Remote work and office mandates continue to create controversy—for the moment though worker demands are winning.
Key Details
- Remote work became the default for many Americans following the beginning of the COVID lockdown. Nearly three years later, 26% of Americans now work remotely.
- Companies are generally weary of remote work due to the lack of office cohesion and mentorship it creates and fears that remote work slows productivity and profitability.
- White-collar employees momentarily feel empowered to push for remote work against the wishes of their employers, and they appear to be winning against efforts to enforce mandates.
Why it’s Important
The COVID pandemic changed the global economy and has forever altered the way people go about living and working. There hasn’t been a major wave of COVID since March 2022 and people have tried to return to normal living after the implementation of vaccines but remote work has become highly demanded by employees who want greater flexibility.
“This was supposed to be the year we all went back to how work looked pre-pandemic. But 2022 didn’t unfold the way many decision-makers had hoped. Return-to-office plans and mandates came in fits and starts, hampered by new variants, shifting relationships to workism, and a veritable war between employees and management over the future of how we do our jobs,” says Fortune.
“By spring, bosses were ready to start calling workers back to offices: Apple frustrated employees with its new hybrid plan, Goldman Sachs demanded staff to return five days a week, and Google put an end to working from home and started pulling workers back as well.”
As we previously reported, companies have attempted to enforce return-to-office mandates since before Labor Day. Some companies like Twitter have fired large swaths of employees while other companies have buckled under the demands of employees. New hiring jobs with remote options have slowed down as 50% of the workforce is fighting for 15% of remote jobs. Some companies are promoting hybrid office-remote work as a compromise.
Office occupancy has risen from 23% to 47% over the course of the year, Fortune reports, although this hasn’t proven enough for many employers who want expansive office spaces to return to pre-pandemic occupancy.
Notable Quote
Dan Kaplan is a senior client partner at Korn Ferry. He says that workers momentarily have the upper hand as companies are forced to make hard cuts as a result of the coming recession. So far, companies are choosing cutting office space over staff. “There’s a pretty broadly held view that we’ve done the hybrid thing, and it’s worked, but that we’re heading into a recession, and people are going to be forced to come back to the office because they’ll have no other choice. [But] people aren’t going back,” he says.