Dell said return to the office or else—nearly half of workers chose “or else”

return2ozma@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 941 points –
Dell said return to the office or else—nearly half of workers chose “or else”
arstechnica.com
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This would be a handy way to get rid of half your staff, but the people you chase away are usually the ones you want to keep. As per the Dead-Sea Effect, the ones who will leave are the ones who generally are more able to, who will be your most employable people, and thus your most talented. Usually.

Making work suck, and letting the best half of the staff bail, seems like stupid and a game show.

I read somewhere that convincing people to quit was party of some companies' plan when demanding return to office, but as you pointed out, they probably lost their top 10% or more in the quality workers group. So do that introvert parasites can have their "corporate culture" (or more critically, justify leading that bigass office building).

So much the better, as far as those executives are concerned.

Let's say you want to cut costs and you know you have momentum and a long lag where your total incompetence won't make a difference to business results in the short term, so cut costs by getting rid of the top talent.

Now if they outright just fire every good person, well that looks obviously stupid, but if those good people just... up and quit... well they are hardly to blame, and don't have to pay out those massive severances. You get your annual bonus which is big, and your big restricted stock payday might be delayed two years, but they know, realistically, they can probably coast a good 3 or 4 years before the game is up. Or if you have a supremely strong 'business brand', you might be able to coast indefinitely as the big shots will never believe that brand isn't good anymore.

Doesn't matter in the world of next quarter vision. So shortsighted.