workers are going but on their own terms
Companies like Starbucks, Paramount, and Microsoft are among the latest to issue new return-to-office requirements, but mass RTO has been a years-old effort in Corporate America. Bringing workers back was not that easy.
people spend about 25% Nick Bloom, a Stanford professor and leading researcher on remote work trends, says that 20 percent of the days they work from home are 20 percent of the days they work from home, and that share has remained unchanged since the spring of 2023, based on a recurring survey of 10,000 Americans from his team at WFH Research.
Bloom told CNBC Make It that work-from-home rates are continuing, people are holding on to their jobs even as the labor market deteriorates, and leverage is back to CEOs calling for RTO.
What gives?
passive resistor
Bloom points to several factors. The first of these is the “growing compliance gap.”
“Companies are announcing RTOs,” he says. “Employees do not appear to be monitoring work on site.”
He thinks of it as passive resistance: CEOs make a big announcement, but middle managers tasked with enforcing the rule don’t want to follow the rule themselves, or even report directly to it.
Bloom says managers are often evaluated on the performance of their teams, and if they’re performing well enough, they’re unlikely to see the benefit of the increased participation rule. Senior leaders may also overlook bending the rules.
Many businesses are also they are shrinking middle management layers. This can lead to burnout among remaining bosses, resulting in less implementation of RTO instructions.
I’m back in the office, but on the workers’ terms
Then there’s the issue of tracking whether people have been inside for the actual number of days required by company policy.
Take a company that has a four-day office policy, but most people only go into the office for three days. It can be difficult to keep track of exactly why someone didn’t meet the attendance requirement for a particular week. Bloom goes to client meetings, says he might be at a conference, on an appointment, on sick leave or just on vacation.
One of the Fortune 100 companies Bloom spoke with has a three-day attendance policy, but the eight-week moving average only flags if someone is on less than a day and a half a week. Company HR chief attributes missing time in office to people being out and about Bloom says business travel.
Other workers come for the required number of days, but they actually experiment with how long they should stay there. Approximately 43% of hybrid workers Wearing a coffee badge or just going to the office for a few hours to show their face and 12% want to try it. Owl Labs’ latest research It consists of 2,000 full-time employees. More than half of those caught say their employers don’t care about this practice.
The coffee badge is lower than 2023 levels but consistent with last year.
Owl Labs CEO Frank Weishaupt says the majority of hybrid employees are in the office three to four days a week, an increase from last year. They are also finding ways to maintain flexibility. wearing a coffee badge, scheduling personal appointments throughout the day, or trying what he calls “microshifts” — working in short, non-linear blocks that aren’t tied to a 9-to-5 and instead rely on personal energy, responsibilities, or productivity patterns.
As for flexibility, “they find it wherever they can,” says Weishaupt.
Ditching RTO companies for more flexibility
“RTO is used as an inexpensive way to reduce headcount by preventing layoffs and paying severance pay,” says Bloom. Those who quit may be chosen by younger, smaller firms that offer flexibility as an advantage when they cannot compete with the salaries of large companies. This may be another reason why work-from-home rates have generally remained the same.
The problem with using RTO to reduce headcount is that “you can’t choose who leaves,” Bloom says.
Pre Research from the University of Pittsburgh found that women, senior and skilled workers were more likely to leave companies that enacted new RTO policies.
ZipRecruiter economist Nicole Bachaud says offering remote and hybrid work increases businesses’ ability to hire, especially for hard-to-fill positions or in so-called “talent deserts” in certain parts of the country.
According to ZipRecruiter data, nearly 20% of employers say they want to hire fully remote workers this year, and a similar share are looking to hire candidates in a hybrid role.
“There is still demand for these types of roles in companies, but it is definitely smaller than what we have seen in the past,” Bachaud said. he says.
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