Coyne said the sale of Progressive buildings could not have happened at a worse time in terms of the state of the real estate market, but added that suburban office space is still very appealing to businesses.
They held on while the market got worse and worse, banking on a mass RTO to keep their properties valuable.
That is what it looks like. Apparently they were even planning on building a new campus before Covid hit.
First thing that came to mind when I read this was that they want people to resign and leave (cheaper for them vs RIF).
I suspect they are going to lose a few key people with this 5-days in the office nonsense.
Oh, clearly. Theyâre looking to reduce how much management they have inside of six months, and theyâve already had walkouts due to RTO mandates. Iâd wager that executives explicitly discussed how many people they expected to quit under RTO and whether that was enough or too many.
that new requirement will âstrengthen our cultureâ
I wonder what upper management thinks their culture is versus the lower folk. AND how forcing people to do their job X miles away (where X>0) strengthens said culture.
Fun note: âCultureâ is another word for âLoyalty.â Higher âLoyaltyâ leads to lower wages.
X could also be <0 if you aim your vector the other direction
Direction is irrelevant in this example. Time is also an important factor, though.
Pretty sure X is intended as a scalar function here. Likely the magnitude of vector X.
In the best sense, culture means how well employees get along with each other and how well they buy into managementâs plans. A good corporate culture leads to better productivity. If the owners try to claim all the productivity for themselves, it can hurt employeesâ morale and worsen the corporate culture.
When culture is used as a eeuphemism for loyalty, employees are indeed on the receiving end of the eeuphemism.
even with RTO policies (we are 2+ days, w M & Th prioritized but even that is fuzzy) today is a great example of what will be hard to claw back.
There are 51 work spaces on my half of the bldg. I am the only one in any of them. The other sides of the rectangle have some folks, at a rate much higher than 1/51.
In my recent experience Tuesday is at or above capacity, Thursday is almost at capacity, Wednesday maybe half full, Monday around a quarter, Friday you question if youâre dreaming
Wednesday is the day most people come into the office, so the parking garage is fullest. But Tuesday is the day most people on our floor come in (one department on the floor ONLY comes in on Tuesdays, and they make up maybe 1/3 of the floor).
I might change my days to M R F as a result. I donât like being around too many people.
I like T/W/Th because I have a decently long commute so it feels like a mini week within the week. Occasionally Iâll do M/T/Th and the week drags a bit more
When I was 3 days a week, I did TWT and AirBnBed 2 nights (my commute was 3 hours each way).
So glad that Iâve been WFH since about 2000. Long before it was even a thing. Got declined for LTD coverage back then because the underwriter said they couldnât evaluate if I was disabled or not since I wasnât out of the house 20% of the time.
I got accepted to a business incubator about 4 months pre-covid. Figured Iâd be Mr. Business Man at that point, got a desk at the incubator, put on some pants and went to âthe officeâ for 3-4 months. Then I saw covid coming, brought my computer etc back home and havenât left since. And canât imagine I ever will again.
The wfh lifestyle is just too nice, too convenient for me to ever justify even a half hour commute every day.
I feel your pain.
Sweet merciful crap, I hope they pay you a lot!
After a few weeks I went every second week and then full time remote after a few months. Canât complain about the pay.
Perversely, I miss my 5-hour commute. (Pre-pandemic, I only went into the office one week each month.)