Post-COVID Return to Office: meritocracy of mediocrity
The post-COVID Return to Office (RTO) transition brings great employment opportunities for mediocre employees. Many top performers want to keep the productive freedom discovered during the COVID pandemic. Top performers treasure the freedom of working from anywhere, and are good enough to find jobs that allow that. That leaves management stuck in the office with leftover mediocre employees.
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Housing prices and commuting costs
With real estate prices at record highs, top performers do not necessarily want to spend so much money to live in big cities or expensive areas close to offices. With transportation costs at record highs, and Putin subsidizing genocide with energy sales, top performers do not want the guilt of burning the planet commuting to an old school office.
Office rats in a messed up corporate maze
Bottom tier performers who cannot perform well working from anywhere and whose main ability is showing up to the office to be told what to do and how to do it are the new master rats of the corporate office maze. Top performers are working from anywhere. Work from anywhere (WFA) is the new status symbol.
Everyone knows that employees stuck in the office all day have some sort of problem at home, a cognitive disability, or a very old school brain. They are not not good enough for WFA, or are not good enough to be hired by innovative, cost-sensitive, and environmental friendly companies. Even middle school bullies are beginning to pick on the kids of office workers asking if their parents are "losers" who cannot work from home.
Old traditions
For old school admin workers, work is about showing up and being in the office. In their 1980s mindset, work and productivity are about having the religious discipline of dressing up, commuting, and warming space in the office. Sucking up to the boss is the way to climb the corporate ladder.
Old schoolers like being told what to do and how to do it. For them work is not about productivity, but is rather about compliance with a traditional social activity. These are the folks who show up to the office on time every day to discuss the weather, traffic, sports, and even politics while burning the day away. Work for them is about being in the office within perspiration distance of one another rather than being online within inspiration distance.
Remote work is not for everyone
Working remotely requires the type of introversion that is characteristic of productive innovation. Being at the office requires the old school extroversion of social animals coping with life via the proxy of an office job.
Current trends are showing that top performers will insist in WFA, and will find remote work. Companies enforcing RTO policies will do so at their own peril. Confirmation bias of old school managers will show that old school workers who show up to the office are the ones who need to be promoted and rewarded. They will see remote workers are lazy rebels who want to work while watching Netflix.
Return on investment
Unfortunately for old school managers and traditional companies, in a global economy and competition for talent, technology and WFA workers will prevail. Traditional office space will quickly become a waste of money. Traditional RTO policies will simply show investors which are the companies led by old school managers having a hard time adjusting to a changed work environment. These are the managers willing to waste resources in traditional office space to the detriment of the bottom line and the environment. Who want to invest for tomorrow in the companies of yesterday? No one.
What do you think?
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