this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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Amazon tells managers they can now fire employees who won't come into the office 3 times a week (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Amazon tells managers they can now fire employees who won't come into the office 3 times a week::Amazon shared new guidelines that give managers a template for terminating employees over RTO.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I keep hearing people making this argument.

Is the assumption that Amazon is ignoring their finance dept and that this is driven by the sunk cost fallacy? “We dumped a bunch of money into this, therefore we should continue to move forward with it.”

I ask because the appraised value of property is based on what other’s will likely pay for it. If no one else is wants to pay a lot of money for my office space, it doesn’t matter if I have 1 employees or 10,000 employees in that building.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

A lot of companies have long-term contracts for these office spaces that they can't get out of, so whether or not their workers are using the space, they have to pay for it. They should really just write it off as a loss, but I'm not too familiar with how that works. Maybe they can't.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

They do write it off. The real estate theory of RTO doesn't hold water.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah, that’s kind of what I was getting at with the “sunk cost” thing. “We’re stuck paying for it, so we should use it.”

Even if using it make people less productive, make recruiting harder, and forces tech companies to pay expensive regional Silicon Valley salaries.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I think you have the right idea but came to the wrong conclusion. Why would anyone buy office space if there is no value in employees coming to the office? Hint: they wouldn't.

Edited to add: these properties may become a liability on their books which would impact their ability to apply for or pay for loans, as well as other negatives for the company.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No company likes to have liabilities on the books, but to think that they would force an RTO for that reason alone doesn't pass the smell check. It's a more economical option to write off the loss and try your best to sublease the space, or attempt to get out of your lease early. That way, you're no longer stuck with the costs once it's done, and can make more money long-term.

We can also observe this happening in the real world: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/20/dropbox-hands-over-25percent-of-san-francisco-headquarters-back-to-landlord-.html

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I doubt it's just a singular reason they are forcing return to office.

It's likely property value, micro managing , reducing head count and so on all play a role in jt