The RTO Wave Of 2023

One of the hottest topics at the beginning of this year is undoubtedly returning to office policies. In my previous article, I mentioned being torn on the RTO trend and advocated for flexibility from both employees and companies. That's a bit too reductive though - the topic itself is very nuanced and in this article, I want to dig a bit deeper.

Ever been in a group where a few people were very vocal about their opinions while most kept quiet, but upon further inspection, you found out that the others didn't necessarily share that opinion? IMO almost all groups are like that. How does this apply to the discussion about RTO? Well if you start reading posts where a handful of people complain and give endless arguments about why RTO is a mistake, you might start considering that most employees think like that. After all, you don't see a lot of RTO supporters defending their position on those forums, just random trolls saying stuff like "get over it", "employees are too spoiled these days" or simply "this is just capitalism bro, go somewhere else if you don't like it".

I've talked to a lot of engineers and managers and I think the story is not quite what it seems at first glance. Let's look at some arguments that I've seen and heard and at the end I'll give you my 2c.

It's a way to do silent layoffs

A lot of people argue that forcing people to go to the office is a way to make them quit without actually firing them. I don't think this is the case. A lot of big tech companies have done actual layoffs and called people back into the office and players like Google, Meta, etc. have large teams orchestrating these operations - so you better believe they thought of every option. Plus, it would be a very inefficient way to do layoffs. What if nobody quits? Do managers ask their people "hey would you quit if we forced you back into the office?" No, they don't, and leaving things up to chance like this is not how businesses work.

Sure, some folks have quit or will quit if forced back, but that's a much smaller percentage than you think. Especially in this job market, just leaving your job over RTO is not a very clever move.

It's a way for middle managers to keep their job

This one is a hard no. RTO decisions are made at the executive level - not even VPs are consulted. It's not like the management team sat together in a room and came up with this strategy, they were most likely told of the decision with minimal explanation and were left to communicate it to their reports. Btw, managers don't need to come into the office to keep their jobs, their KPIs are totally different.

There is one grain of truth to this though - some managers, especially newer ones, are feeling the imposter syndrome and view being in the same room as their team as an opportunity to "prove their worth". Again, this is a very small percentage, but if you happen to work for such a manager you'll know it (and know that it's time to find another team).

It's a way to justify office space leases

This is partly true, in the sense that if an office space is not used (or barely used) there is no reason for companies to keep renting it. And as a matter of fact, a lot of companies cut back on their office spending starting with 2021 - reducing the number of office floors or even closing down a site altogether. Nobody needs to "justify" leasing those spaces - if they're not used for some time and the lease expires (the lease is usually done for several years) then the company will not renew that lease. It's that simple. Office space is leased with the intent of being used as a collaborative environment for employees but it's not a reason to force people to return to the office.

There is another argument here - that big investors in these companies are also tied into the real estate market and having these offices empty is bad for businesses. Sure, this argument might hold water in a 2020 world, where most of us were in a full-scale lockdown, but it doesn't make a lot of sense now. The number of office buildings being built has decreased over the past couple of years but demand is going up constantly. If this was the main reason for RTO, we would have seen it in 2021 when most companies would have called in their personnel to work - which didn't happen.

Another angle to this is cost. Sure, the rent cost is significant for big tech companies which have massive campuses or entire buildings being leased, but this is not the case for most. If you think about annual spending, office rent is much less of a factor compared to other expenses - such as salaries. So why would you risk upsetting your people by calling them into the office just to "justify" several hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, when that's the annual salary of a few employees? At the same time, big hedge funds and investment banks are too well-diversified and prepared for dealing with this kind of situation in 2023, so I don't buy it.

It serves the need to control

It's well understood that humans have a need for control and this is especially the case for executives. And it just happens to be the case that people feel a better sense of control and visibility when their team is in front of them. This is a tricky one. The truth is that the life of an executive is totally different from your regular employee. A chance encounter in the elevator, in-person group meetings with large audiences or even passing by someone else's desk to ask for a piece of information is much more valuable to an executive than it is for your average Joe. This is even more the case for older managers, who are taking longer to adapt to this remote/hybrid setup.

This is aligned with the information I got by chatting with other managers - they miss the energy of the office, seeing people working together for a common goal, and having that sense of belonging that seems to have been broken in the pandemic. So it's not so much about actual control and micro-managing (though that happens in some cases) but more about getting face-to-face, direct feedback from others and this can easily be mistaken for the need to control.

It's about increasing productivity

Again, this is a controversial one, because it has many different angles and is fairly hard to quantify on paper. For the day-to-day work of strong tech professionals, I'd say that this argument doesn't hold. They know what they have to do, they have the skills to do it and they have the right attitude to see it done. Forcing these people back in the office "just because" doesn't make a lot of sense and it doesn't sit well with them.

On the other hand, you have people that are not at all engaged with their work - they slack off, they're not responsive when you need them and just do the absolute minimum to get by. Now, it's not like getting these folks back in the office will change that - it won't. But it will give their managers and peers more insight and visibility into their work and this leads to better decisions overall.

That being said, having people next to each other does help with productivity in some cases, but the way it happens is not easy to explain or measure. Think about starting a new project - how much faster is a team able to converge on a design if they sit in the same room as opposed to endless Zoom calls? Or when you have new folks in the team, periods close to big releases, having difficult conversations, aligning on long-term strategy etc.

But those are obvious - there is more nuance to this. I'm talking simple stuff like pair programming sessions, eavesdropping on a cool conversation in the kitchen that sparks an idea in your head, or building trust by simply going to lunch with others. How can you quantify this? You can't, but I believe it enables the full potential of a team in ways that going fully remote can't. Sure, it does eat up from your "working hours" but I believe it has a good ROI if done right - done right just means not doing stuff like going out to smoke every 30 minutes for 10 minutes.

It's about building culture

As much as I hate how this word gets used these days, I have to agree with this. It's impossible to even define your company's culture when everyone is working from home and almost never see each other. Some of you might say that office lunches or board game nights don't help much - but I believe they do. Before the pandemic, I was in the office full-time and I still maintain a few relationships after all these years in a way that working remotely never allowed me. If you ever heard about mirror neurons, I'm a big believer in that. Watching other engineers and managers formed me as a professional in many ways and I'm deeply grateful for the experiences I had when in the office.

Chatting with your manager face-to-face is totally different than over Zoom. Going to a presentation about sales numbers or a brand-new technology widens your perspective. Having the HR team come in and give you some sweets on a random occasion brightens your day. Discussing with folks from your team (or other teams) over a cup of coffee or a beer after work brings you together as a team, which in turn builds trust - and trust is a fundamental attribute of high-performing teams.

I'm not saying that culture is defined by coming to an office. But I do believe that it's very hard to feel engaged when you're always sitting at home and not interacting with your peers directly.

So what do I believe is the reason for this wave of RTO? I don't know and I honestly don't care. I think there's too much fuss over this issue, much more than it deserves. If commuting to the office or other personal issues are making it difficult for you to come into the office, you should look for another company that allows for that instead of wasting your energy debating. This whole RTO talk is not worth its money IMO. We're definitely seeing a shift of perspective about office vs. remote work that started in 2020 and continues to this day. But as with all things of this magnitude, it takes time. It can take several more years until we gather more data points and come up with an optimal working setup, but we're not there yet.

If I had to guess about the reasons, I believe there are multiple, but it all boils down to this - profitability. Many companies are struggling because of the global economic climate and are looking to become more efficient. And many executives believe that RTO is going to help with that. Are they right? I don't know, but what I do know there are valid reasons for RTO and there are valid arguments against it. And I also know the big companies have gathered a lot of data points before making these decisions. It's well known that if you leave it optional, many will prefer the comfort of home to coming to the office (which is understandable). So that's why you see these companies enforcing a hybrid or full RTO policy, to swing the pendulum in the other direction.

My bet is that the name of the game is flexibility - going to the office when it makes sense, but this comes only after people understand the benefits, so here's where the enforcing part comes into play. There's so much more to work than just sitting at a desk and coding or doing presentations, but it's hard to see that when you're just working from home.

Does this mean that I'm a fan of returning to the office? Well yes and no. Of course, I don't enjoy driving for 2h just to get to the office and back and other aspects of being in an office. But I do enjoy being around other people and building something great together and if the office is the place for that, then so be it.