Employee reveals 'real reason' behind the push to end remote work — and it’s not productivity

The pandemic might have brought negatives, but it gave rise to the work-from-home culture, which was not as popular before as it is now. Countless employees of different companies and organizations started doing their jobs from the comfort of their homes. All they needed was a steady internet connection and a device such as a laptop or desktop. It reduced the stress and hassle people usually endure while commuting to their offices. The option of working from home not only saved their valuable time but also provided them with a good deal of their income as well. But lately, some companies have started to oppose the work-from-home practice. A Reddit user, u/YepperyYepstein, has the perfect explanation for it.

"My guess about the real reason so many companies are starting to oppose remote work/WFH," the post was titled. "I've seen the surface reasons for why a company would oppose WFH, but I don't buy that as the entire reason. It's more than just about real estate, 'face time,' or helping the new hires acclimate better. The opposition to WFH is because WFH challenges the culture of fear that is used to keep workers working, underpaid, and stuck," the person wrote.

"It's like companies are mostly all indirectly in collusion with one another because they see and know the threat of working at home. It shifts the power that is almost entirely stacked at the feet of the employer over to the worker. They don't care about productivity. They mostly care about the veneer of productivity with an actual prerogative of control and to a certain extent: demoralization. If you are demoralized, you will more easily lose sight of your value and you will become complacent with that 'competitive' wage," the person added to his explanation. "The real opposition to WFH, I believe, comes from the same visceral place within employers that oppose unionizing. The West, particularly the United States, is extremely sick in terms of labor and cultural practices."

The post sparked heavy debate among the Reddit community as countless people showed up to share their opinions. u/Bitbatgaming wrote: "That too, and corporate real estate is actively losing money if they don’t have an office!" u/cptahab36 responded to this by writing: "Corporate real estate is the real reason. Needing to control people is the rationale the managers will support, but the capitalists just want to keep their value and probably don't care as much about that." u/LeslieFH shared the power a worker gets by operating from their home and commented: "WFH increases the choice available to workers, which means more bargaining power, which means higher wages. Higher wages for workers equals lower profits for shareholders. This is a class war, pure and simple, real estate issues are secondary."

u/Stage_Party added: "It also threatens the management positions. You would have less need for managers if staff are working from home since you'd easily be able to see their productivity. Managers tend to cause problems so they can create a solution to appear relevant. WFH is one of the biggest threats to their high-paying jobs and they don't like it." u/Equilibriator remarked about the faulty management system and wrote: "It threatens management who don't know what their employees are doing and instead rely on 'checking in' and making sure you are doing 'something'. They know you could be doing nothing or everything and not tell and for some reason, the work getting done isn't enough."

According to Forbes, as of 2023, 12.7% of full-time employees work from home, while 28.2% work a hybrid model around the globe. Reports suggest that by 2025, an estimated 32.6 million Americans will be working remotely, which equates to about 22% of the workforce. About 16% of companies are already fully remote, operating without a physical office. These companies are pioneers in the remote work paradigm, highlighting the feasibility of such models and paving the way for others to follow.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on July 14, 2023. It has since been updated.

This article originally appeared 1 year ago.