Hey all, one of the things that has frustrated me about RTO has been the fact that nobody uses economic models to argue their case.
Bosses want people back in the office for a bunch of soft qualitative reasons, and can't seem to put together a real microeconomic model of how returning to office will help the company. It's obvious that they are going it so they can keep getting value from outdated middle managers, and other irrational reasons.
But WFH advocates don't do much to prove this mathematically
WFH advocates (including me) do not seem to cite any real studies that explain why a WFH organization is more likely to survive. They do not explain how we can use simple economics and math to calculate that the bosses are lying. They mainly focus on the anecdotes that WFH made companies more profitable during COVID. But the profitability may have simply been the COVID induced economic boom.
Now that we are entering lean times, without studies and proof that WFH is more efficient, bosses are pulling people back into the office. I do not blame the lack of studies for this, but I do think that promoting these studies can push back against RTO and help workers and orgs stay committed to WFH.
I'm sure the studies exist, and my ignorance of economics is why I don't know about them. That's why it's time to educate myself.
So what economic studies should I study in order to better debunk the RTO lies and poke mathematical holes in the corporate arguments?