, do your 1x1's, and share ideas do make things go better sometimes. It does handcuff you on talent acquisition though. Trying to find that talent in an odd location like Omaha or Milwaukee will sometimes make it more difficult. 

When you are the only person of that team in the office and you have the ability to WFH, it's stupid to force them into the office though. IMHO

I'd say a lot of it is because the idiots that kept posting how they're hardly working, working 2 jobs at the same time, etc. When you post photos of you watching TV, shopping, etc. in the middle of the day vs working, what do you expect to happen?

bmw88rider said:

It'll take the older millennial generation to get planted in leadership roles to change that mindset.

Probably, as a data point the company I work for has Gen. X'ers in management and they had NO remote work at all before the pandemic - mind you I think a large part of that was security-driven. They're still rather skeptical about remote work right now, but they took a poll of workers and I think the numbers have spoken to them - plus they've hired some people who would never be able to commute, not many but some. They're still rather concerned about "corporate culture" and we've recently been told that video will be required for all meetings unless stated otherwise, where previously we tried a lot of video early in the pandemic but we've mostly saved it for special occasions since then.

Edit: This company has also gone the "corporate broom closet" route and has sold off their largest building with most of the office space, keeping a smaller one.

"All the Remote Workers are so lazy, we shouldn't need to remotely babysit them." 

"Bring them back to the office where we can babysit them in person."

If you can't manage people remotely, you're admitting that you can't manage them in person, either. 

I hate metrics. Hate them. But as a manager, you need some "target" for people to hit, even if its incredibly low. 

Steve_Jones said:

I'd say a lot of it is because the idiots that kept posting how they're hardly working, working 2 jobs at the same time, etc. When you post photos of you watching TV, shopping, etc. in the middle of the day vs working, what do you expect to happen?

I guess they don't teach people about observation biases, outrage-driven content virality, or taking things with a grain of salt in MBA programs...

From what I have read, answering services work fine remotely. Design, construction, and professional services don't. It has to do with casual conversation that happens in an office atmosphere that doesn't happen when no one is in the office. Apparently, many of the best ideas happen when two people pass in the hall or meet at the coffee maker. These are ideas that at first jerk sound ridiculous or useless and would never make it to an email or a zoom meeting but running into your buddy at the water cooler you will happily mention in passing. Then your buddy expands on it and suddenly you have a viable solution to a problem or design that just works. 

This casual conversation has been missing for the past couple of years and it's starting to be noticed. 

Toyman! said:

From what I have read, answering services work fine remotely. Design, construction, and professional services don't. It has to do with casual conversation that happens in an office atmosphere that doesn't happen when no one is in the office. Apparently, many of the best ideas happen when two people pass in the hall or meet at the coffee maker. These are ideas that at first jerk sound ridiculous or useless and would never make it to an email or a zoom meeting but running into your buddy at the water cooler you will happily mention in passing. Then your buddy expands on it and suddenly you have a viable solution to a problem or design that just works. 

This casual conversation has been missing for the past couple of years and it's starting to be noticed.

To me it still happens, just instead of around the water cooler it's in different group chats (we have them for all kinds of work-related topics plus some off-topic ones) or around meetings (where we are basically encouraged to shoot the E36 M3 before and after, for smaller/routine meetings).

The bottom line is that it's productivity.  Remote workers don't produce as much as when they go to "work".  As Steve_Jones pointed out most people don't have the  work ethic to actually work outside the work environment. Plus being around other producers motivates people AND they get good ideas from being around the other people.

My employees who come into the office more, produce the most - and I'm in an industry that has traditionally has many outside sales people.

carguy123 said:

The bottom line is that it's productivity.  Remote workers don't produce as much as when they go to "work".

I have a cousin who works at one of the big accounting firms and their data gave a resounding LOLNO to that, which is why they're still working remotely even though it's making steam come out of the managers' ears. I've seen similar numbers from many different companies in different industries. I haven't seen any data-driven approach that shows remote work hurting productivity so far, mind you the data I have seen is all from "knowledge work" industries.

One more theory on why companies don't like remote work: A lot of companies already had an excess of management staff before the pandemic, and remote work makes that harder to hide...

GameboyRMH said:

carguy123 said:

The bottom line is that it's productivity.  Remote workers don't produce as much as when they go to "work".

I have a cousin who works at one of the big accounting firms and their data gave a resounding LOLNO to that, which is why they're still working remotely even though it's making steam come out of the managers' ears. I've seen similar numbers from many different companies in different industries. I haven't seen any data-driven approach that shows remote work hurting productivity so far, mind you the data I have seen is all from "knowledge work" industries.

I never saw any indications that working remote was less productive.  If there was any lowering productivity, it was from less things to do- which was a management problem, not a worker problem.

BTW, Ford was noted in Boost's original post- and I'm not there to see what's going on.  But I also am pretty sure that the WFH is really saving over $1B in planned renovations.  They are certainly not going to restart that.  And that's more like GRM going to a smaller space to run everything.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

That works with the younger generation. Text and messenger chats probably run all day and even into the evening because that's how younger people communicate. 

It's not working very well with the Gen X crowd. What would have been said in passing isn't worth a text message.  

My experiences:

There are things in-person that cannot be replaced remotely. The water cooler talks are part of that - sure, they still happen online with your team I probably spend about 10 hours a week on Teams/Zoom calls that are not scheduled and just pop up, and half the time they end up being water cooler talks for a decent portion of it. But they don't happen with people that you don't interact with through work on a regular basis. That does hurt. 

On the other hand, there are things done remotely that are simply much better than in person. Meetings are much more productive, I'm getting a broader view of things because people will invite more folks to meetings, we're not listening to 15 phone calls going on in the background, etc. There are less distractions in general, employees are generally happier, and the big thing, physically healthier with more sleep. 

For every Jamie Dimon urging everyone into the office, there is an Allstate that is closing their HQ. 

To note, I'm a gen X and worked remote or hybrid since 2002 for all but 3 years. Currently in a hybrid job 3 days in the office and 2 days WFH. 

There are a lot of generalizations I see thrown around. A lot around productivity. I had a great conversation with our VP of HR and there was something that he mentioned being there were a lot of managers that were promoted because they were good at the task they are now leading. So for example, they were a good program manager so now they lead program managers. The problem is that those skill sets always carry over. So we get weak leaders. Add on top of that, there is very little training out there because these middle management people just jump from 1 call to the next all day to have a full day. 

Weak management will lead to people not performing regardless of the location. People can goof off just as much in the office as they can WFH. 

Another interesting comment from my recent conversations was about the reward for being more efficient? A good review still only gets you a COL +1-2% if you are lucky pay raise.

 If I'm a good worker and need 6 hours to do what the average employee needs 8-9 hours to do, then what is the bonus for doing more and work harder?

The day of working up from the "mail room" is long since dead and there is little financial reward to do so. I took a big hit in earnings by staying in one company too long and it took a couple job hops to get back to the level of my peers. 

I still wonder about the why of office jobs to begin with.

Seems at most companies, most office workers just push paper around to make company numbers look good.

Pretty berkeleying useless in the scheme of things, with regards to anything other than the company. 

But getting the paper pushers back into offices, that's just for control. To paraphrase some surely sensationalized headlines, a vast majority of employers with remote workers are spending their time spying on the remote workers. So they know the tasks they're assigning are bullE36 M3 that make no difference to the world, but since they own you 40 hours a week, they're going to make damn sure you're doing it. 

I'm just glad I got out of building office buildings long before the pandemic.

In reply to bmw88rider :

I once read an article that stated that most workers tend to be promoted to one step above where they are most effective. I've noticed that management tends to not like being told that. 

Another factor... the customers. 
 

A small percentage of GRM's work is customer facing. So they can do it in a small office. 
 

Some businesses need more direct customer contact. 

SV reX said:

Another factor... the customers. 
 

A small percentage of GRM's work is customer facing. So they can do it in a small office. 

Some businesses need more direct customer contact. 

I'll disagree with this to a certain extent. I'd say that a significant portion of their business is customer facing. Customer facing doesn't have to be in-person. It can be over the phone, over teams/Zoom, etc. And for the parts that do need to be in person... Well, the sales reps (speaking generally, not for GRM) have been remote for 20+ years in the industries I'm familiar with. 

But I agree with your overall point.

In reply to mtn :

FACE-ing. Usually involves a face. 
 

But ok. 

Stampie said:

In reply to bmw88rider :

I once read an article that stated that most workers tend to be promoted to one step above where they are most effective. I've noticed that management tends to not like being told that. 

That would be the Peter Principal that you're referring to.

Stampie said:

In reply to bmw88rider :

I once read an article that stated that most workers tend to be promoted to one step above where they are most effective. I've noticed that management tends to not like being told that. 

Called the Peter Principle.

Edit: Do'h, beaten...

I've heard some good arguments for hybrid work environments that allow companies to determine what their employees are actually good at. 

For example, lets say I'm a churner. I can just do tasks all day long and pump out numbers like nobodies business. But I hate face to face interaction. Why waste office space on me?

Or perhaps I'm someone who is a great collaborator and thrives in meetings, or I'm great with customers - why would you lock me at home? 

The biggest advantage I see to this massive shift in American Corporate Culture is OFFICE DESIGN. The people who want to be in the office now will have more leverage to say "hey, I need an office with a door and a window." and the folks who don't care - they can work from home. 

Oh, that and the ability to work from a beach and extend vacations because we're not getting anymore vacation days. 

In reply to pheller :

I agree with you, but unfortunately need to make an edit....

POTENTIAL office design. 
 

Unfortunately in over 30 years of doing commercial construction, I have yet to meet an owner who has those kinds of conversations with his staff.  Every single job I do has owners who THINK they know what their staff needs, making decisions for their work spaces without consulting them, ending up with spaces that are not a good fit for the people and operations that need to be performed in them. 
 

And honestly, I get it. I watched an owner recently make a valiant effort to engage his sales staff for input to how to configure their desks and work space. One office. 4 workers. It took 3 1/2 hours one day PLUS another 1 1/2 hours the next day. They were obscenely indecisive for extremely simple decisions. After the 2 ridiculous committee meetings, I followed him out of the office as he muttered under his breath "everybody has a berkeleying opinion". They were thoroughly frustrating to deal with, and there is no way the CEO had time for such ridiculous silliness.

I agree. It's a great theory, and a great opportunity.  I just don't expect it to become much of a reality.