Is Full Return to Office Now Dead, and if so, Should It Be?

by Diana L. Martin

The debate on a full return to the office (RTO) versus remote or hybrid work schedules continues to rage. Multitudes of articles have been written on the topic and so many statistics have been thrown around that it’s hard to keep track or know which ones to believe.

According to an August article in The Washington Post, full-time remote work decreased by 10% from February to June 2022 and hybrid schedules rose by about as much, so it appears that hybrid work is winning out over a full return to the office.

Is this a good thing? There is no shortage of opinions on this subject.

Author Malcolm Gladwell is strongly against work-from-home (WFH). On a recent podcast, he said that people need to come into the office for social reasons - to have a sense of belonging and to feel necessary. He believes that employees need to be in the office to learn how to overcome obstacles and to develop professionally - that people learn from other people, so they need to be around those people to absorb their traits and skills. His comments have triggered a firestorm of responses.

The Department of Labor published statistics showing that productivity in the U.S. labor market has plummeted despite an increase in hours worked - the largest decline ever recorded in data going back to the first quarter of 1948 (Breibart.com) - and that would seem to support Gladwell’s opinion. But you can find many studies that show just the opposite. For instance, a recent Fortune.com article wrote that a pre-COVID productivity study showed that employees assigned to work from home for nine months showed a 13% performance increase primarily due to fewer sick days, a quieter, more convenient work environment, and improved work satisfaction. Attrition rates were cut by half. That same article referenced a different study, more recent, that again showed increased productivity and a 35% reduction in attrition rates. Great Place to Work published results of a two-year study of employees at Fortune 500 companies that showed stable or increased productivity levels after employees started working from home.

Companies want employees in the office for a variety of reasons - collaboration, teamwork, in-person communication, professional development, team-building, and camaraderie, just to name a few. Big companies like Apple, Tesla, Peloton, and Comcast have been pushing employees to return to the office and the employees are pushing back. Apple has backed down multiple times from RTO orders. Employees like WFH and hybrid schedules because they provide safety from exposure, save money and time, provide flexibility for personal situations, and meetings can easily be done remotely over any of several platforms. Also, some employees may have relocated during the pandemic.

Jeff Frick, Founder, and Principal of Menlo Creek Media wrote on LinkedIn that employers need to make employees excited to return. He suggests giving them things they can’t get at home, like free food, fun events, and games to create an environment they want to be in. Erin Grau, cofounder of Charter says that many employers are still using methods designed for remote work even though employees are in the office (like Zoom meetings) so employees don’t understand why they need to be in the office. She makes a very good point and I agree. Doing so effectively negates the argument that employees need to be in the office for social interaction or communication skills. Grau also comments that employers often cite ideas like “culture” or “mentorship” without having any concrete plans for either and that bringing employees to the office for “culture” without doing any of the work is lazy. Jay D’Aprile, Executive VP of Slayton Search Partners wrote on LinkedIn that the RTO reasons most cited by employers - culture, teamwork and creativity - have been disproven by current research.

The Fortune.com article I mentioned earlier presented some interesting information about how leaders lead and how they decide on policies and procedures. Among other things, it said that managers who learned how to lead pre-pandemic have several biases that shape their decisions. For example, they were taught to evaluate productivity based on presence in the office, and employees that arrive early and leave late are perceived to be more productive and tend to get better performance evaluations and raises than employees who are working remotely.

I believe that employers need to change with the times. It’s the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality. Just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean it’s right or that you should keep doing it that way. (Granted, not all companies can offer remote work simply due to their type of business.) WFH and hybrid schedules allow the flexibility that RTO does not. My husband has worked from home for over 20 years and it was a godsend to us when our son was in school.

This battle will continue to be a hot one for some time to come.

What do you think? How is your company handling this issue? Comments are open - we’d love to hear from you.