Spoiler Alert – it’s not lack of productivity!

For any of my job seekers out there (particularly the corporate folks who have had the luxury of working remotely for the past few years due to the COVID pandemic), you may be noticing a HUGE majority of companies are listing their jobs as “on-site” now, when one or two years ago the majority of roles were listed as “remote”. You may have noticed as well many of the top employers are sharing their plans for returning their workforce to the office. It’s happening…and you might be baffled as to why?!

So let’s break down a few concepts of what you’ll HEAR vs. the more likely.

DISCLAIMER* These are my own thoughts and deductions. Research and take from this what you will, but my thoughts are not affiliated with any company position or insider information.

The debates and controversy of remote work have always been focused on the qualitative side of things. For example, “people are more or less productive working from home”, or “our corporate culture suffers when we can’t work together in person”. This the standard rhetoric for the discussion. There has generally been a hung jury on the topic – with some people preferring it, and others not. That is what remote work has ALWAYS boiled down to is a preference of the individual. There is conflicting data to argue pros and cons of the impact of remote work on productivity, company culture, mental health, etc. Ultimately, however, we’ve had the greatest 2 year social experiment with COVID to demonstrate that a LARGE number of jobs CAN be done remotely.

So why are these companies forcing everyone back to the office if we’ve proven we can do it from home, and we prefer it personally?

Unfortunately – it’s always going to be the executives that get the prerogative of deciding how their company will operate. Not the individual worker. So despite anything, know that. Your leadership has prerogative (just as they do for any company decisions – and that’s ok).

That said – you’re going to hear them share narratives primarily related to company culture, innovation, productivity when it comes to WHY they need people to return to the office. It’s the more digestible reason for people to swallow, frankly.

But here is some “not-so-profound” insight for you: Follow the money.

Corporations, and even small to mid size businesses receive large tax breaks for establishing footprints in cities and states. These tax breaks can vary but can be quite substantial and can save companies millions of dollars annually. Cities and states are willing to do this because when a company employs people in their state and towns, those people pay taxes that fund said city and state. Setting up an office of 1000 people can mean 15%-35% individual income tax, and in many cases local property, and sales taxes brought in by those individuals. So why wouldn’t these cities incentivize the company to set up shop in town?

On top of the tax benefits, workers commuting into these cities means foot traffic to local commerce (restaurants, coffee shops, and other retail establishments). This is literally how local economies flourish!

So when we’re all comfortably working from home, avoiding the commutes, we’re using less gas, drinking less starbucks (maybe…), and not attending those random happy hours. The local economies have been suffering. This actually is quite a bummer, because there are lots of local small businesses owned by great people that worked really hard to set up their establishment, only for COVID to put a damper on their American dream.

So – the cities are feeling that pressure, and local economies HAVE really suffered over the past few years. You may have been doing your job better and your company may still be thriving, but that’s not the case for the local mocha Joe’s on main street. After a few years of financial pressure, the local governments are putting pressure back on corporations (employers) to either bring back the workforce or – no more tax breaks!

This is important to understand – and empathize with the complexities of this. This isn’t about right or wrong or whether you agree or disagree with this. This is how economics works. My point in sharing this is to shed some transparency and perhaps more clarity with the return to office proposition.

I personally love working remotely, and hope that I can continue to do so. But I’ve been disappointed with the narrative of many large companies as to why returning to the office is necessary. I think people should be given a little more credit for their remote contributions over the past few years. Pretending that culture and productivity are suffering is, in my opinion, a bit insulting. Technology has allowed us to thrive in remote settings and, while I can get behind doing our part to help local economies, I am less enthusiastic about returning to an office for the sake of “company culture”.

What do you think?

PS- if you’re looking for more remote work options or want to get started in a completely remote lifestyle of digital marketing, check out my resources at stan.store/Jayleneziehm and my linktr.ee/Jayleneziehm to get started!