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There\u2019s a new lounge in the administrative offices at Ability Beyond where employees can take a break or hold an informal meeting. There are also quiet offices for private conversations and heads-down, need-to-concentrate work at the Bethel, Conn.-based provider of services for people with disabilities. The enhancements were added in hopes of coaxing roughly 250 of the nonprofit organization\u2019s employees, who largely had been working remotely since the pandemic began, back to the office. But they weren\u2019t much of a draw.<\/p>\n
Last year, Ability Beyond\u2019s leaders asked their administrative department heads to gauge how their teams would feel about returning to the office five days a week, says Kara Chamberlain, the organization\u2019s talent acquisition manager. Most of the nonprofit\u2019s 1,100 employees had to be onsite during the pandemic anyway, and some had commented that the administrative offices were still sparsely populated, even though the crisis was over.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople said no [to coming in five days a week],\u201d says Chamberlain, explaining that employees questioned the need to return when they had been successfully doing their jobs remotely for more than two years. \u201cHow can you argue with that?\u201d<\/p>\n
There was no fight; instead, there was an arrangement. Leadership and administrative staff agreed to a new hybrid schedule in which most administrative employees returned to the office two to three days a week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be in our best interest to not offer flexibility and hybrid schedules,\u201d says Chamberlain. She notes that as a nonprofit, Ability Beyond can\u2019t match the salaries and benefits of other local employers, but scheduling flexibility is a perk it can offer.<\/p>\n
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As the pandemic has further receded, more employers are asking\u2014or requiring\u2014that workers return to the office either full time or on a hybrid schedule. The need for collaboration and maintaining workplace culture are the top two reasons cited, according to a SHRM survey of 1,500 HR professionals done in June. Moreover, 49 percent of managers say their hybrid workers are struggling with loneliness and other mental health issues that can be better addressed in the office. <\/p>\n
Many employees, on the other hand, don\u2019t share executives\u2019 enthusiasm for in-person work. They counter that working remotely allows them to achieve better work\/life balance as they manage child care and elder care issues; saves them money not spent on commuting and office attire; helps offset what some perceive as lower pay or a lack of career advancement; and allows them to get more tasks accomplished each day. A recent Microsoft survey found that 52 percent of employees want to work hybrid or remotely for the rest of their careers.<\/p>\n
Welcome to \u2018the Great Compromise\u2019<\/p>\n
With unemployment at historic lows and talent shortages widespread, many employers have been accommodating employees\u2019 desire for remote and hybrid work. It costs about one-third of an employee\u2019s salary to replace them, according to industry norms, and that\u2019s only if HR can find a qualified candidate who is willing to accept the position.<\/p>\n
The good news for companies implementing return-to-office policies is that while employees may say they don\u2019t want to go back, most report that the return has been a positive experience. About 3 out of 4 workers who returned to the office say they are more satisfied with their jobs and are more effective and productive, according to SHRM Research.<\/p>\n
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Still, there has been significant pushback. Office employees staged a walkout at Amazon after being told they had to return three days a week, while workers at Apple and the Walt Disney Co. signed petitions to protest policies that would force them back onsite. Farmers Insurance Group\u2019s reversal from the work-from-anywhere policy it instituted last year to a hybrid schedule that would require in-person work three days a week ignited an uproar, with some employees threatening to quit or unionize\u2014especially those who had moved far away from the company\u2019s headquarters when they were told it would allow fully remote work as a permanent benefit.<\/p>\n
And recent research from Clarify Capital, a financial consultancy in New York City, found that nearly 7 in 10 employees (68 percent) said they would rather look for a new job than return to the office. That number is even higher among Generation Z workers, 79 percent of whom said they would look for a new job rather than go back to the office.<\/p>\n
A Potential Career Setback for Women?<\/p>\n
Providing flexible work options has helped many \u00adcompanies attract more women to their workforces, especially those located in less diverse areas. In fact, more than 50 percent of women say they enjoy working remotely and would like to continue to do so, compared with 41 percent of men, according to a 2022 Harris poll. Research also shows that caregivers, who are primarily women, appreciate the flexibility afforded by remote work.<\/p>\n
So while many company leaders and managers say they prefer that their teams be in the office, that attitude can hurt the careers of women. Nearly 70 percent of \u00adsupervisors believe that remote workers are more easily replaced than onsite workers, according to SHRM Research. About 42 percent of supervisors say they sometimes forget about remote workers when assigning tasks, and nearly three-quarters say they would prefer their direct reports to be in the office.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s already evidence that calling people back to the office is taking a toll on women\u2019s careers. When Mumbai, India-based Tata Consultancy Services ordered employees to return to the office three days a week, women left in greater numbers than men, according to the company\u2019s annual report.<\/p>\n
\u201cIntuitively, I would think working from home during the pandemic reset the domestic arrangements for some women, keeping them from returning to office even after everything normalized,\u201d company CHRO Milind Lakkad said in the annual report. \u201cThe higher attrition among women in FY [fiscal year] 2023 is a setback to our efforts to promote gender diversity, but we are doubling down on [our diversity efforts].\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s concern that U.S. companies will see the same results if they force more female employees back into the office.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really think it\u2019s going to push women back even farther in their careers if companies insist on a return to office\u2014I think it\u2019s going to drive them into positions that aren\u2019t as prone to advancement,\u201d says Pam Cohen, Ph.D., president of WerkLabs, the research division of The Mom Project, a Chicago-based organization that provides support for \u00admothers in the workplace. <\/p>\n
Cohen says that hybrid employees must be strategic in timing their office visits to ensure that supervisors see them and that they keep their managers abreast of their \u00adaccomplishments. But she encourages companies to provide the flexibility employees need and to remember what can be accomplished using Zoom, Slack and other tools that were popularized during the pandemic, adding that offering options can lead to a more diverse workplace.<\/p>\n
For example, Airbnb allows employees to work from \u00adwherever they choose, and its employee base is the most diverse it has ever been, according to a company spokesman. As a result, women accounted for 52 percent of Airbnb\u2019s new hires in the U.S. over the last year, the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompanies run the risk of losing some excellent talent by being extremely rigid in those return-to-office scenarios,\u201d Cohen says. \u2014T.A.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Is Falling Productivity to Blame?<\/p>\n
Leaders\u2019 communication styles can be a cause of friction, says Flo Falayi, a partner at Korn Ferry in Atlanta. Falayi says that when employers sent workers home during the pandemic, executives talked about wanting to keep them safe and offered flexibility so they could tend to their families\u2019 needs during a time of epic upheaval. \u201cThere was this sense around \u2018Let\u2019s do what\u2019s right for each other.\u2019 Everybody was on the same page,\u201d Falayi says. But while CEOs demonstrated humanity and empathy during the pandemic, many aren\u2019t currently displaying those qualities now, he says. \u201cThings are lost in translation today. Leaders are not perhaps communicating to the level that the employee is accepting the message.\u201d![\"Image33.jpeg\"](\"https:\/\/www.shrm.org\/hr-today\/news\/hr-magazine\/fall-2023\/PublishingImages\/Pages\/return-to-office-planning\/Image33.jpeg\")
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One theory is that company leaders don\u2019t want to disclose their true motivation, because 85 percent of them say hybrid work has made it difficult to have confidence that their workers are productive, according to another Microsoft survey conducted last year. In that survey, 87 percent of workers say they are productive.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a PwC study conducted last year found that nearly 40 percent of CEOs say their organizations won\u2019t be economically viable if they continue on their current path. And worker productivity in the U.S. has fallen in each of the last five quarters, according to the U.S. -Bureau of Labor Statistics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that the heart of this issue [about returning to the office] is about trust,\u201d says Julia Lamm, a New York-City based partner in PwC\u2019s Financial Services, People & Organization practice. \u201cI think that\u2019s adding anxiety as some leaders worry about business performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lamm agrees that business leaders could better explain why they want employees back in the office and advises against threatening to lower bonuses or withhold promotions for employees who balk at in-person attendance, as some organizations have done. Such approaches can lead employees to become disengaged.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeaders have to frame the narrative in a way that takes into consideration the issues at the top of people\u2019s hearts,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
Job Requirements<\/p>\n
To be sure, many employees have returned to the office without any fuss or compromise. The city of Farmington, N.M., has about 1,000 employees who worked remotely during the pandemic, and they have all been back in the office for two years, according to Jamie Wagoner, deputy HR director for the city. She says they were all told during the crisis that they would eventually have to return, and only one person balked and eventually left.<\/p>\n
\u201cCitizens expect us to be in the office,\u201d Wagoner says. She adds that the bulk of the city\u2019s employees could never work remotely, so it\u2019s not fair that certain workers have the option. \u201cWe wanted to show solidarity,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Of course, some employers are creating special return-to-office terms for certain jobs. Software A compromise was reached, and the 25 engineers now work in the office one day a week. While some nonengineering employees initially resented their colleagues\u2019 preferential treatment, the arrangement is working well, says Renata Kilibarda, SHRM-CP, HR manager with Vegas.com.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just don\u2019t have a lot of that type of talent here,\u201d says Kilibarda, who adds that replacing those software engineers with others in the Las Vegas area who would be willing to work onsite would be very difficult.<\/p>\n![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/www.shrm.org\/hr-today\/news\/hr-magazine\/fall-2023\/PublishingImages\/Pages\/return-to-office-planning\/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-05%20at%2010115%20PM.png\")
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engineers at the travel company Vegas.com protested and threatened to quit when they were told they would need to return to the office three days a week. Managers explained that the organization was trying to preserve its culture and create bonds within its workforce. <\/p>\n
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