I was just referencing ops statement about how wfh is better even if it’s less efficient. I love wfh. I miss it.

Why do you think bosses overwhelmingly want RTO?

I think they want it because they fear productivity losses that mean lower profits, and ultimately lead to the threat of becoming uncompetitive.

If you agree with that, is your position that these fears are irrational (because in your view, no such productivity loss would occur)?

Bosses want rto because they’re paying rent for empty office space. I’ve been wfh for a decade in the consulting business, only time I’m not wfh is meeting a client. My teams are distributed across the world and our stock price says wfh is fine.

Bosses want rto because they can’t stand paying rent for empty space.

You may be right that a big part of it is the psychological weight of that sunk cost. But if that were the only reason, there would be an easy win-win: Rent less office space and let people WFH.

You're right but commercial leases for offices are usually multi year and larger companies usually sign longer leases (20, 30 years or more). They can be costly, though not impossible to wind down.

So for those large companies, the sunken cost is larger.

At the same time if they get worse talent because of it they could get lower productivity because of it

Agreed. So I think the question is: Which effect dominates?

Both effects depend greatly on whether most other employers in the industry agree amongst themselves on whether to allow WFH: If everyone allows WFH, or everyone forbids it, there's no incentive to change employers, so these are stable equilibria, all other things being equal. Employers prefer the no-WFH equilibrium since (they believe) that leaves productivity highest.

Small benefit with externalized costs, I think.

There are benefits to in office work. I don’t consider them valuable enough to offset the cost of 10hrs of uncompensated time every week or doubling my mortgage cost. I hope tax codes will incentivize allowing remote work options given the reduced burden to transportation infrastructure.