We're on, what, year 2 of the WFH-RTO wars? It's a roller-coaster for sure.

I don't get why some companies are so obsessed with RTO for jobs like software engineers, who have no reason to be in the office anyway and tend to have enough technical savvy to figure out slack and zoom (which people use in the office too btw). I mean, if I set aside my cynicism. What do they get out of it?

All these tech companies are in very high COL urban areas. In fact, they always put their office in some downtown area as well, so even going to the cheaper suburbs of the area is not always feasible due to commute. It seems like they would save so much money by letting engineers WFH:

* Less money spent on office lease, existing office space can be leased to someone else

* Less money spent on utilities, kitchen snacks, custodial...

* You get more chances to "suck people in" to do just one more thing after hours, since they basically live in their office now (I thought that was the management dream?)

* Since the WFH can work in a low COL area, they might accept lower pay

* The paycheck becomes more efficient, as both sides pay less tax. Also, often RTO means moving to a state which has much higher state income tax as well.

* Child care costs can be massively reduced for the employee, reducing salary expectations

* You have a bigger pool of people to hire, not just people in your area

* I suspect employees subconsciously count commute towards "hour worked" and adjust their hourly pay accordingly - with WFH the commute is 10 seconds so their subjective pay increases further

* A common WFH play is to relocate to a low tax, small govt state which also has fewer regulations for the employer, which saves even more money

* People might be more likely to eat at their desk, rather than: Walk to restaurant, order, eat, walk back...

* No physical contact probably means fewer HR incidents, less work for HR, so you can reduce HR headcount

The savings and efficiencies seem crazy, an I'm baffled how they figure that RTO is a good idea. I get that they have this fear that WFHers will watch Netflix all day instead of working... But honestly, when's the last time you had a software job where, when you miss your targets (KPIs, Jira tickets, whatever) you could get away with "but boss, I've been in the office all day this week! It's not my fault I couldn't get it finished". All these roles are already heavily biased towards deliverables rather than how many hours you spent delivering.

Being in the office isn't even the worst part. But the office is always in a location that's extremely hostile to employees. Why can't they open a second office in some cheap place like rural Arkansas, where the workers can get cheap quality housing with a short commute, and send some managers over there? There's something to be said for working in your pyjamas, of course, but this seems like a pretty good compromise.

As for trying to get someone who is already WFH to RTO... Sheesh. Suppose they do relocate back within commuting distance. They got into a lease or mortgage, that would otherwise be a bad deal, just so they could come to your office. Who's to say you don't lay them off anyway in a few months? And then they'll be stuck with a house they don't need or want. This creates a risk for the employee, that must be mitigated by having an even higher salary expectation.

RTO seems like swimming against the current in so many ways. Maybe I'm missing something really big here.