Not only are directors and above immune to the RTO directives in most companies, they are also immune to location specific pay ranges in most companies. And for the few times they do require to go to the office, they can expense the entire trip, including airfare, dinners, hotels and more. The class asymmetry is ridiculous, but unfortunately most workers don’t know this fact.
Edit: In case it wasn’t clear, this is not just about CEOs and “executives”. A director level can sometimes be just “manager of managers”. I’m talking about upper middle management here.
> immune to location specific pay ranges in most companies
The next version of the equal-pay-for-equal-work fight is going to be pretty interesting, and will probably start to boil over sometime in the next 5-10 years.
More telecommuting is going to be generally unstoppable despite a few fits and starts, but since NYC and SF can't afford to just get completely hollowed out in the space of a few years, they need Kansas City to help out with the rent. And it will work too, since some places are more politically important than others. But it won't work forever.
It’s been really interesting how quickly we’ve forgotten how much air quality and greenhouse emissions slowed during the pandemic. If you’re looking for a quick climate change mitigation it’s hard to beat not requiring people to commute when the job doesn’t require it.
It sounds just like a co-op or an employee-owned business.
Now, I love me a good union - and there’s something to be said about a healthy tension between management and labour in terms of keeping management a bit more honest, just like management and capital - but in smaller orgs, a co-op will probably do the job.
Legally, no. Ethically, probably. Socially, yes. A group of employees who feel they are being exploited by an inequitable treatment of their their management would have a lot more options than take your pittance or leave.
While I agree that it can be annoying to see C-levels jetting around the globe while you're sitting in front of the same computer every day, likely feeling underpaid - what is the "asymmetry"? Or the remedy? Do you think that if they tighten their budget of perks, or reduce their compensation, some of that money will somehow flow to you? Because no, it won't.
Mostly I feel sorry for people whose lives are so empty that they feel the need to fly across the world to have a conversation about work. Stay home! Zoom works great and you can go for a walk with your spouse after you log off instead of drinking alone in a hotel bar.
Executives work insane hours. The jobs are there if you want to gun for them. Yes there are lazy executives, but successful companies focused on shareholder value tend to weed them out.
Often quite a bit less than it looks on-paper when you remove the "working lunch" and "client dinner" and "meeting (at the country club)" and "reading emails while lounging on the private jet" bits.
Hypothetically, if all the CEO did was, once a quarter, take a private jet to meet a potential client in person for lunch - and just one of those 4 meetings actually landed a customer - but a $1 billion revenue customer - is that a problem for you? CEOs shouldn't be measured by hours clocked in, like a factory worker.
You're absolutely right. CEOs (and other execs) need measurable workload, just like the rest of their staff. If you're not measuring it, is the CEO landing deals, or are they just playing golf with other members of the managerial class? The inquiring mind wants to know.
Get over it. Until you earn yourself a seat on the board, your inquiring mind will likely remain inquiring. Not sure why you expect that the CEO needs to justify his/her schedule to rank-and-file employees.
Hypothetically, if all a programmer did was, once a quarter, come in in person to maintain some piece of software that created $300k of value per year for the company, is that a problem for you?
Plenty of companies have consultants on call to do exactly that.
Unsolicited career advice: cultivating a reputation and a network within your industry, such that you're the one regularly receiving those calls, can be highly lucrative - look into it
The CEO does it because he's the equal of the other CEO. It shows respect. In huge deals between mega-corps, the sales team has already pitched - likely a lengthy, multi-faceted process over the course of a few months - and the CEO-to-CEO meeting is the final step to close the deal.
I'm sorry but this concept should be immediately clear, if not, you really shouldn't be discussing what a CEO should or shouldn't be doing with his time.
I’ll address the argument, before I address the dismissal.
This additional information added narrows the options.
As stated, the CEO is simply a source of prestige, who satisfies the other party’s ego.
None of this, information changes my questions or makes them irrelevant.
If anything, it is clear that the CEO is completely fungible. They are only needed 4 times a year, to satisfy the ego of 4 potential revenue sources.
The core ‘work’ is done by the rest of the firm.
That means, of the 1 bn dollars in revenue that you ascribed to the CEO, they represent a very small part of the actual effort.
What shareholder value do they bring the rest of the year?
In essence - CEO positions are not immune to economic logic. They, like the firm, work for shareholders.
Based on the added data, it would seem that there is reason to take umbrage with CEO privileges - such as their ability to work remotely.
After all, if they are doing nothing the rest of the year, they can be paid less for it.
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For me, communication is at its core, problem solving.
Stating that someone shouldn’t problem solve, while being oblivious to your own thin hypothetical, is perilously close to ignorance and close mindedness.
It is a certainly a form of gatekeeping, and blindness to one’s own biases.
Why not check our assumptions? They are obvious to you, but
1) Will anyone else come up with those same assumptions given a short 1 para of text?
2) How do yours assumption hold up to scrutiny unless they are exposed and discussed?
TLDR: Providing a hypothetical isn’t a full stop in a discussion. It’s the opposite.
Most of the people on this site are not measured like that either; they're salaried employees. Nobody here is falsely claiming they work insane hours when they're spending all their time on recreation though.
Edit: In case it wasn’t clear, this is not just about CEOs and “executives”. A director level can sometimes be just “manager of managers”. I’m talking about upper middle management here.