17 Aug Unemployment is fixin’ ta be the reason!
Photo by Sergei Wing on Unsplash
“Amazon Is Sending Email Warnings to Employees Over Returning to the Office. It’s the 1 Thing No Company Should Ever Do. If you want people to come back to the office, give them a good reason.”
Yeah. Methinks the “good reason” is fixin’ ta be unemployment.
In a recent interview, Barry Sternlicht, chairman of Starwood Capital Group said that “the work from home phenomenon is a U.S. phenomenon.” He said that people are back in the office in Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world.
What’s more, Sternlicht doesn’t seem to think it’s going to last. He said that “nice buildings are still leasing,” and that a “nice little recession will clear this.”
Wow. “A nice little recession.” I’ve warned you for well over a year that, if Corpo America wants you back butt-in-seat in the cube farm, guess what? Yer goin’ back. If you don’t hold it, you don’t own it. If you are self-employed, you have more leverage to say, “No. I don’t go on-site and I don’t travel. These are the rules of engagement for me.” If you are a full-time W2 employee dependent on a company paycheck and benefits . . . well, let’s be honest: you don’t have the same leverage. Have you created an RTO survival plan? If you’ve been working remotely and the opportunity evaporates, are you prepared for that?
–https://thejobmarketjournal.com/f/a-nice-little-recession
Amazon sent warnings to employees it says weren’t following the company’s return-to-the-office policy, which requires them to be in the office a minimum of three days per week. Except–and this seems important–at least some of the emails were sent to employees who say they are following the policy. That’s according to Insider, which published the full text of the email.
[…]
After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Amazon took a much more lenient approach to remote work. Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, had previously said that the decision on how to manage hybrid work would be handled by individual teams. At some point, that changed. Jassy has been one of the biggest proponents of getting as many people as possible back to the office, according to reports.
Look, Amazon is already dealing with employee pushback over the return-to-the-office policy. Earlier this year, employees at several offices staged a protest over the requirement.
-Inc.com, Ibid.
Yeah, at some point that changed, LOL. As I’ve said before: if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it. If you don’t own the company, you really don’t have the final say on RTO vs WFH. The petitions and the protests haven’t caused Amazon to totally rethink RTO, just as I predicted.
*slips on tinfoil hat*
Ya know, it’s almost like these CEOs and corporate fat cats know that we don’t really have a 3.5% unemployment rate and The Great Resignation is not still goin’ strong. It’s almost like they are aware that the hot air and hopium being fed to the unwashed masses is total bullsh*t.
In some cases, Amazon is telling employees that they have to relocate to a central office, and spend at least three days per week at that office. If they don’t, Amazon will consider it a “voluntary termination.” In that case, employees wouldn’t get severance.
-Inc.com, Ibid.
See what I mean? If it actually was a worker’s market right now, would they behave this way? 🤔
In your opinion, the Great Resignation is finished?
Oh yes, and it has been for quite some time now for white-collar workers. Quite frankly, Corporate America has not been shy in saying that it wants to hold the balance of power again. When you have collusion between Corporate America, central bankers, and Capitol Hill, who do you think is going to ultimately prevail? John and Jane Q. Public or the rich and powerful?
Is there a backlash against it?
I definitely believe so. I think we can say there was a Great Resignation and now there’s a Great Backlash against it. The economy has boom and bust cycles, sure, but I think at this point, we see some CEOs really taking a sort of impish glee in punishing employees with RTO mandates and conditioning job seekers by putting them through the ringer during the interview process. It’s terrible.
-My interview with The Washington Mail, published on June 6, 2023. https://washington-mail.com/a-great-backlash/
If you’re sending warnings to employees, you’re basically admitting that you haven’t done your job. Anyone who hasn’t felt like they had a great reason to come to the office isn’t likely to be persuaded by that email.
Or, put another way, if you want employees to come back to the office, give them a reason. And, no, “we’re watching when you enter the building and we’ll punish you if you don’t” is not a good reason. A good reason is something that your employees see as valuable beyond “my manager wants to keep an eye on what I’m doing.”
-Inc.com, Ibid.
Unfortunately, “do this because you need the money” is about to be the reason. I’ll be talking about this in more depth on the next Saturday Broadcast, but suffice it to say:
People choosing between paying student loans or paying for groceries and rent. People who rely on credit cards and more than 1/3 of them saying they plan to max out at least one card before the year is over. People raiding their 401ks just to get by.
Unemployment in the face of large debts and high interest rates is fixin’ ta be the only reason these companies need.
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