Oddbean new post about login | logout In Germany, it seems to usually be a way to reduce workforce without firing anyone, or they just get tired of paying for empty office buildings, but don't want to sell them and take a loss.
Definitely understand the whole corporate land debt cycle garbage we live in, along with coordination struggles, but it seems like so much of the work that gets done in cubicles could be done from a park bench with a cell signal. The only people I know that work remote and would prefer a return to office are the people that absolutely hate their job and they hope being around people will help it, or the monotony will distract them.
I know of at least one german company (callcenter) that rented most of their space to other companies during Covid and they still 'force' their employees to work from home. But that should be an exception. I like that old-school CEO from Trigema, also a german company: "Who does not show up in presence is superflous" 😁 Well, he also reads his email on paper. Yes, they print it out for him every morning. Another point is workplace safety, there are a fucking lot of socialist regulations on workplaces in Germany, and they also apply to Home Office. Thats why a lot of people officialy are not at 'home office', but very often do 'remote work' (from home...)