Posted on 08/03/2023 10:38:50 AM PDT by ShadowAce
We’re now finding out the damaging consequences of the mandated return to office. And it’s not a pretty picture. A trio of compelling reports—the Greenhouse Candidate Experience report, the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), and Unispace’s Returning for Good report—collectively paint a stark picture of this brewing storm.
Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. In other words, employers knew the mandates would cause some attrition, but they weren’t ready for the serious problems that would result.
Meanwhile, a staggering 76% of employees stand ready to jump ship if their companies decide to pull the plug on flexible work schedules, according to the Greenhouse report. Moreover, employees from historically underrepresented groups are 22% more likely to consider other options if flexibility comes to an end.
In the SHED survey, the gravity of this situation becomes more evident. The survey equates the displeasure of shifting from a flexible work model to a traditional one to that of experiencing a 2% to 3% pay cut.
Flexible work policies have emerged as the ultimate edge in talent acquisition and retention. The Greenhouse, SHED, and Unispace reports, when viewed together, provide compelling evidence to back this assertion.
Greenhouse finds that 42% of candidates would outright reject roles that lack flexibility. In turn, the SHED survey affirms that employees who work from home a few days a week greatly treasure the arrangement.
The Greenhouse report has ranked employees’ priorities as:
In other words, excluding career-centric factors such as pay, security, and promotion, flexible work ranks first in employees’ priorities.
Interestingly, Unispace throws another factor into the mix: choice. According to its report, overall, the top feelings employees revealed they felt toward the office were happy (31%), motivated (30%), and excited (27%). However, all three of these feelings decrease for those with mandated office returns (27%, 26%, and 22%, respectively). In other words, staff members were more open to returning to the office if it was out of choice, rather than forced.
Recently, I was contacted by a regional insurance company with a workforce of around 2,000 employees. The company enforced a return-to-office policy, causing waves of unrest. It soon became evident that its attrition rates were climbing steadily. In line with the Greenhouse report’s findings, most employees would actively seek a new job if flexible work policies were retracted. The underrepresented groups were even more prone to leave, making the situation more daunting.
At that point, the company called me to help as a hybrid work expert who the New York Times has called “the office whisperer.” We worked on adapting the return-to-office plan, switching it from a top-down mandate to a team-driven approach, and focusing on welcoming staff to the office for the sake of collaboration and mentoring. As a result, the company’s attrition rates dropped and the feelings of employees toward the office improved, in line with what the Unispace report suggests.
In another case, a large financial services company began noticing employee turnover despite offering competitive salaries and growth opportunities. Upon running an internal survey, managers realized that aside from better compensation and career advancement opportunities, employees were seeking better flexible work policies. This aligned with the Greenhouse and SHED findings, which ranked flexible work policies as a crucial factor influencing job changes. After consulting with me, they adjusted their policies to be more competitive in offering flexibility.
A late-stage SaaS startup decided to embrace this wave of change. The company worked with me to introduce flexible work policies, and the result was almost immediate: Managers noticed a sharp decrease in employee turnover and an uptick in job applications. Their story echoes the collective message from all three reports: Companies must adapt to flexible work policies or risk being outcompeted by other employers.
As we navigate these shifting landscapes of work, we cannot ignore the human elements at play. Like unseen puppeteers, cognitive biases subtly shape our decisions and perceptions. In the context of flexibility and retention, two cognitive biases come into sharp focus: the status quo bias and anchoring bias.
Imagine a thriving tech startup, successfully operating in a hybrid model during the pandemic. As the world normalized, leadership decided to return to pre-pandemic, in-person work arrangements. However, they faced resistance and an unexpected swell of turnover.
This situation illustrates the potent influence of the status quo bias. This bias, deeply entrenched in our human psyche, inclines us toward maintaining current states or resisting change. Employees, having tasted the fruits of flexible work, felt averse to relinquishing these newfound freedoms.
Consider a large financial institution that enforced a full return to office after the pandemic. Many employees, initially attracted by the brand and pay scale, felt disgruntled. The crux of the problem lies in the anchoring bias, which leads us to heavily rely on the first piece of information offered (the anchor) when making decisions.
When initially joining the company, the employees were primarily concerned with compensation and job security. Once within the fold, the pandemic caused them to shift their focus to work-life balance and flexibility, as confirmed by both the Greenhouse and SHED reports. Unfortunately, the rigid return-to-office policy made these new anchors seem less attainable, resulting in dissatisfaction and an increased propensity to leave.
As we steer our ships through these tumultuous waters, understanding cognitive biases can help illuminate our path. Recognizing and accounting for the status quo and anchoring biases can enable us to create a workplace that not only attracts but also retains its employees in the new age of flexibility. After all, success in the world of business is as much about understanding people as it is about numbers and strategy.
Our productivity has gone way up. We have meetings back to back that we could never have that way because they would have required travel on different days.
We can reach through any team to get to the right person. No more time-wasting meetings. Staff's behavior changed for the better because we can now see exactly where each item is in the pipeline. We never had that in the office.
“All of you should have thought of this crap back in 2020 when you bought into the COVID hysteria and insisted on sending these employees to work from home. This is what I warned you about back in March of 2020 when we first met in that emergency meeting to discuss the company’s COVID protocols.”
Covid lockdowns clearly accelerated the transition to remote work, but the movement was already under way and was going to continue increasing regardless. Too many advantages for employers and employees, if you have the right employees and the nature of the work allows it to be done remotely.
See Post 72 by Magic Fingers
Managers who can’t figure out how to measure remote work really need to be doing something else.
Punishing their employees because the manager cannot do their job is crazy.
“Unfortunately, a large chunk of employees will not pull their weight.”
True - just like they don’t when they’re in the office.
Some the comments here make me laugh, they’re so out of touch with the reality of remote work. They also make me feel like a young whippersnapper at 55! 🤣
Do hardware repairs remotely? Don't need an office to repair the hardware. Can travel to the site from home.
Deliver a tractor trailer load to a warehouse remotely? The driver doesn't need to report directly to a home office. For decades many have worked out of their homes.
Lay asphalt remotely? Don't need an office. Can report directly to the site from home.
Some jobs still require the presence of a warm body. True but the "base of operations" can be dispersed. It started decades ago.
I doubt I’ll be as productive in the office. I’ll be too tired from getting up at 4:30 am and the 1 1/2 hour drive to the office.
An important job for direct line managers is also to let bad ideas die in a way that doesn't create chaos in an organization. That's hard to do with remote workers.
Absolutely. I witnessed several weak managers retire in the last three years because all they really did was walk around and pester staff for updates. Once they were forced to understand the processes and what needed to be done, they were exposed as part of the problem.
We had processes that took four weeks that we can now turn in two or three days. The level of service was impossible when in the office.
You know who the key employees are.
You need to keep every one of them—whatever it takes—don’t worry about the “rules”.
Some corporations have solved this problem by creating “teams” focused on solving tough problems—and let those teams work remotely if they wish.
The next question you should be asking is why you are keeping so many employees that are not pulling their weight.
The “remote work” issue is a great opportunity to be honest with yourselves—is it time to cut loose some of the less productive employees.
“...you have too many other employees taking advantage of WFH arrangement so productivity is way down compared to what it was before when everyone worked in the office.”
You have proof of this?
I would like to see it.
I think it’s it’s middle management being shown to be useless micromanagers for what they are.
All of my engineering projects have metrics attached.
I make them, or I do not.
Don’t forget listen to BS from Jen, Tina, and Bill.
Birthday cake, HR Negro training, Vaginal Awareness training, “who ate my f’ing salad!”, golf throwing contests in the parking lot, etc.
“Once they were forced to understand the processes and what needed to be done, they were exposed as part of the problem.”
That is exactly what happened to us.
Many managers were told they could either go back to being regular workers or go away—and most chose to become regular workers.
The biggest surprise to many of us is most former managers liked being regular workers again—even for lower pay—since they no longer had to commute—and the stress was much lower.
“Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated.”
Some large companies are using return-to-office as a way to reduce their large workforce. Thus they welcome the attrition.
It's the reverse. By far, and by far I mean incomparably far, the worst ideas I ever saw originated and directed were in verbal meetings where no one was going to say no to an incompetent and petty boss. I saw millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours get wasted away. I watched staff of entire departments leave for other companies, often competitors, because they knew it was going to fail spectacularly. I witnessed entire companies go under because no one was going to put the brakes on such bad ideas.
Now, if it can't stand scrutiny from being put on paper (digital of course) and reviewed across various teams, it doesn't get started at all. It's amazing, and relieving, to witness the increased level of accountability.
OMG! Making them go back to work instead of loafing from home makes them quit?
Oh, my.
/s
When they run out of money they’ll come back.
No one’s coming back. Your competition will eat you.
Yeppers.
I totally transformed by operating model during COVID and moved to a 100% work-from-home arrangement. The biggest lesson I learned is that meeting in person with clients is far more important than working face-to-face with fellow employees.
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