this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
528 points (92.9% liked)

Technology

60052 readers
3048 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Amazon exec says it’s time for workers to ‘disagree and commit’ to office return — “I don’t have data to back it up, but I know it’s better.”::“We’re here, we’re back. It’s working,” an Amazon Studios head said in a meeting, before acknowledging a lack of evidence.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, it does not. It means that they think it's more profitable for shareholders.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So the logical conclusion is that it's better for the share holders for the employees to be less productive?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not that simple. There's also the issue of paying rent for offices which also feeds into shareholder (although possibly different shareholders) profits, etc. I'm no expert, but I have a feeling this is all very complicated.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't come up with a care where making their employees less productivity is better for the shareholders simply because they are paying for space somewhere. you'll have to explain this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay I can do that.

Pre-pandemic- Amazon says offices are important. Signs 25 year leases for lots of office space.
Pandemic hits. Everyone goes WFH. Data shows people work just as well from home. Company publicly announces that they are running at full productivity. Shareholders love it.
Now we're here. Employees are WFH and loving it. Middle management is chafing because they like being able to manage their employees by walking to desks. Upper management is unhappy because they like having a big corner office at the top of the building humming with workers. Workers are happier than ever.
Upper management says 'if we embrace WFH, we'll have way too much office space and leases that will cost a fortune to break. If we do that and take the hit, the shareholders will ask why we didn't have the vision to do that in the first place, before we signed for this expensive office. The managers we listen to all hate WFH too. So we'll push RTO.' And in the grand scheme of things, a few % employee productivity doesn't mean that much...

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

Thats plausible, but pretty complicated. I would absolutely invoke Occam's razor here tho

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Okay then even simpler, management likes having workers they can physically see and thinks it makes them more productive. Amazon may relentlessly pursue efficiency, but they also make choices in how they do that based on their own culture. For example, if they paid their employees more but weeded out all but the best employees, which is the strategy Netflix uses, that might also increase efficiency more than just cycling through employees like disposable robots. But they don't do that (or even try it) because that isn't their culture.