It is called freedom of choice. I understand that not many believe in freedom to choose your own path in this country anymore. We have to do what the millionaires tells us to do, after all. It is surprising so many are like the mindless drone followers in Apple's 1984 commercial.
In the organization I work for, we invested in technology that made us smarter as an organization, no matter what life throws at us and we have a hybrid TW policy now. Being adaptable is a win-win for both employer and employee as it reduces costs in many areas (on both sides) as make work-life situation better for most.
How many in total is employed by your organization?
What is their global reach / impact / availability to consumers or are they B2B?
Does your company focus on hardware sales as well as services and have major AI work to complete?
Many corporations implemented technology for the pandemic. In fact the ability to work remotely has been there for over a DECADE: VPNs + laptops or VMs + VPNs.
The only MAJOR thing corporations implemented was a huge switch to Slack/MS Teams or similar collaborative chat software (away from Skype for Business) and also going to Zoom, when Polycom and Tandberg owned by Cisco for a few years now. Mostly because major corporations didn’t and would not implement either former big tech for video conferencing in DZ or outside of firewall and traditionally wouldn’t allow outside connections in, nor pay for a fleet of licenses for software for Polycom on laptops. Androids and iPhones existed for a long time so its not that we’re more mobile, again this has been there for over a decade now. its the ease of use of Zoom that once they encrypted traffics corporations flocked to it since you COULD use it on laptops, tablets and smartphones. You didn’t need hardware infrastructure and dedicated or knowledgeable team(s) members to support it (such as myself). Hardware companies partnered with Cisco and Zoom for great cameras and software to be implemented into existing infrastructure and the cost was negligible and cheaper than the old systems aforementioned.
Now we’re seeing silly expensive hardware again for 3D zooming where someone stands in a box or uses their smartphone for 4K 3D Video conferencing - which is a complete waste of bandwidth - would not work for those working at home.
Again its one good thing if you can work for a company in your field to work from home but in comparing to a global corporation - you gotta state what the comparison level for level is else its not ‘apples to apples’ or ‘oranges to oranges’ but smaller 1 offs here and there.
Don’t get me wrong:
I’d love for corporations to reduce expensive rental or owned property footprint and USE that money for higher pay and bonuses.
But think of the other side of the scale … many corporations would reduce your benefits since you’re at home now the majority of the time, don’t need to travel into the office, no need to support your dental since that is on your now since again you’re home more, and any child care fees subsidized would likely be taken away as you can pickup your kids from day care after business hours MUCH sooner than travelling from work. Your ask for a pay raise would also not be as strong.
Moreover major cities wouldn’t have so many people living there anymore and thus could affect major corporations not needing to have HQ in major cities- that means less taxes for roads, schools, electrical infrastructure or need for emergency services etc.
An example: Toronto, ON had just over 65K people move out of the GTA in 2021, the most ever on record in history! The city spent their entire budget in 2021 before May 3rd, 2021 and budge renewal was June 4th, 2021 - the provincial government had to bolster the city. People that live in Toronto have 12% of their property taxes paying to public transit (TTC) whether they want to or not - no choice (which makes absolutely no freaking sense when the Federal & Provincial Gov’t pays TTC yearly huge $$$ when the TTC has been running bankrupt every year. MetroLynx using taxpayer dollars for an East/West hybrid rail (subway/streetcar) across the city : East is pretty much complete except for Kennedy (end of the line) and Yonge (central) while the west is in chambers. Nobody needed the billions of dollars expense when a dedicated 2 way lane for electric buses would’ve sufficed at 1/40th the cost (like in Thornhill/RichmondHill). We all know the provincial and munipical leaders get a HUGE kickback for such infrastructure and now another is planned without any community input which is law - and the community in the east end is not needed. I live by the new MetroLynx rail and it’s a complete joke : for 4 months I see workers putting grass, yes SOD grass in-between the each rail track - for what purpose? There is not need for green here.
What I’m saying is a lot of cities would have a bad backlash not planned for with all major corporations saying no need to work in office, lets reduce office footprint and also lets reduce annual salary, benefits, etc.
Sry if that came across a rant but it’s a lot more than what a lot of people are thinking about.