I think the underlying problem here is that despite what the stock market would have you believe, sales are down, moral is down, and many industries are experiencing light to moderate headwinds.
RTO is an (desperate) attempt to resuscitate businesses experiencing economic woes.
From the inside, RTO feels more like a way to reclaim leverage from highly paid technical employees who have become too uppity. Summoning us back to the office is about putting us in our place - but in the social hierarchy, not physically.
I genuinely wonder if that is actually the case. Our team ( fairly technical team within a non-technical type company ) repeatedly ( edit: and successfully) pushed back against any kind of RTO ( I personally sent rather non-corporate email asking why the RTO calls if they can't even get enough desks for rotation ). I am sure bosses hate being questioned, but I don't see anyone begging to do my job. In other words, something has got to give.
I don't know what is going to happen exactly. I feel the push from bigger corps will give smaller one a "permission" to do it as well, but I know I am already doing what I can to make sure I am ready. Last time the company tried to call me back in specifically, I was lucky enough to secure current position and was able to tell them no.
That said, even today, I know I would not be able to get my job back there and I didn't burn bridges in any conventional way ( unless you consider saying no to RTO burning a bridge ).
Nah, RTO is in no way trying to fix business sales. It's entirely a way to layoff workers or to control them. Trying to put an economic reason behind this power play is Febreezing a turd.
management wants to execute their fancy plan to make more money, and see control, supervision, faster iteration, tighter feedback loops, blablabla ... as one part of it, hence the amazing "all hands on deck" idea that today is "everyone in the office".
Yes, I have heard that as well, because having people on the office is going to magically ramp up sales, as that is the missing factor why they aren't taking off. /s
You're misunderstanding what was said. It's about costs/income. RTO (probably) doesn't increase income - but people will (most likely) quit, reducing costs. Thus the ratio gets better.
Most likely, because no one on this thread has been in company meetings from Fortune 500s where this is reason being told for RTO, while they keep doing good old outsourcing as always.
"Collaboration in the office strengthens opportunities for sales" is the message.
RTO is an (desperate) attempt to resuscitate businesses experiencing economic woes.