When Rowan Rosenthal heard about Grindr's return-to-office mandate during a virtual town hall meeting in August, anxiety, confusion and anger set in. The principal product designer lived within a 25-minute bike ride from the company's Brooklyn office but instead was required to report to one in Los Angeles, where Rosenthal's department was assigned. This doesn't make sense and there's no way this will happen, Rosenthal thought. But it did happen. And two weeks later, Rosenthal realized that desp

Return to the office? These workers quit instead.::When Rowan Rosenthal heard about Grindr’s return-to-office mandate during a virtual town hall meeting in August, anxiety, confusion and anger set in. The principal product designer lived within a 25-minute bike ride from the company’s Brooklyn office but instead was required to report to one in Los Angeles, where Rosenthal’s department was assigned. This doesn’t make sense and there’s no way this will happen, Rosenthal thought. But it did happen. And two weeks later, Rosenthal realized that desp

  • barry_budapest@lemmy.worldEnglish
    511·
    1 year ago

    Layoffs are unpopular so companies are tightening the belt by making the working conditions less hospitable.

    Return to office is designed to have employees leave willingly so they can reduce headcount without making employees feel unsafe about budget cuts.

    What they don’t seem to care is top performers are the ones most able to move to another job with better working conditions.

    With a trim at the bottom by letting go of low performers and encouraging top performers to leave they are just trending toward mediocrity.

    • iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.worldEnglish
      241·
      1 year ago

      All of that pales in comparison to this:

      We created X growth in profit for our shareholders.

      If a company is publicly traded, the shareholders are now by law their highest obligation. It doesn’t matter if that growth comes in the form of new clients or salaries unpaid through RTO policies. No other appeal matters other than generating more profit than the previous quarter at any cost.

      Not maintaining. Not healthy business. Growth at any cost.

    • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      designed to have employees leave willingly so they can reduce headcount

      But it’s always the best ones who leave first.

      Are they really that stupid, or do they only have best ones? ;-)

      • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
        42·
        1 year ago

        The best ones are generally paid the most.

        You got a cycle or two of firing the best hiring cheaper promoting from inside until you lose all of the useful people in the company than everybody moves on in the cycle begins anew

        • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Have you ever worked in a place where 20% - 30% of all workers have left (voluntarily or not)?

          Forget your cycles then. It feels like the company is unable to do anything useful anymore, and then even the ones who don’t give a damn about anything, those who only let time go by, are starting to look for a way out of there.

          • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Yes, three times now, I’ve begun to envy the ones getting severance and moving on.

            The smart companies will use a pretty decent carrot on a stick to retain just enough people to retrain the new people.

        • gian @lemmy.grys.itEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          The best ones are generally paid the most.

          And generally the ones you don’t want going to a competitor…