What once seemed to be the dawning of a new era of remote work for all has quickly returned to the ways of old via return to office policies which are dragging a mass of disgruntled employees in their wake.
For now, return to office policies are trending toward hybrid work with remote roles being phased out. This may be enough to pacify frustrated employees for a little while, but us workers should stay alert to the possibility that we are being strategically slow-walked back into offices as the KPMG 2023 CEO Outlook survey revealed that 64% of CEOs predict a full return to in-office working by 2026.
I’ve had my own brush with return to office as I chose to part ways with an employer who reneged on their remote work promise one year after I started.
That ordeal motivated me to write this post examining possible consequences of return to office, as well as my other posts delving into how workers can defeat return to office and how to flip the script on CEO collusion.
Contents
A Brief History Of Return To Office
I predicted the return to office phenomenon would take hold more than a year ago when I saw a headline of Amazon’s return to office proclamation on February 20, 2023.
Company leaders all commingle amongst each other in a sort of elite fraternity, so they tend to mirror each other’s actions. Strategically it makes sense for them to coordinate action when it benefits them, so it’s easy to predict industry trends.
Amazon was my early indicator, but it wasn’t the first company to launch return to office efforts. In fact, there were a number of big name players mobilizing their workforce to return to their desks as early as 2021.
Here is a chronological rundown of return to office shifts at some of the top firms:
- Apple emails employees asking them to return to office in June 2021.
- Amazon initially requested employees to return to the workplace on 4 April 2022.
- Google updates its hybrid work policy in March 2023 requiring employees to return to offices on a weekly basis.
- JP Morgan called their workers back in on April 12, 2023.
- Zoom enacted return to office policies during the week of August 5th, 2023.
- As of September 5, 2023, Meta required employees to work in the office.
- On January 10th, 2024 WebMD released a cringeworthy video entitled “Don’t Mess With Us” which many say was a threat piece demanding employees return to office.
- Kroger return to office policy mandated general office associates return to office By Feb. 5, 2024.
- At the time of writing in April 2024, Federal workers are trying their best to resist the 3-day hybrid mandate expected to begin no later than Sept. 9 2024.
Hidden Reasons Companies Are Forcing Return To Office
On the surface, company leaders have demanded that workers return to offices for noble reasons such as fostering collaboration, ensuring productivity, and protecting company culture.
I believe these are respectable motives for company leaders. I also believe there is a modicum of truth in them. But can they reasonably explain why many companies are so aggressive in their pursuit?
Does fostering collaboration, productivity, and company culture justify measures such as tracking attendance, withholding bonuses, and stifling career progression or even terminating employees who prefer to do their jobs remotely?
This makes me question what could be beneath the surface of these strong return to office policy shifts. Here are a few ideas that I think could be at play.
1) Companies Don’t Trust Their Employees
Back when I was an up and coming school leader, my boss would say that the most important thing for ensuring teacher performance was supervision. Not supervision of the kids (although that was important too), but supervision of the teachers by us administrators.
In his eyes, teachers couldn’t be trusted to do their jobs without having the powers that be peer over their shoulders. Sadly, most of the time this was true.
In 2021, I worked at Salesforce in a role called a Project Coordinator where I served as a pseudo Chief of Staff to a Senior Vice President who reported directly to the Chief Information Officer. In a team meeting with this SVP and his VP leadership team, the SVP mentioned that the CIO had been reviewing Reddit comments made by braggadocious employees flaunting the fact that they worked less than 10 hours per week for full time roles that paid high six figures.
Bragging online about not working or juggling multiple jobs was an unwise strategy because I’m sure company leaders don’t like to be taken for fools. As such, handing down return to office mandates is a clear and obvious way to increase employee supervision and stop this sort of rebellion in its tracks.
2) Return To Office Policies Are Driven By Economic Incentives
In a compelling documentary, Bloomberg reported that office spaces are facing an economic time bomb that could implode the commercial real estate industry and the wider economy along with it.
A brief summary of what has caused this was a debt fueled spree of commercial development in many of our biggest cities. Founded on the idea that the economy and major corporations would continue to grow, developers made billion dollar bets and went all in on commercial real estate.
Then the pandemic happened, which caused office buildings to empty and create the crisis we see today.
3) Return To Office To Save The Economy
As noted by Bloomberg, empty office buildings are problematic because developers lose the rental income required to pay back their loans. When this happens, banks lose revenues they need to continue operating. This is a crisis because bank failures could tank the economy.
Clearly, we’d all like to avoid tanking the economy. One way to ensure this is for company leaders, government officials, bank heads, and the powerful real estate developers to coordinate to see that disaster doesn’t happen.
And course, the easiest way to avert this crisis is to undo what was done during the pandemic by calling employees back into offices so firms can resume lease payments which would help developers cover their debt and provide revenues to banks.
Seems obvious doesn’t it?
4) Re-Established Power, Control, And Appearances
As mentioned above, I recently left an employer because I refused to go into the office. One thing I noticed in that ordeal was that my manager was desperate for her team to come in to the office to uphold the appearance that she was indeed presiding over a team.
In an all remote world, employees are only linked by the suggestion of a hierarchy. It’s better known as an organizational chart.
Managers rule over their teams by way of Zoom meetings and rare on-site sessions. But the illusion of power clearly is more shaky. It’s hard for a manager to “show” they are in charge when they can’t physically preside over their team. Office politics become more of a moot point.
A clear solution for those in power is to force their legions to return so they can reestablish power, control, and appearances that they are being the good bosses they set out to be. They can give their team’s desks, stand before them in conference rooms, and take them out for team lunches on the company dime to show their benevolence.
Hidden Downsides Of Return To Office Policies
I believe ego and a thirst for power are critical requirements for individuals to be motivated enough to want to be a CEO. What else could motivate people to give in to towing the company line, playing the politics games, and adopting CEO speak?
Unfortunately, ego and a thirst for power can also cloud the judgment of even the best and brightest of us – just ask the once praised Sam Bankman-Fried. Because of that hubris, I believe CEOs are overlooking some key things in their hast to implement return to office policies which are reverting the workplace back to 2019.
Let’s turn our attention to some of those downsides.
Return To Office Makes Employees Unhappy
Let’s make this simple.
Imagine for a moment you started a small company with only a handful of employees. Would you want your small team of employees happy or disgruntled? How do you think either option your company’s performance? The answer seems obvious.
Now expand this scenario at scale and imagine what having thousands of frustrated employees must be like. Unfortunately for most CEOs, they are so far removed from the people on the ground that they can’t feel the impacts of their decisions through the layers of corporate bureaucracy.
Be that as it may, the damage is still done. Employees are pissed. The seeds of discontent are sown. And in this environment, it only takes one maverick CEO to buck the return to office trend to win the never ceasing war for top talent.
Return To Office Means Broken Promises & Lower Trust
Not that long ago Mark Zuckerberg said Meta would be ‘the most forward-leaning company on remote work”. Salesforce CEO Mark Beniof also said that he himself “has always been a remote worker his whole life”.
Other CEOs echoed similar sentiments as most comments about remote work a few years ago were about how employees were much happier and productive at home.
Fast forward to today and it’s amazing how the tunes have changed as leaders have forced workers to return to office in droves. Did they lie to us when they said they loved the results of the remote working world? Or were they simply following the crowd like they always do?
Regardless of why, the fact remains that these moves have undoubtedly hurt the trust employees have for company leaders.
As for me, I’m not at all caught off guard by these mandates because I recognize that CEO are still people who are susceptible to falling victim to ego, power, and selfish whims. Perhaps this ordeal will bring more employees’ expectations in alignment with reality and motivate them to not be so reliant on their jobs for meaning and direction.
Return To Office Policies Ignore Introverts
As an introvert, I find most of what goes on in offices insufferable and have thrived in the remote world. The small talk, the politics, and the microscope we’re all under while in office makes me long for the day I can buy my way out.
For those of us who are introverted in nature, return to office policies are an especially unwelcomed trend. Because in addition to it being a major inconvenience, it also forces us to work in settings that go against our nature.
I wish there were more studies and chatter around this topic. But it seems that amidst all of the talk about equity and inclusion, introverts have been all but forgotten.
Returning To The Office Could Hurt Company Profits
If you watched the WebMd video linked above, you can see the challenges companies have in trying to motivate and engage employees they are forcing to return to work.
In contrast, perhaps Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox is getting it right when he says that “employees value flexibility a lot more than snacks in the office.”
I believe Houston may understand well that unhappy employees will hurt company bottom lines because the costs of disengagement are so high. He also alluded to the fact that firms offering the most flexibility will attract the best talent.
As my mom famously says when things seem obvious, “duh!”.
But they apparently aren’t obvious to company leaders. And perhaps I’m missing something that you can help enlighten on in the comments?
Do CEOs Simply Lack Creativity?
Let’s play my favorite game of “let’s imagine” more time…
Let’s imagine that we were still in the midst of a pandemic and employees could not feasibly return to offices. How would we be doing? Would companies be hurting or thriving? Would employees be happy?
More importantly, would the most innovative companies have continued to push the limits of the digital revolution and found even more creative ways to get work done? I think so.
Sadly, the retreat of the pandemic paved the way for us to land on the easy route which is to do what we’ve always done. But I still believe we are collectively smart enough to create new viable methods if we really had to.
So, does this mean that CEOs are simply lacking creativity by settling on the least common denominator? Chime in with your return to office thoughts below.