RTO isn’t resisted because employees are lazy.
RTO is resisted because the justification was never about work.
Office real estate is a sunk cost but EC backs it as a strategy. Empty buildings is an executive embarrassment and wasted cash flow. Forcing RTO justifies cost on paper. They will never sell or write off a building as they would never admit a multimillion dollar mistake.
Avoiding layoffs and circumventing WARN compliance makes it all look clean. No severance, no bad press, no legal exposure. Comply or quit is being dressed up as culture and work ethic.
Productivity was great and is not the problem. Are you lying to yourself now or then. The same remote employee is somehow too lazy to be trusted yet also responsible for record numbers. The Schrödinger employee simultaneously a threat to productivity and the reason for your performance bonus. The contradiction is lunacy. Legacy leadership doesn’t measure outcomes they measure compliance and perception.
It’s easy to point at MD or EC and blame them for forcing this. Don’t confuse enforcers with architects. C-suite knows the numbers but that’s not what matters. Who holds power isn’t managers or CEO, it’s institutional shareholders. They control the votes and influence their compensation approval and decide if MDs keep their jobs. RTO isn’t pushed to help you, it doesn’t help Schwab, it’s to stay aligned with who has the voting power over their stock, bonuses, and seats. As much pressure as we are under, management is under a completely different kind of pressure. Why do you think multiple companies all make these changes within days of each other and they all tend to be more or less the same policy.
They say it’s about mentorship, culture, collaboration. If they believed what they said why is every meeting through a video anyway even when in office? How many meaningful mentoring hours actually happen in office? This logic doesn’t hold and just pushes the illusion.
This isn’t a growth strategy to make Schwab better. It is a reputation management strategy for people who don’t want to show any signs of faltering in a tightening market. When markets are volatile the playbook is control, RTO is the cheapest, loudest way to control regardless if it serves the business.
The same people who made those real estate bets and headcount decisions are doubling down to save face, doubling down on your time, your health, and your trust and saving nothing for you.