After the pandemic wound to a close, employers began pushing employees to return to the office. Fifty percent of U.S. employers issued a full or hybrid RTO mandate in 2022 and 2023, and almost all employers planned implementing an RTO mandate before the end of 2024, https://www.deskbird.com/blog/return-to-office-backlash.
Employers perceived, and many experienced, benefits from implementing RTO mandates. According to ResumeBuilder’s survey of employers who instituted RTO mandates, 81% reported improvement in productivity and 72% reported improved revenue, https://www.ere.net/articles/have-employers-given-up-on-bringing-people-back-to-the-office.
Except—employees pushed back, and employers conceded. According to recent reports, only four percent of U.S. CEOs intend prioritizing a full-time return to the office, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/just-4-ceos-prioritizing-bringing-workers-back-office-full-time-cnn-tx3gf/. H&R Block already completely reversed its RTO mandate, https://www.inc.com/sarah-lynch/hr-block-reversed-rto-policy-heres-why.html.
What caused employers to reverse course? — employee determination to keep the schedule flexibility and commute-free existence they prized. Many employers bowed to the combination of employee demands, and recruitment and attrition challenges that resulted from RTO mandates. Here are the facts:
When given the opportunity for remote work, 87 percent of employees took their employers up on the offer, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/real-estate/our-insights/americans-are-embracing-flexible-work-and-they-want-more-of-it.
Nearly half of surveyed job candidates won’t apply for a job that doesn’t offer a hybrid or fully remote schedule, https://www.greenhouse.com/blog/2023-candidate-experience-report-us.
When looking for a new job, 41% of the candidates surveyed said they’d consider a fully remote job, a higher percentage than those who would choose a hybrid schedule. Only one out of every ten respondents voted for a schedule requiring them to work four days each week in the office, https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll/remote-work-statistics/.
Some employers have learned they can swap pay for flexibility. 42% of office workers would accept a ten percent pay cut if offered remote work, https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll/remote-work-statistics/.
76 percent of surveyed job candidates stated they’d actively search for or be open to a new employer if their current employer rolled back flexible work policies, https://www.greenhouse.com/blog/2023-candidate-experience-report-us.
42% of employers that have mandated return to the office have experienced higher than normal employee attrition, https://www.unispace.com/news/workplace-insights-report-global-press. 29% of these firms report they find it hard to recruit top talent, https://www.unispace.com/news/workplace-insights-report-global-press.
A January 2024 survey of 3000 job candidates reported that their employer’s RTO mandates influenced 36% of senior-level job seekers to leave their jobs, https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-05-09-one-third-execs-given-a-rto-mandate-plan-to-leave#:~:text=A%20January%202024%20Gartner%20survey,decision%20to%20leave%20their%20job.
Have employees won the work from home battle? No, they often find it challenging to find jobs and risk being the first to be chopped when employers cut their ranks.
Recent searches in two job categories revealed that only four percent of available HR jobs and nine percent of posted marketing jobs offered remote work, https://www.ere.net/articles/have-employers-given-up-on-bringing-people-back-to-the-office.
According to the Wall Street Journal, fully remote employees were 35% more likely to be laid off in 2023 than their in-office counterparts, https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/layoffs-remote-work-data-980ed59d
Why? Many employers still prefer employees working on-site. Additionally, an interesting new survey reveals many employees want to work from home for reasons their employers fear. According to Digital.com’s latest survey, 72% of employees seeking remote work want the freedom to nap or exercise during the day, and 73% want to watch television while working, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/09/13/study-shows-people-want-to-keep-working-remotely-because-of-pets-naps-and-watching-tv-theres-also-a-deeper-reason/?sh=fb0f2755f032. 75% of surveyed employees seek remote work to be able to remain home with their pets.
What will be final outcome of the RTO battle? It’s uncertain, but one conclusion is clear. The genie’s out of the bottle, and some employees won’t return willingly to the office.
(c) Lynne Curry, 2024
P.S.: In the HR queue, you’ll find 8 other other articles exploring all aspect of RTO, including https://workplacecoachblog.com/2023/08/employees-forced-to-return-to-the-office-quit-in-droves/; https://workplacecoachblog.com/2023/01/dont-want-to-return-to-the-office-negotiate/; https://workplacecoachblog.com/2021/08/remote-employees-risk-being-left-behind/; https://workplacecoachblog.com/2023/10/building-a-company-culture-with-hybrid-or-remote-employees/, and https://workplacecoachblog.com/2023/01/return-to-the-office-enticing-employees-back-3-strategic-employer-mistakes/.
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Since the “pandemic” most employers have had great difficulty finding workers. The “free” pandemic money era, coupled with the ability to work from home, permanently altered employees’ perspective of “work” and employers’ perspective of “Their”, “out of control”, employees.
A similar attitude event happened after the Trans Alaska Pipeline although with an additional monkey wrench: too many workers and not enough jobs.
Realistically, many employed on the pipeline got huge wages for very little production. The majority of them expected to work on the gas line upon completion of the oil line so they weren’t worried that everything they had was being paid for in monthly installments. When the gas line wasn’t built many, if not most, of these workers lost everything.
Unbelievably, these same unemployed workers, who had lost everything, were unwilling to accept post pipeline average wages and salaries in the now overpopulated unemployment lines economy. Barely surviving on Alaska’s, less than many Lower 48 states’ unemployment benefits, these individuals continued to wait for the gas line long after their unemployment checks ended. It was a sad era filled with divorces, suicides, elevated crime statistics, a real estate crash, and many of the unemployed returning to the Lower 48.
How the post pandemic workers and employers will eventually coalesce is anybody’s guess in the current high interest, higher inflation, and job exporting economy. Perhaps, like the post pipeline era, people on both sides will be forced to accept a less than optimum solution. Time will eventually solve the various issues, but at what expense?
And, yes, I worked on the pipeline from 1974 – 1976 and was fortunate to find work in Dillingham and other remote sites during the post pipeline years.