3 is very real. Sometimes even openly so, as in an executive telling it out loud.

> And nobody is dumb enough to do RTO as a layoff proxy because anybody with a brain knows you're going to lose the people with options, who are exactly the people you don't want to lose.

Here is what our CEO told me once: layoffs always mean you loose more people then those you just fired. That is unavoidable and can amount to additional 30%. And obviously those will be those with options. He said that you can not avoid nor control this factor, there is no point in overly fretting about it. From his point of view, people always have agency to leave and layoffs and surrounding chaos always annoy people and weaken their ties.

These arguments based on "we do not want to loose good people in layoffs" are off mark. Company will loose good people in layoffs.

▲

olivermuty 4 days ago | parent [-]

Well RTO mandate means you lose ONLY the good people with other options or make the people with no options have animosity since the deal was changed

▲

lan321 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Being willing to switch employer for convenience does not make someone a good worker and it's not like bad hires can't change employer. I'm guessing the best employee would be someone who hates change and is financially illiterate. Never asks for a raise, works in the same company, does the same thing for 30 years for the same money.

▲

moregrist 4 days ago | parent [-]

> Being willing to switch employer for convenience does not make someone a good worker and it's not like bad hires can't change employer.

Your comment is really quite out of touch of how layoffs actually affect people.

I’ve been through a few rounds now. Morale is essentially destroyed in the short term. Your team suddenly has a lot more work with no additional support or even acknowledgement that people are now slammed.

It’s not inconvenience. It’s a significantly negative change in the work environment, and a sign that maybe your company’s long-term prospects aren’t great. Of course good people leave in these situations.

	▲	lan321 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm talking strictly about RTO as a layoff alternative and even more specifically about the perception that it'll lead to the best workers leaving. Having a bunch of people leave due to RTO is different than having seemingly random colleagues laid off. Both are not nice, RTO is more voluntarily and more avoidable since you can sometimes bargain for remote work to be a part of your contract and not just an oral agreement. It's morally questionable to call for RTO only to get rid of people without technically having layoffs, but in countries like the US getting laid off is probably worse than having working conditions degrade to where you just find another job of your own volition since there's less urgency.

▲

watwut 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You wont loose only the good people. You will loose the usual mix. Plenty of slackers or not good people are fully capable to make their way through interviews. That is how they got here, after all.

It is always just pure wishful thinking that "all the people you will loose when you alienate someone like me" are totally the best people out there.