Steve Schwarzman of the Blackstone group said staff want to work from home so they can save money
The boss of the world’s biggest commercial landlord has accused remote workers of staying away from the office because it means they “don’t work as hard” and can save money.
Steve Schwarzman, the chief executive of investment firm the Blackstone group, made the claims about hybrid staff while speaking on a panel at the Future Investment Initiative summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
In remarks first reported by Bloomberg, he said employees had kept working from home because “they didn’t work as hard, regardless of what they tell you” and also due to the savings they make on their daily commute, lunches and work attire.
Says WFH is terrible
Is biggest commerical landlord
Yup, definitely totally unbiased opinion im sure lmfaooo
Not only unbiased, but completely relatable and down to earth. I’m sure he lives just like the rest of us.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument he’s correct. So fucking what? Wealth concentration is wage theft. Profits are at historic highs. They owe it to the workers to put down the fucking whip. It’s better for the environment. Every worker who wants to telecommute (in jobs where it’s possible) should be allowed to do so. It’s unethical not to. It should be made illegal, IMO.
Oh, well, we’ve been over producing by taking in extra tasks and not getting raises for many years with extra work while in the office. I guess this is just our reciprocity and evening out our personal time.
I wonder if I sent him a pizza, would he feel better about it all?
Oh. And you expect me to be in the office? Then you should make an appearance daily in the office. I don’t care if you’re halfway across the US - you better show up to say hi and prove you’re there you fucking slacker.
Oh. And you expect me to be in the office? Then you should make an appearance daily in the office. I don’t care if you’re halfway across the US - you better show up to say hi and prove you’re there you fucking slacker.
This is the biggest reason people don’t respect the Return to Office mandate of some companies. If the C-suite jabronis can’t be arsed to show up and it’s okay for them to telecommute, they’ve given away the game. It’s rules-for-thee-not-for-me and it’s as simple as that. Treating adults well into their professional careers like children who must be watched endlessly is a slap in the face to these professionals. It’s why more often than not they’re just finding a different job that does respect them.
This is such short-term thinking. They’re going to lose their most productive and most valuable employees to this, and then their business will slowly fold like a flan in a cupboard.
Treating adults well into their professional careers like children who must be watched endlessly is a slap in the face to these professionals. It’s why more often than not they’re just finding a different job that does respect them.
This is why so many people decided to just retire, rather than return to work after COVID.
These people do not care about the environment. They don’t care about social debt to the workers. They especially do not care about ethical behavior.
Good thing he’s not correct though. Remote workers are more productive and save businesses money. This guy is just a greasy greedy fuck.
I’m not saying violence is the answer, but I do believe he deserves to be strapped into a machine that just slaps him in the face constantly
I dunno, historically speaking, violence has often been the answer.
Maybe it wasn’t always the best answer, but it certainly is effective. Just ask the French!
Did you stop learning French history when you hit 1789? The French Revolution didn’t really work out so great in the long run. Napoleon took over within a few years.
Yes and Napoleon used flowers and sunshine and bunny rabbits to take over, didn’t he?
Then shall we talk about the French experience with the Germans?
I said ask the French about violence because they are more versed than many in how it had to be used.
Maybe we can gamify that a little. Every time a worker-bee completes a task, the machine delivers a slap and a photo to the worker. We can collect them like sortie markers on WWII bombers. Boss gets feedback on how productive his employees are, and employees get to compete for points.
There are no metics to support any drop in productivity. There are lots of metrics to support making people go back to the office is bad for the environment. The traffic were I live is pretty much back to what it was before. It’s gross just watching the haze of fumes knowing it is there so these dickheads can maintain their property portfolio.
Anecdotally, I clock more hours WFH than I ever did going into the office- the matter of having to catch the last train out of town put a hard limit on how long I could crank code.
Without those extra 4 uncompensated hours in my day (plus the overhead time and mental energy monitoring the timeline of my day vs. just doing what I do), I get more done and I have more time to do it. Being autistic, I appreciate having uninterrupted time-blocks I can use to hyperfocus and get things done- and having to be aware of when to tie things up and GTFO in time to catch that train interrupts that.
Schwarzman isn’t really concerned with my well-being or with my productivity at work- he’s concerned with maintaining high demand for commercial real estate like my company’s office. He can pound sand.
I still go in every once in a while just to show my face and get some IRL time with co-workers, but my employers aren’t pushing the ‘get back to work and do real work’ line, they’re aware that working in the office (we’re mostly coders and such) will cost us productivity if anything and they’re just encouraging us to get in a few times a year and do some face to face social stuff.
I work a job where our metrics are extremely easy to analyse, since switching to 100% remote work instead of 60% max at will remote work our productivity has increased by 15%… How much are companies willing to spend to increase productivity by 15%? Imagine being able to get that boost by saving money instead!
Yeah, but notice that his whole point was about “working hard” which is not at all the same as “being productive” and about employees “saving money”, which something that’s not up to an employer to decide on.
It’s not at all about the kind of metrics a competent manager would be worrying about.
And, when you notice that he’s one of the biggest commercial landlords, you realize that by “employees working hard,” he means “employees sitting in offices I’ve rented out and thus making companies give me money.”
The more companies that allow employees to work from home, the less his properties are worth. You might as well ask Exxon-Mobil whether electric cars are good or not. Or ask a political candidate whether you should vote for their opponent or not.
Ah, yes, a man with a vested interest in seeing offices full to capacity can clearly be trusted to tell the truth here.
