Happy Sunday, pals!

🇵🇹 I’m headed to Web Summit in Lisbon this week! If you’ll be around, reply to this email and let’s meet up!

In today’s issue

• ⚡️ Lightning List - What I’m reading this week

• 💣️ RTO Truth Bomb - The real tea on why you’re back in the office

• 💰️ Sponsor - Bolt for Business (special offer for readers)

⚡️ Lightning List ⚡️ 

🧠 The Great Gaslighting

Remember when we thought remote work was here to stay? laughs in 2024

The RTO circus is in full swing. Meta's threatening to fire workers who don't show up 3 days a week. Amazon's Andy Jassy claimed people "generally aren't as productive" at home (while their stock hit all-time highs during remote work, but okay Andy). Google's spending billions on new offices while cutting remote workers' pay. Even Zoom – yes, ZOOM – is demanding employees come to the office.

And how can we forget this awkward gem from WebMD’s parent company earlier this year. (full cringe warning - view at your own risk)

The gaslighting is real, folks. And it's time we called it what it is.

🎭 The Theater of RTO

Let's break down the greatest hits of return-to-office propaganda:

"We need spontaneous collaboration!" Sure, because your best ideas always come from Bob from accounting interrupting you to ask about your expense receipts.

"Culture is built in person!" Translation: We spent millions on ping pong tables, and somebody needs to use them.

"Innovation happens at the water cooler!" Ah yes, those groundbreaking water cooler moments. Like discussing Ted Lasso or complaining about the office temperature.

Here's what the data actually shows:

• 98% of workers want to work remotely at least some of the time (Gallup)

• Companies with flexible work policies experienced a 60% reduction in employee turnover rates (Global Workplace Analytics)

• Remote workers report 35%-40% more productivity than their office counterparts (FlexJobs)

• Gen Z workers report higher engagement in remote settings - 72% say they're more productive at home (Deloitte)

💰 Follow the Money

Want to know the real reason for RTO? Follow the money, honey. 💅 

Commercial real estate is having a moment – and not the good kind:

• San Francisco's office vacancy rate hit 36.6% in Q1 2024

• Manhattan office values could drop by $50 billion by 2029

• Major banks are writing off billions in commercial real estate loans

But it's not just about empty buildings. There's another uncomfortable truth...

The Middle Management Panic

Remote work exposed an awkward reality: some roles exist primarily to watch other people work. When everyone's remote and hitting their targets, it becomes harder to justify having eight layers of management between workers and decision-makers.

Food for though: Do companies with the most aggressive RTO policies tend to have the highest ratios of managers to individual contributors? Maybe.

🎯 The Real Agenda

Let's be real about what's actually happening:

1. Control Freaks Gone Wild

• 50% of large enterprises now use monitoring tools for remote workers, up from 30% in 2020 (Gartner)

• JPMorgan executives get reports on ID swipes to track office attendance

• Microsoft had to backtrack on its "productivity score" after backlash about surveillance

• Employers are using hybrid work tech to monitor office usage

2. Protecting Legacy Investments

• Meta is stuck with $3.5B in unused office space despite layoffs

• Salesforce carries $2.2B in empty office leases

• Nearly 98M square feet of Manhattan office space sits vacant (Cushman & Wakefield)

3. The Status Quo Protection Racket
   Same executives who said in 2020 that remote work would destroy productivity are now ignoring their own record profits from 2021-2023. Looking at you, Jamie Dimon, who claimed remote work "doesn't work for young people" while Chase posted record earnings during peak WFH.

The math isn't mathing:

• 90% of companies report productivity stayed the same or improved with remote work (Mercer)

• Companies saved an average of $11,000 per employee annually during remote work (Global Workplace Analytics)

• Only 3% of employees want to return to office full-time (Morgan McKinley)

Here's the real tea: This isn't about productivity, culture, or collaboration. It's about control, sunk costs, and a generation of leaders struggling to adapt to change.

The companies winning right now? They're the ones who trust their people, focus on outcomes over attendance, and invest in digital collaboration instead of real estate.

🔮 What Happens Next

Prediction time:

• The Great Compromise(™ pending): Most companies will settle on a hybrid model that makes everyone equally unhappy

• The talent divide will widen: Companies with flexible policies will continue poaching top talent

• The real estate reckoning: By 2025, expect massive office-to-residential conversion projects

• The worker rebellion: Already happening. 37% of workers say they'd quit rather than return full-time

The future of work isn't about where we work – it's about how we work. And no amount of free office snacks is going to change that.

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That’s all for now, pals. See ya next week.

Eryn