1y ago

We’re now finding out the damaging results of the mandated return to the office–and it’s worse than we thought

fortune.com We're now finding out the damaging results of the mandated return to the office–and it's worse than we thought

Three compelling reports show just how damaging RTO mandates are turning out to be.

Surprising no one but the mgmt teams…

Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. In other words, employers knew the mandates would cause some attrition, but they weren’t ready for the serious problems that would result.

Meanwhile, a staggering 76% of employees stand ready to jump ship if their companies decide to pull the plug on flexible work schedules, according to the Greenhouse report. Moreover, employees from historically underrepresented groups are 22% more likely to consider other options if flexibility comes to an end.

In the SHED survey, the gravity of this situation becomes more evident. The survey equates the displeasure of shifting from a flexible work model to a traditional one to that of experiencing a 2% to 3% pay cut.

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fortune.com /2023/08/01/research-damaging-results-mandated-return-to-office-worse-than-we-thought-rto-remote-work-careers-leadership-gleb-tsipursky/

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I’d look for new work if my current job increased in-person requirements. Sorry commercial real estate bag holders, you’re in for a rough ride
- It's not because of commercial real estate that offices are forcing people back.
  It's simply because managers who are in charge of making that decision prefer to be in the office.
  They like everyone in the office, so they're forcing it on everyone. Either because it makes them feel more powerful to look at all their underlings, because they enjoy working face-to-face (probably how they got high up in the company), or because they suck at their jobs and can only micro-manage by looking over people's shoulders
  
  Absolutely. This was the entire reason the CEO at my last company forced everyone to return to office, giving local managers zero latitude to allow flexibility. He sent out videos saying crazy things like "introvert or extrovert, we're all energized by working in person together!" Just completely tone deaf bullshit. We got a month's notice for when we had to return, and I found a new job in that month and am much happier now.
  Zero reason for people to be in the office if they can be just as productive as home, and happier doing it.
  
  Middle managers/controllers will be automated soon, no worries.
- I bought a house that’s further away from where my office was than I’d have ever considered buying if not for the permanent wfh change made during the pandemic.
  I’m now a minimum of an hour away from where most jobs would be in-person, and that’s not something I’m ever willing to do again.
  
  I also did this, and as a family we’re much happier, but recent return to office mandates now mean I travel 1.5 hours each way 3 times a week, also at a cost of $80 in petrol.
  We’re not willing to give up our life to move back, so I am definitely keeping eyes open for similar paying jobs that have less in-person requirements.
- Sorry not sorry. Those rich cunts can burn.

Return to office is such a fucking joke. I'm not spending hours in the car to keep corporate leases and McDonald's afloat.

Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated.
One aspect these articles don't usually address beyond the attrition rate, is the quality of those leave is usually the highest. So its a double whammy. Not only are you losing workers, you're losing your best workers. Those best workers have mobility because they are in demand for their skills or ability to execute. So what an employer is left with is even worse, many of those remaining that are lower skilled or less ambitious so their can't leave or choose not to because they aren't interested in high achievement at work.
The company's most valuable asset is their workers. Return-to-office is a loud screaming message to all the company's workers that "butts in seats" or extraction of the worker's dollars for corporate tax cuts from municipalities are more important that the worker's comfort and preference. That leads to the death of companies.
- I don't often toot my own horn, but this is basically me. My work is pushing for people to move to LA into the office after being almost fully remote for a few years. I've never set foot in LA, and was hired fully remote. They're struggling to hire junior devs because their frontend is almost wholly custom JavaScript and nearly completely undocumented. They're currently stuck with expensive senior devs. I could easily take my title elsewhere for more than they're paying me, but I like the lax work environment enough to stick around.
  The last I heard about the move back to office was February, and they just hired more people out of state. I don't think they're pushing for it anymore, haha
- 100% this. We literally lost our best and brightest and the end of the pandemic. When I bailed it was B and C grade. Made the last few months very difficult.
  It was absolutely brutal!
- Not only that, but your best workers often help the others get better, as well as do code reviews, etc. which means the less good workers will also not be as good in the future, and you'll spend more time fixing their mistakes.
- the quality of those [who] leave is usually the highest.
  That's the Dead Sea Effect. Those who can leave the easiest, do so next in each cycle (once the company crosses the fuckit line). These will be the most valuable.
  https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_effect

My wife and I left our company when they clawed us back to the office. It’s been 3 years now and there is 0 chance we’ll go back at this point. For all the big companies complaining about their empty buildings there are medium size players happy to poach top talent and let them work remote
- Im currently complying with RTO because my office is close to my house and it is convenient, but there are talks of forcing employees to relocate to where the majority of their team is which would be halfway across the country for me. Needless to say we're losing people in droves and many medium/small companies are picking up tons of talent.
  
  pfft. my office is a few blocks away but I still prefer to walk my dog and make a fresh lunch at lunch..

With around 15 years of experience working remote-only, I will never accept a job that mandates a day in the office.
If the role isn’t 100% remote, it is not considered.
Simple as that.

Then there's my employer, who is giving us WFH for the foreseeable future. They might even sell our office building and move our datacenter.
We do a monthly small-team in person, and the occasional all-staff in-person, but otherwise it's just "come in if you want, or don't, lol." Like, I technically have a desk. It's just got a couple monitors on it collecting dust, though. I'm only really ever there (aside from the infrequent in-persons) when my rabbit has to go to the vet, which is closer to the office.
We actually showed more productivity after moving to WFH, so they said 'let's just keep it.' So my only restriction is living in the state, since it's a publically-funded org.
- No picture of the rabbit, though? ☹️
  
  Right? They didn't pay the rabbit tax.
  
  Shit, sorry, missed this earlier! This is one of them.
- My company is the same way.
  They realize many of us will leave, and they would lose a ton of money trying to replace us.
- 14% increase in productivity in my department yet they won't get rid of our office, just in case...
  My boss seems to start to understand that if they ask me to RTO then I'm gone because I don't live anywhere close to where I did when they hired me.
- only restriction is living in the state, since it's a publically-funded org
  The job I fled to as soon as the fuckwits at the old place revealed they're too dumb to manage remote people whose butts they can't count visually each day (and that's not a creepy fixation) is publicly funded.
  Soon as COVID hit, they went from 'Office Space' to 'gtfo without paperwork to come onsite'. And they stayed that way. WFO-first is now in the union contract. They sold the desks and ditched the lease. 100% WFH except 2 hotel spots and one rotating freight-receiver post. A Sears kiosk has a bigger footprint.
  It used to be "stay in this region," but that's changed: new hires coming online are from across the country. No barrier as long as it's still within fed borders.
  I need to move out East so I can take a ferry to France or cross the land border to Denmark; but also for the crazy cheap housing and beautiful scenery.
  Anyway, public funding doesn't preclude a Detroit mansion.
  
  Public funding can definitely come with strings though and location can be one of the strings.
  Also, the more locations you have folks, the more you have to deal with taxes in other states. They might just not have the funding to do that additional work.
  
  Except I work for a state's community college system. Working for a state org, they want you to pay taxes in that state.
  FWIW, they let me work from Georgia for the first year and change during the pandemic.

As someone who contributed to the 'high level of attrition' during a forced return to office: it was my pleasure and I'll do it again.
- Thank you for your service ('-')7
- Same here. Took a 3% pay cut for 2 years and also upgraded my management team from 'fuckwits' to 'really great'. So, win-tax-win.
- I regret that I have but one job to quit.

I used to do 3 hours round trip commute. I was always exhausted. Can never do that again after i tried work from home.
- Fuck that lol. I wake up at 7:55, open my laptop, clock in at 7:56, then bring my laptop into the kitchen and eat breakfast.
  Corporations who are pushing the narrative that people don't like this are out of their mind.
  
  My old schedule were wake up at 7:10. Out the door by 7:40. Be at the office by 9:00ish. The most painful part if not the 90 min train ride but the 25 stops... I counted those stops for 5 years.
  
  Don't pitch a WFH by bragging about how you're doing personal stuff (breakfast) on work time.
  Also, it's really beneficial to the workflow if you don't do work in the kitchen, and don't eat meals in the home office. Get the downtime, and preserve the separation, while also being adequate on your time-management.

Many companies, including my previous one, assume their position is stronger than it is. Then they complain and blame millennials' work ethic when people don't hang around for their torture like they used to.

Yep, you can't fight basic math.
With a half-hour commute, you're dropping at least $250/mo on gas (more if you use proper mileage calculations and include car insurance costs) and spending an additional 32 hours of your time in unpaid travel for work. If your hourly rate is $15/hr, that means another potential $380 in earnings a month out the door.
Since that $15/hr brings you in $2600 before taxes, that means in this scenario you're spending roughly 10% of your gross income on travel expenses, and losing out on a potential income increase of 14%.
This is why, despite the fact they were a great company I had thought about joining for years, last year I turned down an offer that was a 50% raise from my previously held position.
I got the same amount in an offer from a separate company that enabled work from home, and when I did the math, the value between the two was striking - it was the clear winner, despite the fact that the first company only wanted me to travel across town.
- I don't think this is even the full picture, though. The cost savings from working remotely for me have been largely unnoticed (but objectively there).
  The real value, for me, has been increased autonomy and freedom from the office culture and overbearing bosses. It was amazing how my managers were suddenly ambivalent about my work performance once they weren't able to constantly observe me at my desk.
  
  Definitely - the personal benefits go far beyond the cost savings. Just pointing out that at the end of the day, what they're doing when they ask you to return to the office is asking you to take a very real pay cut and add unpaid hours to your daily schedule.
- Also more of you count in car maintenance and potential babysitting for slightly older children who can be alone for a couple hours after school, but are too young to truly be alone.
  I also feel like people just get back a lot of time to themselves by not having to commute. My husband gets another hour at least with me and our children every day, maybe an hour and a half. Instead of only seeing them for a quick dinner and getting them ready for bed, they actually have that time to hang out and play. It's things like that, that are invaluable.
- The only way they win this battle is if they cover travel expenses per mile. I’m supposed to spend money to keep your stupid shitbird company afloat? Yeah, get fucked.
  
  My company is 8 to 5 and on the days I go in office i just spend so much more time doing the unpaid mandatory things that it's just not worth it even for much more pay. Not to mention it's far more exhausting and worse for my mental health to be in an open office surveillance ward rather than a home office
  
  Traveling has become rather cost-effective. It's alright if it gets covered but what really should get covered is the time it takes to travel. I live relatively close to work, but if I went to office that's an extra 1-2 hours a day I spend specifically for work purposes. The cost of time, at least for me, is significantly higher than the actual cost of travel.
- No $15 hour job is going to be WFH, lol. Maybe $20 or $30/hour at a minimum.
  
  Just an example number for the math. And actually my company has a bunch of customer service reps that work from home at that rate when they start. It's more common than you may think.
  
  Steve in support would like you to know that he wishes to make 15 an hour after a few promotions. And that if you just think about it, getting 50 bucks worth of more services is smarter than cancelling your account.
  
  This is just plain wrong. Tons of call-center workers making minimum wage are working from how now.
  
  Nah, you can get under $20 WFH jobs.

Oh it's been very damaging and a major reason for high staff turnover. Since COVID I have worked in transactional finance roles where the staff turnover rate has been has high as 95% - meaning that for every 20 hires, only one would stay with the company beyond twelve months.
A trend I noticed is that companies which refuse to embrace remote working will greatly struggle to hire staff.
It's more baffling how a lot of companies respond to these issues not by raising wages to market levels or improving working conditions/workloads, but by buying the team pizzas every month or two, pushing tighter RTO mandates and adding lengthier notice periods into new contracts.
COVID-19 had one saving grace and that was proving that many roles could be performed remotely. The pandemic has made remote working an expectation of today's workforce that corporations have either embraced or fought long and hard to reverse. It's the companies that embrace remote work which are going to thrive.
Who knows, that may be a good thing in the long run. We don't need ludicrously expensive luxury office space, which my city is full of. But you know what my city desperately needs? Homes. Bristol has the second-highest property prices in all of the UK behind London. Our rents are quickly approaching London levels because all the Londoners are fleeing the capital to clog up our housing market.
- Longer notice periods? Nah dog. 2 weeks if I like my team, and there's a potential reference out of the job, otherwise cya
  
  I can't even imagine accepting an employment offer that requires a notice period; it'd be a pretty good indicator that the employer's attrition rates are high.
- Maybe it's not only the WFH that matters but hideous enough managers enforcing not liked non productive rules that plays part in big turnover too...
  
  Yeah, I think those go hand in hand. The kind of leadership that would push RTO is the kind that frequently would also do other bad things (or let their managers).

In the SHED survey, the gravity of this situation becomes more evident. The survey equates the displeasure of shifting from a flexible work model to a traditional one to that of experiencing a 2% to 3% pay cut.
Those number seem way too low to me. Just picking some semi-random numbers, let's assume a 40 hour work week and an average travel time to work and back of 1 hour per day, so 5 hours per week. Being forced to come to the office would then be equivalent to 12.5% more of your time spent to earn the same amount of money. Of course that scales depending on how far away from the workplace you live, but for 3% or 2% to be realistic you would basically have to live right next door.
- Let's not even account for the other added expenses of going to work. Like clothes, different food, gas, car repairs, and lost time for flexibility of appointments.
  
  Also when you are paying for those that is after tax as well. So I save about £2k a year just on travel costs, that’s the same as a £3k pay increase.
- WFH saves me $4000 per year in gas & wear & tear alone. 4 cyl sedan with a 30 mile round trip.
  
  WFH allows my family to own only a single car saving $1000/year in insurance costs alone
- Even if they are next door, who cares. If you’ve got hybrid/remote status, you don’t have to put on pants today. Some days you just don’t want to get out of your pajamas.
  And if you are within walking/biking/no-transfer range, chances are there’s a bunch more other employers in the neighborhood, and several of them will let you work hybrid.
- I use 25% (or 5% per day required in office premium). I assume an hour commute. Usually its less but it tends to be close enough. Its a bit of an over estimation but that all is easily covered by things like walking the dog at lunchtime and eating cheaper and healthier. Along with seeing my wife even if I don't have time to talk there is something about just being around. Oh and using my own bathroom with my prefered bath tissue. No catching other peoples kids crud. Man the list goes on and on.
- People aren't that logical. Most people feel more pain losing something than never getting it in the first place (eg: rolling back an accidental raise would be worse to someone than not getting the raise at all)
  If you tell people to get back to work or lose 3% pay, you'll get more takers than offering people a 3% bump. Although they'll be very disgruntled of course.

The next battle: 4 day work week or Work from home. Your choice.
You wait, they'll try that shit.
- Both, both is good.
- I'm hoping to see 3 day work weeks. Work 24 hrs a week.
- Keen insight.
- Say you prefer the 4 day week and then don't go in.
- It would actually be very nice. After a short while people would start to ask for both because the infrastructure is in place for that. At some point they need to give in and we win.
- I'd be ok with that. From home I'm probably only actually working 3.5 out of 5 days anyway, and I think it would be good to get companies comfortable with 4 day workweeks.
- My choice is "Same work, same wage."
  https://youtu.be/DwbzxemJZIc

My company has been WFH since March 2020 and they've so far shown no indication of making us return to the office. Could I make more working somewhere else? Easily, but I like being at home with my family. I'll trade a slightly better salary for that freedom and I suspect a lot of other people will, as well.
- .. Are they hiring... 🥹👉👈
  
  How could anyone say no to that face

We were full staff in office before covid, then full remote office optional in 2020/21. In 2022 we went back to one in person all staff meeting and one small team meeting each month. These are scheduled far in advance and lunch is often catered. We also went from all private assigned offices and desks to about half. Now people can reserve unassigned spaces in half or full day increments as needed. On an average day anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 of staff are in for some or all of the day.
I live fairly close and spend about half of my workweek at the office. I typically go in 3-4 days a week but start my day at home and go in mid morning after traffic dies down. I also leave mid afternoon before traffic picks up again. Remaining work can be done when I get home or later that evening. If I lost that flexibility I would probably be looking.
- Same here... being at office 8 or more hours just aint going to happen anymore. I got shit to do.
  
  I know millions of parents have figured this out but I literally cannot wrap my head around how we would be raising 2 small kids if my wife and I both had to be in the office full time. I take them to and from school most days and take care of other business during working hours. Then I work late at night to catch up on busy work. Or sometimes the weekend. If I lost that flexibility I would be looking immediately.
- We went full time back in the office in April of 2022 and haven’t done very much remote since. The nature of our work makes it almost impossible to do WFH, and particularly new employees need considerable mentoring (10 hours a week isn’t uncommon) and hands on learning. Doing that remotely would probably eat up another 30 hours a week of my time, which would actually push my work from 50 hours to 80 hours a week.
  So while I could do production only work and answer emails, its kind of hard to do the rest of the job sitting a desk at my house. Also, everyone else in the house works or goes to school, so I ended up being stuck at home for almost a year by myself which was depressing as fuck.

Can concur here.
My company, at first, decided to ask everyone to come back into the office.
They were also trying to hire more people, but almost every candidate dropped out once they heard they would be expected to go in.
They've now reversed course and let people work from anywhere.

I work for the Rainforest company.
I genuinely believe that they are hoping, if not praying that RTO results in a huge chunk of people leaving. Alongside forcing people back to the office, they're now pushing people to relocate to main offices, and limiting teams from hiring internally.
I'd say the same is for many big companies. They're absolutely desperate for people to leave in order to cut costs and look lean to investors while they take in record profits.
- I'm a mechanic, I'm yet to find spanners long enough to work from home :(
- Not everyone can have the luxury of working from home. Most knowledge workers can. Cooks and waitstaff, teachers, mechanics, etc. have to work at the "office".

Well like they say, all the workers need is a nice little recession to return to the office. They're getting too uppity!

WFH 4lyfe. I can't believe I used to let yall breathe on me.

Meanwhile, since we like money more than control, my company is letting the office lease expire & finding a smaller, cheaper place for our equipment.

It's awesome being at a permanent remote startup that's hiring right now, we get the cream of the crop that is leaving those other companies right now.

At that point, the company called me to help as a hybrid work expert who the New York Times has called “the office whisperer.
Eh - what is this
- Just had to throw that in there didn't they? Ha.
  
  I'm glad they did, it helped me identify a bunch of bullshit

Surprised pikachu face

I work at a pretty large HQ and they don't enforce anything either way. In fact, they said we just work from certain states for tax reasons, but beyond that, there's nothing else. I come in once a week for a change of pace, but prefer the battlestation at home. I have a better setup, less distraction, and tend to work longer hours.
Bringing me back in would not make things better in any way, but I almost feel bad for them having a large building that sits empty so much.

I think this is funny, there are a ton of jobs and careers out there that you cannot do remotely. Or, at least the remote aspect suffers.
Every time I read these threads 90% of the posters who are advocating for WFH are programmers who have $25k to drop on a nice shiny home office, and no need to ever interact with another human. Try WFH with a baby for 12 months and you’ll want to jump off of a bridge.
- Yeah, bit why shouldn't jobs that can be done at home be done there even if other jobs can't? Seems like a very crabs in a bucket mentality.
- I am on my second child since starting working from home... Never been more productive, never been less stressed out...
- I can't do my job remotely, but I would if I could. I don't need to see other people forced in to the office just because I have to come in.

I'm not a manager and I like working in the office. I like chatting up members of other teams in the kitchen. Being close to culture spots.
WFH was a hell to me and by the end of it I started developing depression-like symptoms.
I'm not defending RTO, the ability to say "I'll work from home next Wednesday because I have dentist appointment" is really great thing. But maybe let's not swing the other way and make it all 100% WFH, shall we?
- That is definitely a you problem when office culture has caused so much mental illness and stress for the majority of people. You needing a captive audience isn't a reason to have wfo.
  
  They're not my captive audience. If anything I more often listen than speak
  In half a year of working from office (when it was finally possible) I've learned much more about what teams I don't cooperate directly with do, than in 2 years of WFH.
  It's also a good way to understand what is going on in the company in general.
  Some talks we had would not have happened online, as every message for sure stays saved in some form
- My company has been full remote since before the pandemic. It's been fantastic. I hang out and chat with my coworkers all the time in Slack huddles. We have a remote-first culture and it's far better than an office ever was.
  If you're getting depressed from working at home, tbh that sounds to me like you live to work rather than work to live. It's important to have a rich life outside of work, especially when working remotely.
  
  Not OP, but yes and no. I work as customer service/tech support. We get abused by customers harshly every day. Work from home, for me, was great at first, but the isolation combined with the daily abuse or other trauma (worked in telephone porting for a while, and old people who can't keep their phone numbers or have to be with no phone service for a while get legit traumatized, and I felt I was causing it) caused me to become depressed, overeat, develop a heavy alcohol habit, and basically not move around much. I gained 100 pounds from 2019-2022. I am still struggling to lose it.
  RTO for me was not a thing I wanted to do, but I needed to.
  Also, I am thankfully no longer answering phone calls anymore, just taking chats. People are still assholes, but they cannot yell at you or use their voice to emotionally manipulate you.
  
  “Rich life outside of work” isn’t always possible. Most employers in the states don’t give you much PTO. On top of that, if you are a parent, you have no free time. Its just work work work 20 hours a day with 4 hours of sleep crammed in.
  
  How do you know that someone on slack is not busy ATM and is available to chat?
  How do you deal with pings from slack discussion in some channel when you can't chat and have to focus on a meeting?
  With WFH I'm additional at least 30 mins of commute from all places I'd just pick my stuff and go when working from the office.
  And everyone is spread around the city making it hard to choose the venue we go to
- I don't think many are advocating for mandated WFH, honestly. At least that isn't what I've seen.
  People want the flexibility to choose what works best for them. If that means splitting time, great. If that means 90% in office, great. If that means 100% WFH, great.
  I think what we are seeing is that people put real value on the ability to control this part of their lives. I'm sure there are some who would argue for full time WFH for all but I think it's a way more common sentiment to advocate simply for the ability to choose.
  
  Precisely this. I felt reddit and now lemmy are not entirely in sync with the majority of people. I prefer a hybrid but it's the CHOICE that should be there. Some want full wfh, some want full time office. So long as everyone can choose, that's the sweet spot.
  
  I don’t think many are advocating for mandated WFH, honestly. At least that isn’t what I’ve seen.
  I do. 90% of job offers I see are "100% WFH, we don't even have an office". And I understand that, what's the point of renting office space if 2-3 people come in?
  And in general this decoupling of jobs and location is good. You no longer need to think about which city to live in.
  But in my case the current trend seems to start limiting my ability to choose
- I'm sorry, but just because you're an extrovert who doesn't seem to have a social structure outside of the office, doesn't mean that the rest of us should have to suffer.
  
  I'm afraid you missed my point of the last paragraph
  I'm not saying "let's all get back to the office". I'm saying "let's keep the offices too"
  And I do have social structure outside of work. With WFH everyone is far away (offices are rather closer to the centre than the sleep districts) and have to commute before we can meet
- I work in IT. In 2020 the callcenter I worked at went fully remote and I lost a shocking amount of social skills for someone who's job it is to talk to people on the phone.
  I then went back to college, snagged an internship an hour away and commuted a hundred miles a day for a year then after graduation snagged a cushy role that's hybrid and I can say I love hybrid work. You get all of the benefits of being in office for collaboration and you get all of the benefits of WFH with the comfort, freedom and flexibility it provides (plus far less interruption than in the office)
- I’m in the same boat as you, although as a Project Manager I do some managing on the side. I do not directly manage people, however.
  I think WFH works for older people with established careers. Imagine being say a person with zero experience in a field trying to learn the ropes while sitting at home. All of our new hires this past year say they would not be able to succeed doing WFH.
  Still, our people do WFH on an as-needed basis.

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