Four years after the rush of remote work brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies are now on the fence about whether staying remote is the best course of action. Read on to discover some alarming statistics that have risen to the surface amongst a wash of return-to-office mandates.
Return to Office Mandates threaten employee loyalty and increase attrition rates.
The flexibility that remote work offers has become a work perk that many employees are not willing to give up. In one study, a third of workers required to come back to the workplace said that their plans to stay with their company have decreased (hrdive.com, 2023). The ability to work from home also provides a sense of autonomy that can make employees feel valued and trusted by their organizations. Those positive feelings can be strong motivating factors to stay in their current roles. When they are instead replaced by onsite requirements, the opposite occurs. 71% of HR executives said they struggled to retain workers after mandating on-site work (Workplacecoachblog, 2023).
Return to Office Mandates could cause you to lose top performers.
It’s bad enough losing people that help keep your company going – it’s even worse losing your A-players. And yet, that’s exactly who research shows is most likely to “jump ship” following an RTO mandate. A startling Gartner study found that intent to stay among high performers dropped to only 16% following a return to office requirement (Gartner study). Losing star employees means losing valuable company knowledge and business acumen, on top of regular goal-hitting, and can have a serious impact on a company’s efficiency.
RTO mandates also make it harder to hire newcomers who could provide that same level of performance. Caitin Duffy at Gartner’s HR practice says that “…Mandated on-site requirements can carry very steep costs for talent attraction and retention. This is especially true for high performers, women, and millennials – three employee segments who greatly value flexibility” (Gartner’s HR practice).
Onsite requirements can disproportionately harm minority, disabled, or underprivileged groups.
DE&I initiatives have been top-of-mind for many companies over the past few years, with some going so far as to put out annual reports and goals to help achieve a more equitable workplace. Instating a return to office mandate could undo much of this important work. Studies have found that in-office environments “tend to favor straight white cisgender able-bodied males…and threaten gains in diversity and inclusion [that were made] over the course of the pandemic” (Damian, C., Linkedin, May 2024). Among BIPOC employees, many of them preferred remote work over in-office, stating that it helped them avoid office politics and create a more “objective environment”. (Black employees have reported)
Return to office mandates can also negatively impact disabled employees. The US saw a significant increase in the hiring of disabled individuals during the wave of remote work, as many were now able to work previously unattainable jobs from home. Thomas Foley, executive director of the National Disability Institute, told Axios that he has "great concerns" for RTO for people with disabilities, including transportation to and from work, workplace accessibility and the potential to encounter micro or larger aggressions.
When deciding whether to require employees to work onsite in a hybrid or full-time fashion, it’s incredibly important to think ahead and consider the inefficiencies that such requirements can cause. The research shows that RTO mandates lead to decreased employee loyalty and trust, increase in attrition, the loss of A-players, and a negative impact on DE&I initiatives. It can also be more difficult to attract new hires to your company, as remote work flexibility remains a top priority amongst job seekers.
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