Return To Office: Is It All About CEO Wants Instead Of Employee Needs?

Is remote work dead? You might think that’s the case after recent headlines about mega corporations like Boeing and UPS insisting that workers return to the office (RTO) five days a week.

They’re not the only big firms that have either mandated such a policy or indicated that heading in that direction. But does it make sense? Is it because there’s a real need for RTO or because CEOs want it?

Pause and consider. Workers have got used to the convenience and flexibility of working from home, not to mention the savings in cost and time through being able to abandon the grind of the daily commute.

Forcing them back into the bricks and mortar world might well force them to leave—especially the best and brightest.

A recent Gartner survey of more than 2,000 knowledge workers found that high performers are the most likely to quit when organizations implement rigid return to office rules. Their intent to stay was 16% lower—double the rate of average employees. Among women, the intent to stay was 11% lower and for millennials 10% lower.

Caitlin Duffy, Director in the Gartner HR practice, said, “Mandated on-site requirements can carry very steep costs for talent attraction and retention. This is especially true for high-performers, women, and millennials—three employee segments who greatly value flexibility. Often these costs far outweigh the moderate benefits to employee engagement and effort.”

According to a Resume Builder survey of 800 business leaders, companies are mandating RTO because they believe it has a positive impact on productivity (76%), improves culture (63%), and betters employee satisfaction.

They are so intent on implementing the mandate that 8 in 10 will track office attendance and 95% of them say employees will suffer consequences if they don’t comply such as a reduction in bonuses, benefits, or salaries. Thirty-three percent say they will fire employees if they do not go into the office when required.

Resume Builder’s Resume and Career Strategist Julia Toothacre says this approach may backfire. “Companies that become too rigid in their policies will end up losing employees in the long term. Yes, there should be consequences for employees who aren’t doing their job, but time in the office isn’t the only way to track performance.”

Indeed, the jury is out on the question of the benefits of full-time remote versus full-time in-office. Some research has shown remote work increases productivity and expands the talent pool while other data indicates that onboarding and team collaboration is more effective in-person (and while that’s true, it’s frustrating for workers if return to the office only to spend much of their time on Teams or Zoom calls!)

Some high performers might regard an order to return to the office as a lack of trust while those in favor of remote work are suspicion of executives’ motives. The Gartner survey, for instance, found that 48% of employees felt that return to office mandates reflected leaders’ wants rather than employees’ needs.

Prithwiraj Choudhury, a Harvard Business School professor who studies remote work, says the argument that demanding employees work in-office boosts productivity remains to be proven. “Return-to-office is just a knee-jerk reaction trying to make the world go back to where it was instead of recognizing this as a point for fundamental transformation,” he said. “I call them return-to-the-past mandates.”

There’s also research that shows office mandates not only make workers less satisfied with their jobs and work-life balance but also don’t help companies’ financial performance. Researchers at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh analyzed a sample of firms on Standard & Poor’s 500 index, with measurements including average change in quarterly results and stock price and found there was no financial boost for those that insisted on full-time office work.

Study co-author, associate professor Mark Ma, said, “We will not get back to the time when as many people will be happy working from the office the way they were before the pandemic.” Mandates make workers less happy, therefore less productive, and more likely to look for a new job, he said.

Choudhury’s research discovered that a hybrid approach works best while stressing there shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all plan with employees regularly in the office two to three days a week. Instead, 25% of time should be office days that are tailored for the specific needs of teams and projects and perhaps spread over a year. I’ve found something similar in my work with companies across the country. About 50% currently favor hybrid learning and development programs, 25% are remote, and 25% have moved back to in-person only.

Final thoughts: Hybrid work, along the lines of the Choudhury recommendations, offers the best of both worlds. It delivers the flexibility and independence of working from home balanced with the team collaboration and camaraderie of the office.

To avoid employee attrition, CEOs should avoid rigid RTO mandates and implement policies such as a minimum number of days in the office on a yearly rather than weekly basis, get employee input on hybrid work arrangements, and clearly and honestly communicate why employees should return to the office. The question is to return or not to return? And the answer: some of the time!

Written by Jason Richmond.

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