A new survey shows that the vast majority of senior executives say would’ve approached their return-to-work push “differently.”
A new survey shows that the vast majority of senior executives say would’ve approached their return-to-work push “differently.”
Executives are interested in preserving their buddies and their investments in large corporate rental space.
E.g. Concord-Pacific, by itself, owns something 60-80% of all of the office space in all of downtown Vancouver. Easily into the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars tied up in imaginary value.
Including the massive convention center and almost all of Gastown.
I doubt that executives are that clever. I’ve seen this conspiracy theory circulating atm, but it relies on so many assumptions that I consider it unlikely. It assumes that executives “help” each other out by willfully spending money for office space and all it costs, that could be saved in expenses by employees working from home. Corporations are obsessed with cost cutting, why would they willfully waste money? It also assumes that corporations help each other out. Considering the fierce competitiveness corporations are exposed to and how this extends to all fields, including office space, employees, office equipment, etc., this is nothing more than a conspiracy theory. Another assumption is that the push for a return to the office comes from ALL or mostly all executives. Is there actually data supporting this claim? Who is really doing this?
What I think is the real reason, is far simpler and requires less mental acrobatics to justify: The people, who are pushing for a return to the office, (a) have a stake in the performance of the company and (b) are not working themselves when they are supposed to be working from home. They then project their own behavior upon others, and therefore push for a return to the office to, in their mind, prevent their enployees from slacking off.
All large hedge funds and investment portfolios have a real estate component. They lose money if they do it. They think on a level of “if everyone does this what will happen”
Do what?
How does forcing their own workers back into their office raise or lower the value of their own real estate? If they use it, they won’t sell it, value is irrelevant then.
But lots of companies that are nothing to do with hedge fund management or also pushing people do return to the office.