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workaday Thursday
May. 15th, 2025 08:01 amMy workplace has decided to call all "local" employees back to the office two days a week. (Where "local" is within a certain mileage radius, a radius I am UNFORTUNATELY just barely inside.) It doesn't start until September, so my brain has of course decided THIS is the thing to focus on right now.
At first I was pretty concerned, because the company makes all their decisions based on one thing: PROFIT. And calling employees back to the office does not increase revenue or decrease costs in any obvious way. It seems POSSIBLE that the goal is to make long-time (aka well-paid) employees who've grown accustomed to working from home quit, and then either not replace them at all, or replace them with lower-paid employees who will be more desperate, given the absolute nightmare of the job market right now.
But that's a pretty complex plan for a company that decided to pour resources into the brilliant marketing strategy of 'change the color of the cap on the bottles.' And I think there's a non-zero chance that I've forgotten the not-so-secret third reason the company does things: someone with power acting for the sake of acting.
Because the company got a new CEO late last year, and now THIS year the first quarter wasn't as successful as predicted. (I can't even begin to express what a surprise this should NOT have been to anyone.) But I'm 10,000% sure that the new CEO has been getting enormous pressure from THEIR bosses (parent company and grandparent company) to FIX THINGS. I assume they've been hearing WHAT IS YOUR ACTION PLAN TO TURN THIS AROUND??? fairly constantly.
And I guess I can understand that the new CEO would like an answer other than 'this seems pretty normal actually, probably we shouldn't upend everything that's been working for five years' so what better action plan than to rearrange thedeck desk chairs? ESPECIALLY when it can be classified as "aligning" with the policies of the parent company? Action taken, egos soothed all around, new CEO can pat themselves on the back for a job well done.
At first I was pretty concerned, because the company makes all their decisions based on one thing: PROFIT. And calling employees back to the office does not increase revenue or decrease costs in any obvious way. It seems POSSIBLE that the goal is to make long-time (aka well-paid) employees who've grown accustomed to working from home quit, and then either not replace them at all, or replace them with lower-paid employees who will be more desperate, given the absolute nightmare of the job market right now.
But that's a pretty complex plan for a company that decided to pour resources into the brilliant marketing strategy of 'change the color of the cap on the bottles.' And I think there's a non-zero chance that I've forgotten the not-so-secret third reason the company does things: someone with power acting for the sake of acting.
Because the company got a new CEO late last year, and now THIS year the first quarter wasn't as successful as predicted. (I can't even begin to express what a surprise this should NOT have been to anyone.) But I'm 10,000% sure that the new CEO has been getting enormous pressure from THEIR bosses (parent company and grandparent company) to FIX THINGS. I assume they've been hearing WHAT IS YOUR ACTION PLAN TO TURN THIS AROUND??? fairly constantly.
And I guess I can understand that the new CEO would like an answer other than 'this seems pretty normal actually, probably we shouldn't upend everything that's been working for five years' so what better action plan than to rearrange the
