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In 2025, Amazon, Dell, Apple, Google, IBM, Meta, Salesforce, and dozens more have doubled down on demands for employees to return to the office (RTO) at least three days a week, if not all five. And theyre getting exactly what they want. Now, when I say exactly what they want, you might be expecting me to paint a picture of workers happily returning to their daily commutes, overcrowded highways, cavernous or claustrophobic offices, constant interruptions, and extra expenses, and all of it resulting in massive productivity gains. Thats not happening, the productivity-gains part. And the longer we play this out, the sillier the performances of productivity theater have become. The truth is, the science on productivity is still out. So you have to go with your gut. Or your experience. And what 30 years of gut and experience tells me is that the real question isnt whether people are more productive at homeits whether companies can afford to lose their best talent over this. Right now, tech workers are desperate. Companies know it. Thats why Amazon can demand five days in the office and get compliance instead of resignations. But the labor market isnt static; it never was. In fact, it tends to whipsaw back and forth every few years. Remember 2022? Companies were begging people to take jobs. Signing bonuses, remote work, unlimited PTOwhatever it took. Candidates were ghosting interviews. That shoe was totally on the other foot, and it was a Doc Marten. But if we look at history, even recent history, a lot of companies that are mandating RTO now are writing the future resignation letters for their best employees, to be delivered the nanosecond the tech job market stops being the worst in history. Let me tell you how common sense foreshadows a reckoning for RTO. How did we get here? I dont want to defend remote work. I really dont. But Im a huge fan of common sense. Its a little ironic that remote work accelerated with another mandatethat we all stay home for most of 2020 and a lot of 2021. I, for one, still cant believe that happened. But its what happened next that mattered. As the pandemic restrictions lifted almost universally by 2022, the natural calls by employers for their employees to return to the office were met with an unexpected backlash. No, thanks. Were more productive, our work-life balance is much better, we feel better, and anyway you said we could do this. That backlash peaked in 2024, when a bunch of Dell employees, shockingly, chose to take the hit to their company future rather than come back to the office. Thats fine. Wed rather do a better job in a more comfortable environment. By the way, weve moved to New Zealand. Yeah, it got silly. And corporate tech did not take that silliness lying down. Employees needed to return to the office because . . . well, because its always been that way. Does it matter that in a post-pandemic internet business world, that physical proximity no longer matters? That doesnt matter. As employers started stamping their feet over the mandates, I started talking about common sense. For one, the long-term hits these companies were taking to their talent candidate pool, their employee morale, and their productivity when measured from the employees perspective, were costs that were going to far outweigh their sunk real estate costs in the short term. But then corporate tech got smart. Sort of. Employers started making the misguided assumption that the employees who were most dead set against returning to the office were the ones that the company could live without. RTO became a natural, if completely illogical, weeding-out mechanism. And that kinda worked. But kinda didnt. Sure, the troublemakers all found the door and gave the finger on the way out, but the go-along-to-get-along crowd stopped performing and got performative, and the rest of the tech workforce got ready to revolt. Then the employers got bailed out by the worst tech labor market in history. When there are more job seekers than jobs, tech companies can mandate a company loyalty sing-along every morning, and the entire workforce will start warming up their vocal cords. Whats next for the labor market and RTO? Well, what does common sense tell us? Productivity is in the eye of the beholder. In any position where creativity, innovation, or even decision-making matters, Id argue that there is no stable metric for productivity that goes beyond correlation to causation where employee performance is concerned. So you have to go with simple, common-sense concepts. Evolution doesnt come wit introductory pamphlets. There is no title card for the next phase of the future of work. It just happens, and you evolve or die. And if we couldnt connect the dots that the internet had made physical proximity irrelevant in every case where it wasnt mandatory (i.e., surgery, construction, airline pilot), the pandemic lockdowns ironically hammered that point home. As an evolutionary concept, the productivity argument no longer even matters. Its the same productivity argument that was being made when we were deciding whether everyone still had to wear suits and skirts to work. But if that kind of common sense doesnt sway the naysayers, I can make the argument even common-sensier. Yo. 2022. The job market was supposed to have recovered by now. It hasnt, and that has emboldened a lot of employers to lean into their leverage with their supply of scarce and valuable jobs. But the market will recover. When it does, the first questions that are going to need to be answered are: Why am I on a Zoom with the person down the hall? Why can we only hire within a two-hour commute of some of the most expensive real estate in the country? Why am I wearing this three-piece suit with matching fedora and a pocket watch? Im a database administrator. Because when an employee has leverage, questions like that no longer make any sense. And the very same companies demanding RTO now will likely be forced to offer remote work again to compete for scarce, valuable talent. Theyll be right back where they started, while their talent heads to those smart companies that see remote work as an evolutionary concept, and are creating solutions that accommodate both remote and in-office employees. If you are also a fan of common sense, please join my email list and Ill shoot you a quick heads-up when I spout something close to it. Joe Procopio This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
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E-Commerce
It’s the digital equivalent of a clogged drain. You boot up your computer, click the Google Chrome icon, and… wait. You wait to type a search term. You wait for the page to load. You wait while your once-speedy gateway to the internet chugs along like a steam engine trying to keep up with a bullet train. The problem: Chrome is a beast a powerful, functional beast, but a beast nonetheless. Over time, it gets bloated, weighed down by all the digital detritus we pile onto it. But don’t despair. You don’t need a new computer, you just need a digital declutter. Here’s how we’re going to put some pep back in your browser’s step. Note that though feature names and their locations may differ slightly, most or all of these fixes work for Chromium-based browsers as well, such as Microsoft Edge. Disable (or remove) unused extensions This is almost always the main culprit. You installed an extension that seemed like a good idea a year agoa coupon clipper, a niche productivity tool, a way to add a trail of sparkles to your cursorand now it’s silently sucking down your RAM like quicksand. Every single extension needs a little slice of your computer’s brain to run, and they add up fast. To access your extensions, do the following: Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner. Go to More Tools > Extensions. Look at the list. Be brutal. If you don’t use it at least once a week, toggle it off or, better yet, click Remove. You’ll be surprised how many extensions you forgot you even had. Put dormant tabs to sleep You have 37 tabs open right now. One is a work document, one is a recipe you’ll never try, one is a YouTube video you paused three days ago, and three are different iterations of fantasy football research. Every single one of those tabs is demanding resources, even the ones you haven’t looked at in days. Google knows we have this problem, which is why it created the Memory Saver feature. It essentially puts inactive tabs to sleep, freeing up system memory for the tabs you’re actually using. Heres how: Click the three-dot menu and go to Settings. Click Performance in the left sidebar. Make sure Memory Saver is toggled on. You can also designate certain sites to always stay active (like a live chat or your email), so the important stuff stays awake, and the less important stuff gets a well-deserved nap. Clear cache and cookies This is the classic, “have you tried turning it off and on again?” of browser optimization. Your cache stores parts of websites (images, code, etc.) so they load faster the next time. Your cookies store user data. Over time, these piles of tiny files get huge, slow down your browser’s ability to find what it needs, and generally get in the way. Heres how to clear them. Use the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + Del (Windows/ChromeOS) or Command + Shift + Del (Mac). Set the Time range to All time. Make sure Cached images and files is checked. Cookies and other site data is optional: clearing it logs you out of everything, which is annoying, but can help. Click Clear data. It’s a quick blast that clears out the deep recesses of your browser. Do this once a month, and you’ll notice a difference. Check for updates Sometimes, the answer isn’t some clever hack or esoteric settingit’s just making sure you have the newest version. Google is constantly tweaking Chrome to make it run faster and consume less power. If you haven’t closed your browser in a week, you’re probably running on old software. Heres how to check for updates: Click the three-dot menu. Go to Help > About Google Chrome. Chrome will instantly check for and apply any updates. You might be prompted to relaunch. Even if youre not asked to relaunch, do it anyway. A clean relaunch can solve a world of problems.
Category:
E-Commerce
On a recent vacation in Berlin, Emma Watkins, a marketing assistant working in the U.K., wrote a three-star review of a bar she visited. It was fine, but not amazing, and not what I expected from the high ranking reviewit was four-point-something, she recalls. Upon returning home, she noticed her middling review of the establishment was taken down. When they said it was defamatory I was confused, she says. I did some Googling, then realized what had gone on. And suddenly the high rating for what I thought was pretty average made sense. (Fast Company is not naming the bar so as not to fall foul of Germanys defamation laws itself.) Watkins isnt alone in losing trust in reviews of German businesses on Google. For much of the world, Google is far more pervasive than Yelp. If you want to find the best tourist attractions, bars, or restaurants in a new city outside the United States, your first port of call is likely Google Maps. The system works relatively well. The best restaurants are rewarded with good reviews, while would-be customers can make their own judgment on establishments that garner a two- or three-star rating. Some are weighed down by vicious one-star reviews from (likely?) nightmare customers while, in other cases, public judgment has rendered its verdict on the establishment. Except, that is, in Germany, where practically every restaurant, bar, and tourist attraction appears to be suspiciously excellent. The country seems to be filled with four- and five-star establishments. In Germany, an overly permissive defamation system means that any criticism of a business is likely to be wiped out by Googles takedown system. Fully 99.97% of Google Maps reviews taken down for defamation across the entire 27-country European Union are for businesses based in Germany, official European data shows. Social media is full of complaints that businesses in the country refuse to countenance negative reviews. There are German-language websites offering advice on how to strike negative reviews from Googles register. These articles themselves have ratings, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, receive a score of 4.3 out of 5. This is all part of the job of search engine optimization (SEO), which often extends into reputation management, says Manick Bhan, CEO of Search Atlas, a global SEO software company. Removing negative reviews isnt new. But weaponizing Germanys defamation system in this way is. As part of our work to provide trustworthy information on Google Maps, we remove reviews if they violate our content policies or local lawsnot simply because a business dislikes them, a Google spokesperson tells Fast Company. Reviewers get notified if their contributions are removed and have the option to appeal that decision. Typically, removing a negative review involves reaching out to the reviewer and asking them to reconsider their feedback, Bhan says. But in places like Germany where the digital laws are particularly strict, some SEOs handle the process differently. They often classify negative content as defamation and file formal complaints, essentially using a legal loophole to have the content removed by Google or similar platforms, Bhan says. Germanys stringent regulations make it possible for business owners to claim virtually any individual review as defamatory. Googles own support site highlights that its aware of the matter. In response to a Google product experts explanation of how the review matter is a known issue, everyday users are acknowledging the power imbalance. I get it, but it really skews the value that ratings in Germany really mean, one user wrote. Google does not comment on how it handles takedown requests. But experts have observed that the company tends to take action against negative reviews reported as defamatory if the reviewers cant cough up evidence they were actually at the establishment in questionlike a check or bill for the meal allowing the business owners to claim that the reviews are fictional. Under German law, the legal burden of proof is on those making statements rather than on prosecutors bringing a defamation case needing to prove the statements are false. Its why many users less-than-glowing reviews are taken down by Google. Bhan points out that taking down reviews when asked, even if the review is likely legitimate but lacking documentary evidence the reviewer was there, is an easier route for Google than keeping it up. Google doesnt want to risk penalties or fines from European regulators, so it may comply with such requests automatically, sometimes even at the expense of search quality, Bhan says. Its less about doing whats fair for users and more about staying compliant. This is clearly whats happening here in Germany. Of course, there are precedents for people to weaponize reviews to harm the reputation of businesses they disagree with. That’s why its seen as important to have the ability to dispute what are believed to be incorrect or non-factual reviews. But that weaponization can go both ways. The SEO expert is frank about the practice of weaponizing takedowns for defamation in Germany. Its not ideal, its not moral, but if everyone else is playing by those rules, businesses may feel forced to do the same.
Category:
E-Commerce
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