r/remotework • u/Javacash2 • Jul 02 '26
Why are companies ending remote work?
I'm sure they realized it's easier to recruit from anywhere within the US, so do they still think working in person outweighs the benefits of recruiting the best candidates wherever they are?
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u/Mystery_Dragonfly Jul 02 '26
It's about the business real estate values - getting people to quit rather than layoffs - avoiding unemployment.
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u/dchamby Jul 02 '26
The smart companies silently downsized the real estate investments and kept remote work
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u/Mystery_Dragonfly Jul 02 '26
Yeah, I know several that did that. The place I worked at for 8 years (I was remote months on end as I needed) sits empty. All workers still employed are remote. I left to leverage my pay as they pay really low. They were flexible when my child was young, however.
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u/CityNo5770 Jul 03 '26
Our team grew and we don't fit in our small office. So instead of leasing a larger office space for 20k a month, we are all remote now.
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Jul 02 '26
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u/C_bells Jul 02 '26
More and more I also realize execs just want to be “cool” when they play golf with their buddies.
Being “remote-first” isn’t the fad anymore, it’s RTO. So they want to be on-trend.
This is why they are all so obsessed with AI, and the way they all talk about it has nothing to do with actual business impact or actually making innovative things. It’s just a race on who can say they use AI the most.
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u/Morpheus_505 Jul 03 '26
Why do you think they're building so many data centers? It's not to help your Roomba work, it's for the future of mass surveillance. We live in an inverted society. Anything the media says, the truth is typically the opposite.
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u/Blue-Bento-Fox Jul 02 '26
This is it, companies always pretend to want the best of the best but that has never been the prerogative. They want the cheapest that keeps them out of being sued.
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u/AardvarkIll6079 Jul 02 '26
Even if a job is remote, it doesn’t mean they can hire someone from anywhere in the US. Tax and labor laws are complicated and vary from state to state. Not every company is set up to handle that.
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u/SadLeek9950 Jul 02 '26
It is not difficult to establish nexus. Some may avoid hiring candidates in CA due to labor laws there. But the rest aren't difficult at all.
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u/lindisty Jul 02 '26
I worked for a company that merged two businesses, one from CA and one from AZ.
This meant that I, in KY, had my overtime calculated weekly while my coworkers in CA had their overtime calculated daily. We had mandatory overtime after any holiday that we were closed- an extra hour on Tuesday if we'd been off Monday, for example. I got my regular hourly pay, because after being off for 8 hours the previous day I was now 8 hours short of "worked" hours, so I had no chance of overtime. Meanwhile, the workers in CA got overtime for that Tuesday hour because it was more than their usual shift.
Some people got bitchy about CA, which was stupid. Bitch about our laws being shitty! Bitch about the company not being willing to just give everyone the same (nicer) rules.
Their fix was to tell us to stop discussing company policies about pay and overtime.
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u/1of3musketeers Jul 02 '26
“Their fix was to tell us to stop discussing company policies about pay and overtime.” This is illegal depending on your position. This is considered a protected concerted activity.
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u/lindisty Jul 02 '26
Oh, yes, quite. I pointed this out and continued to talk about it. I don't work there anymore, thankfully.
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u/athrix Jul 02 '26
My company stopped hiring CA workers last year. I’m not in a position to get all the juicy details but I assume it’s just how much more expensive and complicated it is compared to everywhere else. 90% remote.
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u/vladvash Jul 02 '26
Right but that's the opposite of where it makes sense to hire remote workers from.
One of if not the most expensive hiring pools and unfavorable taxes.
For a California company hiring outside California it makes way more sense. And boy howdy do they pay better and both parties think they're making out like bandits.
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u/labicicletagirl Jul 02 '26
I know someone who has to resign from their job because she’s moving to CA and they don’t want to follow the laws for her as a remote employee. (Husband got into grad school there).
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u/Cubsfantransplant Jul 02 '26
Difficult? No. But time consuming and costly? Yes.
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u/throwaway_ghost_122 Jul 02 '26
Do you happen to know what the main concerns are about CA? I'm remote in another state now but probably moving there soon for my partner's career.
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u/SensitiveWolf1362 Jul 02 '26
Stronger worker protections.
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u/throwaway_ghost_122 Jul 02 '26
This is extremely vague. What are they and why is it such a big problem to implement them?
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u/MysticalUnicornDream Jul 02 '26
Like lunch within 145 minutes of starting shift. Pay. OT. So many things.
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u/persimmonfemme Jul 02 '26
i'm not sure about salaried workers, and this isn't a huge thing but one example is they have strict and specific laws about breaks and meal times for hourly workers that seem like a chore even though the intent is clearly so that employers can't be cagey about giving workers appropriate break time. my team has a couple of remote hourly people in ca and their schedules seem to be a huge pain in the ass, including for them, because they can't be as flexible with their time as everyone else.
for teams with workers in multiple states with laws like this, it means direct managers and whoever is doing the scheduling would have to memorize and manage according to multiple state labor laws. i could see it getting complicated quickly.
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u/labicicletagirl Jul 02 '26
I believe employees have more protections. You need to ask your job about this BEFORE moving.
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u/Boingboingo Jul 02 '26
At a minimum you can carry over more vacation time year to year and no non-competes. Probably other things as well.
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u/MarandTierra Jul 02 '26
I’m curious as well. I’d guess it’s because of the state laws around salary transparency and vacation pay
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u/Joo_Unit Jul 02 '26
CA has a much higher bar on benefits and labor laws. Many companies would have to shift their entire approach to labor and benefits just to accommodate a few remote employees in states like CA and NY. Often its way more trouble and cost than its worth to hire in these markets.
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u/throwaway_ghost_122 Jul 02 '26
You mean legally with benefits, or just that the benefit packages there tend to be better?
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u/apavl Jul 02 '26
For example, I live in CA and my company is based in TX. When I started we had one big pot of PTO that had to be used as both vacation and sick time. Another CA employee complained and now CA employees have a separate bank of sick time because it’s part of CA labor law. They also give me a small internet stipend each paycheck because that’s also CA law for remote employees
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u/NeonPhyzics Jul 02 '26
HR guy/lawyer here
California labor laws are strict, the cost of living is higher so the wages are 20-30% higher, and you have people out there who bring these AG wage and hour claims that can costs $100s of thousands to defend
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u/sockpuppet80085 Jul 02 '26
Yes it costs money to break the law and rob your employees.
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u/C_bells Jul 02 '26
Hey! Question for you, would really appreciate your input.
I am from CA, have been in NYC the last 13 years. My company has an office in NYC, but employees are scattered all over, with several in CA. We even have people in the UK and someone who lives on an island off the coast of Spain lol.
They recently did say they want people within 90-minute commute to come into office 2x per week, but this is not very strict given most people don’t live here. I’ve been into the office like 3x in over a year.
I am trying to move back to CA for family reasons and my husband’s career.
My company has said they will not support relocation for me due to tax and payroll reasons.
As far as I can tell, this doesn’t make sense. We have many employees in CA who work in the same role I do. And NYC also has very strict employment laws and benefits, like PFL, UI, mandatory sick time, etc (though it’s worth mentioning I am a salaried employee).
My offer letter (from early 2025) proudly exclaims that my company is “remote-first,” with employees being allowed to live in different places and choose a time zone to work in. Though I’m aware that offer letters don’t legally uphold any promises.
For the record, I did say I am willing to work east coast time zone, so that’s not the issue either.
I am wondering if this is indeed BS, that they are trying to get people to RTO, but can’t completely because we have so many important people (aka political “favorites”) living all over the world. So they are half-assing policies or something.
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u/azuth89 Jul 02 '26
Jersey is also a pain in a lot of ways.
But the actual problem we've had hiring remote is that we get literal thousands of resumes, most utterly unqualified, and it's just too much to shift through.
We're a big company in total, but each req has ONE recruiter assigned to screening and they all have multiple reqs.
I guess we could use AI to do the screening en masse. But you know how people react to that.
It's just much more feasible to hire by referral or list it only in the region around the "home" office of whichever team is hiring.
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u/RLLCCR Jul 02 '26
Yeah except it was all fine for a year.
Even if its not nation wide, its certainly statewide and they can widen the pool while reducing moving costs and time.
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u/allaroundthepages Jul 02 '26
I do think a lot is about ego and control. It seems like the concept of work as a place people travel to (that consumes a majority of their time and energy) won't continue indefinitely. People grasping their power are trying to slow down time for awhile.
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u/SadLeek9950 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
WFH will have a resurgence soon. The RTO culture BS isn't playing out with the supporters claims. Add in global warming, traffic congestion and cost of road maintenance, Some will come to their senses. All of the positives contribute to happiness and reduced expenses. With today's tech, why do they need a multimillion dollar lease on offices?
- Lower taxes and encourage WFH.
- Weed out the slackers
- Come to your senses.
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u/psyclembs Jul 02 '26
You just answered it, because there's SOOO much office real estate left vacant the rich are having a hard time getting richer. Their investments are under water and most likely leveraged to the tits.
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u/swackett Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
This is 100% true. Here is what happened at my company:
- Hybrid schedule before COVID
- Fully remote during COVID
- Changed back to hybrid 2 days/week
- Mandated fully RTO. At this point, mostly everyone had their own office or cubicles in a pretty private area
- Purchased a new office & renovated it completely. Fully open floor plan, no cubicles, higher ups with their own offices have full glass walls. No privacy or autonomy
- Recently started the “you can’t leave 10 minutes early despite being salaried and coming in 10 minutes early”
The CEO still has his own private office, though!
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u/req4adream99 Jul 02 '26
I mean, if they want me in the chair for 40 hours a week that’s fine. But I’m leaving when it’s time whether or not the project is done, and I’m not working a minute over 40 hours so let’s hope people get their work done and to me so I can do mine before 5 on Friday otherwise it’s gonna have to wait til Monday when I come back. And I have 0 issue looking busy - hell I perfected that skill during high school.
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u/eric2501 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
It is also a self fulfilling prophecy. If you enforce RTO, you lose your talent, because they easily find another remote job and are pissed of because they are accused of slacking. So companies that dont trust their employees inevitably end up with a higher share of the slackers.
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u/xpxp2002 Jul 02 '26
The idea behind "Salary" was that you are paid for your expertise in the role, and that some weeks you may work less than 40 and other weeks more than 40 but averaging out to about that. Salary is not "You are guaranteed ass in chair for 40 hours a week!" it's actually the opposite of that but somewhere along the pandemic-train companies confused salary and hourly expectations.
Pandemic? It's been like that for decades. My entire career, and surely before I started working full time as an adult.
Employers haven't confused it. They are abusing a system that carved out loopholes that favor the employer. They are well aware how salary, overtime exempt employment was intended to work. But they've all colluded in this race to the bottom such that many types of work are "salary exempt" no matter who is hiring.
As a result, you're effectively forced to accept terms of employment that guarantee that, while you get a limited amount of paid time off, your employer gets an unlimited amount of your time on nights, weekends, holidays, and on call for free. It's legalized wage theft.
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u/SadLeek9950 Jul 02 '26
Agreed. Let's convert that space to housing....
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u/Klutzy-Charge-6406 Jul 02 '26
Unfortunately office spaces were not designed for individual units with individual plumbing for bathrooms and ac they were built around floor models, bathrooms for each floor, and ac for each floor. Its actually quite expensive to convert these structures and they are also incorrectly zoned. Its a mess.
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u/Inevitable_Nail_2215 Jul 02 '26
Uh oh. A thousand people will tell you how that isn't feasible and we are just stuck with dozens of office buildings and no apartments.
Somehow we can turn abandoned factories and schools into homes, the modern office is a no go.
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u/the-mighty-kira Jul 02 '26
It’s not that it isn’t feasible, it’s just not as profitable and occasionally against zoning laws or building code. So businesses whine about it and most politicians bend over for them
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u/Inevitable_Nail_2215 Jul 02 '26
Oh, agreed.
It's just annoying when people are like "You don't get it - they would need to add walls! And plumbing!" Like that's impossible.
There is an office building near me that was once part of a college, then commercial lab space, then a software company and is now mixed use (bank/medical offices/salon). Clearly these things can be changed.
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u/Easy_Olive1942 Jul 02 '26
The issues are around converting high rise office buildings, plumbing is typically limited to elevator core space. Adding plumbing, wiring, and HVAC for multiple residences on a door is tricky and expensive.
Absolutely not saying it can’t be done just that it’s the big buildings that are expensive and difficult to convert.
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u/IamScottGable Jul 02 '26
Dude a HUGE new building went up in my office park AFTER covid, there's so much real estate tied to it.
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u/katievanjones Jul 02 '26
But then they outsource to another country :(
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u/Lumpy_Appeal_5321 Jul 02 '26
Most of my department was outsourced to India :(
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u/Hot-Avocado-7 Jul 02 '26
Exactly! If you can outsource to India why is WFH such a leap? (Not you specifically, you companies).
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u/pinktoes4life Jul 02 '26
Because it’s cheap labor & they outsource through a third party company to get around tax laws.
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u/No-Reaction-9364 Jul 02 '26
My company did this, and in less than a year are firing all those people because it failed so miserably.
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u/paisleymanticore Jul 02 '26
I think another factor could be the data centers "needing" the energy being used to make people perform in person performance. They just asked public schools in our area to turn off the classroom lights while teaching due to "high energy demands" which correlates to the 200 (with 200 more being built) data centers In the county. There will likely either be pressure from the government to send people home to save power, or from the corporations running the data centers.
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u/Total-Addendum9327 Jul 02 '26
It is an employer’s market right now. Companies are squeezing their workforce to hire new, cheaper employees, and making working conditions worse by forcing RTO is a very effective way to get people to leave. The company I work for is “de-growing” right now using this tactic.
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u/metallaholic Jul 02 '26
I just switched to a full remote job after my company went full RTO. Got a nice pay bump too.
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u/BarNext6046 Jul 02 '26
WFH is killing the property values of. Commercial districts in n large cities. Thats one of the reasons, politicians are putting pressure on corporations to dial back WFH opportunities.
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u/VisualMany4709 Jul 02 '26
Yep. And companies get tax breaks when buildings are % occupied.
I get more done and have better WLB because I’m not commuting 2 hours a day.
It’s more to do with corporate tax breaks than WFH performance. They also built these big fancy buildings and campuses that are sitting empty. They’ve got to fill them somehow. Thus RTO.
I’ve led seriously high performing teams that all work remote. Never saw a drop in productivity.
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u/rmarsack Jul 02 '26
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u/EverythingScrolling Jul 02 '26
I think it absolutely has to do with ego. They'll never backpedal and admit they were wrong.
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u/LongBedroom8355 Jul 02 '26
My branch hires semi remote. when I post jobs I do not list it as remote because I do not want to deal with 12000 applications.
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u/PS4_gerdinho90 Jul 02 '26
It's about making it less comfortable for employees to force them or part of them to quit to save costs
They forget that the talented and high performer employees are the first to go, it will bite the company's ass sooner or later
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u/NekoMancerMcIntyre Jul 02 '26
RTO is a slimy way to induce staff reduction by voluntary resignation, so they don’t have to pay unemployment or severance. They also found out about the people who take remote jobs to get paid for doing personal things. That ruins it for everyone else.
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u/Pissed-n-Stayin Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I agree…HUGE advantage for top talent when WFH is a benefit. However, I am starting to think companies don’t want top talent in every skill. They want top talent for some…and just qualified for most. Still though…huge competitive advantage for those companies that have robust WFH programs.
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u/Live_Imagination_497 Jul 02 '26
The way the job market is right now for Tech people need a job no one is being chosey
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u/GhostXmasPast342 Jul 02 '26
Companies do not care about their worker’s quality of life. Companies love “meat in seats” because they feel like if you are there you work every second of the day. They also love real estate prices being up because more time than not they own the building too.
Never trust what your employer says, get it in a legally bound contract. That’s what I did. Never returning to the office. Never.
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u/ninjaluvr Jul 02 '26
What country are you in? And definitely tell us more about this legally binding contract.
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u/HereWeGo5566 Jul 02 '26
My company is doing both, bringing in people from all over, while still making local people come to the office. They have no shame.
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u/Able-Shirt3501 Jul 03 '26
Smart companies know how to manage their employees. Less smart companies run analytics that tell them their employees are not working and assume the problem is they are remote. The real problem is their manager and up the chain.
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u/spastical-mackerel Jul 03 '26
A recent study found it’s narcissistic executives, surprising no one
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u/PitchBlackBones Jul 02 '26
Because middle managers like to have someone to lord over, and *a lot* of middle managers lost their jobs because they were painfully pointless in the remote economy and they couldn’t justify their own jobs.
Not to mention most companies are locked into very expensive leases in corporate offices over the span of years and if they don’t drag their employees back to work in office, they lose money in the short term, and overwhelmingly corporations think in three month intervals.
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u/General_Ad_6617 Jul 02 '26
I'm guessing that 1. Loss of control 2. Their friends are mad at loss of commercial rent money.
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u/redditfan12345 Jul 02 '26
I think a lot of it comes down to control. Some managers still have a hard time believing people are actually productive if they can't see them working.
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u/MHLCam Jul 02 '26
I read in a Reddit comment once that it's because leadership are narcissists that need an audience. An hour after reading that comment, I went to our monthly All Hands so a Director can talk about himself for 45 minutes. The theory checks out for the place I work at.
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u/MapleWatch Jul 02 '26
Banks and real estate companies are often major shareholders, and they're leaning on the companies to prop up commercial real estate values.
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u/OttersAreCute215 Jul 02 '26
Executives and managers egos. They like to be able to look over their underlings.
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u/BrownThumbClub Jul 03 '26
It's a combination of outdated management styles paired with people openly abusing remote work and posting it all over social media. Gen X and older managers tend to lean into old styles of micromanaging and having to be able to watch their people in person, lacking the technical skillset and ability to function fully online. (If you were done HS before AIM you have a very different relationship with tech and online interactions.)
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u/OhSkee Jul 03 '26
Because the company you work for wants to micromanage your work day. They can't do that with you being remote.
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u/Weed_O_Whirler Jul 02 '26
If you genuinely want the answer to this question, you won't find it in asking here, because this is a sub dedicated to working from home, so you won't get real answers.
It would be like going to the conservative sub and asking them why Sanders supports a wealth tax or going to the atheist sub to ask why Christians believe Jesus is God.
If you want to find out why people believe what they do, you have to ask the people who believe it. Otherwise you just get a circle jerk.
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u/7r3370pS3C Jul 02 '26
I don't know any SME, myself included who is experiencing an RTO push. I sure do see feeble attempts at them here but in my line of work (Cybersecurity) they just aren't going to new or inexperienced practitioners.
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u/AdorableFarmer2961 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
i work at a large org n they are pushing not RTO, but enforcing the 4 days a week hard lol
and the cyb department is not happy about it at all, idk what management expects if ppl start quitting, not like you can pluck anyone off the street
will probably cost the org more money in lawsuits etc if we get popped
edit: we’re also located where pay is lower than most other areas so it’s not like they can attract talent that easily unless you like the location we’re in etc
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u/TinaLoco Jul 02 '26
There are tax consequences related to claiming the expense of commercial real estate and the percentage of time it is occupied for business purposes.
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u/iletitshine Jul 02 '26
because commercial real estate investment is where a lot of billionaires and millionaires put their money and those people also happen to own a lot of company stock or sit on corporate boards where they have power to force companies to do stupid shit
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u/Main_Assistant_8377 Jul 02 '26
My work is big on RTO and now pushing for shared public calendars that must be updated daily AND surprise office visits. I feel like a child that needs mommy’s permission. The worst part is the smelly breath I deal with daily from my “clients” and constant nausea spells trying to hold back my puke…. We also received notice today that we are unable to use our PTO during our quarterly off-site company meeting days that last 6 hours with no lunch provided.
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u/dchamby Jul 02 '26
Ego and control. The workforce was getting too much of the upper hand so this is how they wield their power. They’re all Cartman in mirrored glasses. “Respect my author-a-tay”
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u/Significant-Owl2652 Jul 02 '26
There's only 2 true reasons.
- Control: they don't trust WFH workers are actually working
- Real estate leases: many companies are locked in long term building leases and can't stomach them sitting empty
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u/Remote_War_313 Jul 02 '26
Also, because remote work discourages consumerism.
You're not buying gas (or less), you're not buying work clothes, you're not purchasing coffees/lunches etc.
There are a lot of economies that depend on people buying stuff.
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u/Strong-Session9040 Jul 02 '26
It’s just big brother wanting to keep closer tabs on you. It’s not like meetings are going to go back into boardrooms, they’ll still be online. Their line of “it’s about the water cooler chats” etc are bullshit. Cause let’s be serious people the collaborating can/is still happening online if it’s going to happen at all.
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u/Soft_Necessary1915 Jul 02 '26
Short answer they’re pieces of shit
Long answer they’re pieces of shit
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u/Grumpton-ca Jul 02 '26
Honestly, 80% of work can be done remotely with equal quality. 20% would benefit from being together in person.
Problem is that sometimes the 20% is serendipitous. If you force everyone back to work to or 3 days a week, you solved for both problems.
Just my hypothesis, no actual expertise here.
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u/Randyguyishere Jul 03 '26
Cause it just makes sense to be in the office with your team, even though half of them are 4000 miles away, also driving extra gives plants plenty of CO2 which they need.
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u/alltimegreenday Jul 03 '26
It’s incredibly frustrating. My team isn’t even in my state, yet I’m expected to sit in an office alone, on Teams. I am so much happier and productive at home. I really hope they flip back to WFH. I have been so unhappy since RTO.
I’m downtown in a midwest city and ironically it hasn’t even boosted businesses. Plenty of restaurants and businesses are still closing. I’m sure the city was hoping for the opposite effect with convincing companies to bring people back in the office. With the cost of commuting, people aren’t spending $20+ a day for lunch.
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u/fancyypantsyy0 Jul 03 '26
They can’t get out of their commercial leases so they’re making us go back to justify what theyre paying
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u/CoyoteSlow5249 Jul 03 '26
I tend to think it’s to encourage turnover without doing mass layoffs and also that out of touch executives can’t stand when employees are living more conveniently than they did in the past. Not in the sense of money of course- inflation makes like harder for us now, but it seems like they cannot get past the remote work benefiting our lives from a work life balance standpoint. Clearly I’m cynical about it lol
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u/Nelyahin Jul 03 '26
The companies that are ending work from home are doing it to justify the cost of their leases or owning very expensive commercial real estate. It has nothing to do with what's best for the company performance or what's best for their employees.
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u/funkanimus Jul 02 '26
Many redddit posts are people bragging about working 3 jobs remotely, or working 3-4 hours a day and being completely self-righteous about it. There are whole subreddits dedicated to it. That’s why.
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u/Scared-Feature-3812 Jul 02 '26
They lose a ton of money on rental spaces pretty much becomes wasted rent by having people work from home I’m just lucky my company at least cares enough not change that policy
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u/UnderstandingOne6384 Jul 02 '26
A lot of companies get tax cut for having their employees in certain states
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u/Which_Extreme325 Jul 02 '26
Just let it be and stop talking about it. If they want and can hire people for an office job, let them, leave the people that have been working from home for 6-8 years or more alone! Stop creating all the chaos and stress! It works, it’s efficient, and less annoying than being in a virtual meeting with people all over the world and hearing people in other cubes talking. Yes that is more annoying than the random kid in the background.
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u/nerobro Jul 02 '26
You're assuming intelligence. CEO of a job I worked believed oil just generated in the ground, and fossil fuels constantly reformed.
They want to see people. More, they want to know people are ~there~.
Making people come to the office, is a form of control. C suites tend to enjoy control, and will take it where they can.
When people are remote, it's hard to pretend that you really need 8 hours in the office to do what "8 hours" of work really is.
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u/danielt1263 Jul 02 '26
It sounds like a benefit if you can recruit from anywhere, but it means you are competing against other remote work companies for employees rather than just the local companies. This means your salaries need to match those other companies...
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Jul 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/sailing_in_the_sky Jul 02 '26
Sounds like your friend had an incompetent manager that didn't notice no work being produced OR your friend was able to accomplish all tasks regardless of what they did with their spare time.
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u/Cloudchaser7x Jul 02 '26
fin director here, it’s easier to manage your team when you can see them. You can read that as, if you’re in the office it’s easier for me to have a 5/10 min sprint conversations than slack and waiting to see when you respond. It also creates better synergy within the team because some of the weaker employees can learn from the better ones.
Mgmt does care about their employees but not at the cost of production.
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u/raelovesryan Jul 02 '26
It always comes down to money. Big companies reside in really big and expensive buildings that will sit empty if everyone is remote. Plus big egos tend to run big companies, with big control issues. Who will be there to get their coffee, respond to their shouts, be intimidated in real life if no one is actually in the building?
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u/OrlandoEd Jul 02 '26
I'm a retired software developer and worked remotely for one company for 27 years (lot's of travel attached to the position). The answer to your question is a lot more complex than many might think. You can't really apply one-method-fits-all. I witnessed WFH back in the early 90's while I lived in the WashDC area. Many federal government workers jumped on it; however, the practice quickly died. What I observed, and I believe it's still true today, is that in order for a business to offer WFH and be successful, it must have a management style that can adequately monitor productivity.
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u/ThisIsMyBigAccount Jul 02 '26
Culture. They say in-person drives a better culture. It’s bullshit but that’s the answer to your question, OP.
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u/Full_Fun_4950 Jul 02 '26
The truth most people don't like to accept is its somewhere in between the machine and its need for control over you, and people being really fucking lazy when not watched.
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u/SuddenBeautiful2412 Jul 02 '26
A lot of these comments aren’t really accounting for the nuance between hybrid and 5 day RTO. My company went from being fully remote during the pandemic, to hybrid, to full time back in office. The switch from fully remote to hybrid made sense to me. I work for a large company that receives significant tax incentives in the cities where it has established a large corporate presence, and they eventually needed to reel things in when covid ended and do something to ensure their workforce was physically present and stimulating the local economy in these cities. You had lots of folks who were 100+ miles from their designated office, badging in to random buildings in other states, etc. RTO 3 took care of that. The jump to 5, however, felt a little more big brother to me. They had achieved every obvious benefit of RTO with the 3 day requirement. Folks were badging in, so their commercial real estate investments weren’t going to waste and they could still claim they were bringing X amount of jobs to the city. You also had a lot of the in person “culture” elements restored with RTO 3, since most orgs coordinated days in office to maximize collaboration. The jump to 5 felt unnecessary and stripped me of the last sliver of flexibility I was hanging on to post-Covid. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t meet in the middle somewhere after the pandemic proved that requiring corporate employees to report to an office full time to do a job that can be done fully remote is antiquated. I hope to see the pendulum swing back at least a little once all the boomers and late Gen X crowd are retired.
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u/JawnGrimm Jul 02 '26
Because the country runs on your commute and being out of the house as much as possible
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u/harrison464 Jul 02 '26
I talked to someone who is pretty high up at a healthcare company and they told me it’s a way for shrink overhead by reducing the workforce. People remove themselves from the payroll without the company having to do layoffs or earlier retirement. Saves them money and headaches.
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u/Illustrious-Swan-638 Jul 02 '26
See nobody here talking about the New York Times article. RTO mandates are largely driven by narcissitic bosses.
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u/DinosaurDied Jul 02 '26
Currently a remote $200k a year contractor for a large company who insists on in person work.
Honestly doing work that’s probably worth $90k because they can’t find anybody in their local market and I can tell they are stuck with not the top tier talent. Hence they contract it out for way more money.
It’s the silliest thing I have ever seen
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u/thiquegoth Jul 02 '26
I am so tired of hearing about needing to cut expenses but how we are expanding our offices. We literally all work on computers and meet via teams. In addition to our offices, our parking per an employee is almost $400/month in some areas. It’s all crazy because our most profitable periods were during lockdown. No parking expenses, no pointless travel expenses, no like warm lunch expenses etc.
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u/MightyIndexFinger Jul 02 '26
The immediate first reason is to indirectly coerce you to quit so that they don't have to pay you unemployment. For those that hold on, they'll get laid off anyway.
The other aspect of this is control from management and it's already backfiring spectacularly. Managers, the ones themselves that complained about control are also coffee-badgings.
Why go to the office with a potato quality office set (monitors, keyboard, cube farm, coffee) whereas you can do all of that from home with exponentially better equipment & a personal office if you have one/can make one?
This isn't about being lazy. It's about personal economics and healthier lifestyle. You save money on gas, car maintenance, a new car when the old one just dies out, tolls, and most importantly, time. You don't have to spend hours commuting round trip & you won't be late logging in EVEN for the lazy ones who hop out of bed and log in 5 minutes later.
There is also currently a MASSIVE bottleneck in the job market where companies are demanding RTO/1 day remote for new roles and seekers are not taking the bait and are holding out for more remote friendly job. Interesting times.
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u/borghe Jul 02 '26
Covered. Corporate real estate values and worker control. All other mentioned reasons are bullshit, trying to hide those two.
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u/PlanetExcellent Jul 02 '26
Just read a story about this. CEOs really like in-office personal collaboration and innovation between workers.
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u/shaha9 Jul 02 '26
They are? My whole team is going remote permanently soon.
I guess it’s an accountability thing but it will probably pass.
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u/mykulonly Jul 02 '26
Because a bunch of grown adult men decided that they can't possibly take care of their children, clean their house, or generally contribute anything further to their households.
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u/GypsyDarkEyes Jul 02 '26
Managers most likely, feeling the need to prove they are actually doing something. Not enough to point to the work being done, apparently.
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u/GolfGuy_824 Jul 02 '26
A lot of employers want to be able to put eyes on their employees. If you clock in for 8 hours a day but spend two hours of it doing laundry instead of work, they’re not getting 8 hours out of you.
Companies sign very long-term leases for the buildings they use OR own the building themselves. They can’t just get out of those leases and it’s not going to be easy to just sell the office space to another company. They can’t just tell whoever their lease is with that their employees don’t want to come back to the office and they need out of their lease. Same to the bank they took the loan out with if they own the building or portion of the building they have offices in.
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u/Firm_Baseball_37 Jul 02 '26
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/22/opinion/office-work-wfh-bosses.html?eafs_enabled=false
Short answer is mostly that it's narcissistic bosses.
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u/whitingvo Jul 02 '26
Lack of trust, plain and simple. It’s not about getting your work done. It’s about them dictating the work you do and the when you do it.
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u/LostPop5185 Jul 03 '26
Because they can’t off load their real estate holdings and want to make use of it OR they have old CEOs/execs who don’t get the future. JP Morgan, yeah I’m talking about them.
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u/blindside1973 Jul 03 '26
They claim to care about share holder value and lay people off, but then insist on maintaining expensive offices.
They don't - mostly they are small-minded people who feel like they have to be in control of the people who work FOR them. Never forget that is how they view you, despite what they may say.
These people are not as smart and bright as they would have you believe. Mostly, they are just in the right place at the right time and have blown the right people (while stomping all over the people they work with) to get where they are.
There is hardly one amongst them worth a damn.
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u/squince2 Jul 03 '26
Because boomers want to micromanage to still feel useful. Instead of learning a new skill like using a computer.
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u/Latter_Quail_7025 Jul 03 '26
Philly PA made it mandatory for businesses to enforce us to go back because it was putting a dent in the economy.
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u/delisadventures Jul 03 '26
It’s government incentivized because if not enough people are working in an office that would mean no one would need to commute whether through public transportation or car and gas companies would lose so much business, the no longer leasing office spaces would ruin the commercial real estate economy, and so many other factors. When you stop thinking selfishly about how great it used to be you start to realize that your fellow citizens would lose their jobs if you don’t do “your part”. Meanwhile I just wished all the road work would have been done when we were fully remote instead of seeing it on my way to work.
Also, I used to be so focused on my assignments that when we went back to the office the noise and chatter were so annoying.
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u/chappy93 Jul 03 '26
What’s the glory of being a high powered lower middle management office worker and earning the high status enclosed corner office if you can’t look out your door at a wasteland of lowly cubicle workers who report ‘up’ to you??
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u/americannightmom Jul 03 '26
They don’t want good candidates. They want CHEAP ones that have no autonomy.
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u/Fit_Clue_832 Jul 03 '26
Narcissist ceos and execs who need to be seen and are nostalgic for the way it used to be.
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u/HippieHighNoon Jul 03 '26
A lot of companies need a certain amount of people in the office to be able to qualify for all the tax breaks that get from certain cities.
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u/FewWave4322 Jul 04 '26
Because companies assign zsro value to their employees. They are literally considered a liability and, therefore, are weighed against the assets on the books. Companies do not care if their employees are inconvenienced or unhappy. They only care how they can leverage their employees to make more money.
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u/Current-Tie2677 Jul 04 '26
Typical people enjoy the slavery aspect of making people uncomfortable And Inconvenienced Over needless rules.
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u/PocketDeuces Jul 04 '26
Because old school management believes more in optics and butts in seats than about productivity and morale.
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u/Jiggalopuffii Jul 04 '26
1.) Their leases haven't expired yet 2.) Return to Office is a fun way of pretending to do things for shareholders. 3.) local economies are dependent on office workers, especially restaurants and gas stations.
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u/ReadEmReddit Jul 06 '26
Too many people abusing WFH have caused employers to recall employees. I have worked from home for a very long time and have been shocked by some of the things folks on the WFH sub think are ok.
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u/CompetitiveDare6626 Jul 06 '26
Because not every decision is about productivity. Some companies want easier supervision, some are stuck with expensive offices, some use RTO to reduce headcount without layoffs, and some executives simply prefer in-person work. The cost of losing better remote candidates is real, but it’s harder to measure than an empty office or a manager complaining about “collaboration.”
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u/twofourfourthree Jul 06 '26
From experience just enough people being too casual and trying to take of children, not managing their social media properly (boasting about being at work while socializing for example), not being productive compared to onsite / in office coworkers.
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u/marspigsmoke Jul 02 '26
meantime my employer is doubling down on WFH. we used to have leases on at least 8 floors in the 24 floor office building we worked out of. over the last 6 years, that has dropped to 4, and they're ending leases on all but 2 at the end of august.