Entrenched managers at LinkedIn being forced out by RTO mandate?

3 points by huitzilopochtli ↗ HN
Companies like LinkedIn and Google have a huge problem with entrenched middle-managers who engage in ways that harm the company bottom line and reputation. They do so in the expected ways by empire building, and trading competitive meritocracy for bureaucratic autocracy in their orgs. They do so by rewarding loyalty to themselves above all else. Many of these managers come from Google and have made their way into companies like LinkedIn and have wreaked havoc on a previously competitive workforce. They weren’t exactly exposed at Google, because revenue at Google essentially books itself. They are being exposed at the organizations that they have moved to after being ousted at Google for these same practices.

It seems like the tool that executive teams are using to rid themselves of these entrenched managers are return to office mandates.

We all know that it is very costly and extremely difficult to fire management.

Many of these managers, especially those from Google, only left Google because they were eventually squeezed out by the manager RTO initiative just over a year ago.

A RTO mandate that forces performance review implications seems like a pretty genius way to get these managers to leave on their own. The result will be more open positions for the hungrier employees who never left the metro of the company, and are still hell bent on succeeding in their career.

How long do we think it will take for the result of this action to come to fruition?

2 comments

[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 15.4 ms ] thread
Force return to office in order to have those that are confident they'll find work elsewhere leave. Those who fear their incompetence will make moving difficult will be saddened and remain, compromising parts of their life and resenting the organisation for it.

How long? Probably about twice the half-life it takes to find a new role, clock starting at the point people believe it'll actually happen.

Some people actually like the office but they're back already. A RTO mandate thus affects those who don't want to go back.

Seems a moderately solid play to sabotage LinkedIn.

Ineffective managers are everywhere and hide in the open. They blow through KPI after KPI and are tolerated. They walk away from projects just before the fires are revealed and fail upwards. I don't think RTO has anything to do with it. RTO is a push by insecure micromanagers who are so ineffectual at their jobs that seeing butts in seats is the best metric they have for effectiveness.