return-to-office

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Dell risks employee retention by forcing all teams back into offices full-time

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In a statement to Ars, Dell’s PR team said:

“We continually evolve our business so we’re set up to deliver the best innovation, value, and service to our customers and partners. That includes more in-person connections to drive market leadership.”

The road to full RTO

After Dell allowed employees to work from home two days per week, Dell’s sales team in March became the first department to order employees back into offices full-time. At the time, Dell said it had data showing that salespeople are more productive on site. Dell corporate strategy SVP Vivek Mohindra said last month that sales’ RTO brought “huge benefits” in “learning from each other, training, and mentorship.”

The company’s “manufacturing teams, engineers in the labs, onsite team members, and leaders” had also previously been called into offices full-time, Business Insider reported today.

Since February, Dell has been among the organizations pushing for more in-person work since pandemic restrictions lifted, with reported efforts including VPN and badge tracking.

Risking personnel

Like other organizations, Dell risks losing employees by implementing a divisive mandate. For Dell specifically, internal tracking data reportedly found that nearly half of workers already opted for remote work over being eligible for promotions or new roles, according to a September Business Insider report.

Research has suggested that companies that issue RTO mandates subsequently lose some of their best talent. A November research paper (PDF) from the University of Pittsburgh, Baylor University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business researchers that cited LinkedIn data found this particularly true for “high-tech” and financial firms. The researchers concluded that average turnover rates increased by 14 percent on average after companies issued RTO policies. This research, in addition to other studies, has also found that companies with in-office work mandates are at risk of losing senior-level employees especially.

Some analysts don’t believe Dell is in danger of a mass exodus, though. Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst at Technalysis Research, told Business Insider in December, “It’s not like I think Dell’s going to lose a whole bunch of people to HP or Lenovo.”

Patrick Moorhead, CEO and chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said he believes RTO would be particularly beneficial to Dell’s product development.

Still, some workers have accused Dell of using RTO policies to try to reduce headcount. There’s no proof of this, but broader research, including commentary from various company executives outside of Dell, has shown that some companies have used RTO policies to try to get people to quit.

Dell declined to comment about potential employee blowback to Ars Technica.

Dell risks employee retention by forcing all teams back into offices full-time Read More »

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Trump cribs Musk’s “fork in the road” Twitter memo to slash gov’t workforce

Donald Trump, elon musk, federal workers, Policy, remote work, return-to-office, rto mandate / /

Federal workers on Reddit slam Office of Personnel Management email as short-sighted.

Echoing Elon Musk’s approach to thinning out Twitter’s staff in 2022, Donald Trump’s plan to significantly slash the government workforce now, for a limited time only, includes offering resignation buyouts.

In a Tuesday email that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent to nearly all federal employees, workers were asked to respond with one word in the subject line—”resign”—to accept the buyouts before February 6.

“Deferred resignation is available to all full-time federal employees except for military personnel of the armed forces, employees of the U.S. Postal Service, those in positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and those in other positions specifically excluded by your employing agency,” the email said.

Anyone accepting the offer “will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program,” the email said. That includes retaining “all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload” and being “exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason).”

That basically means that most employees who accept will receive about nine months’ pay, most likely without having any job duties to fulfill, an FAQ explained, “except in rare cases.”

“Have a nice vacation,” the FAQ said.

A senior administration official told NBC News that “the White House expects up to 10 percent of federal employees to take the buyout.” A social media post from Musk’s America PAC suggested, at minimum, 5 percent of employees are expected to resign. The move supposedly could save the government as much as $100 billion, America PAC estimated.

For employees accepting the buyout, silver linings might include additional income opportunities; as OPM noted, “nothing in the resignation letter prevents you from seeking outside work during the deferred resignation period.” Similarly, nothing in the separation plan prevents a federal employee from applying in the future to a government role.

Email echoes controversial Elon Musk Twitter memo

Some federal employees fear these buyouts—which critics point out seem influenced by Musk’s controversial worker buyouts during his Twitter takeover—may drive out top talent, spike costs, and potentially weaken the government.

On Reddit, some self-described federal workers criticized the buyouts as short-sighted, with one noting that they initially flagged OPM’s email as a scam.

“The fact you just reply to an email with the word ‘resign’ sounds like a total scam,” one commenter wrote. Another agreed, writing, “That stood out to me. Worded like some scam email offer.” Chiming in, a third commenter replied, “I reported it as such before I saw the news.”

Some Twitter employees similarly recoiled in 2022 when Musk sent out an email offering three months of severance to any employees who couldn’t commit to his “extremely hardcore” approach to running the social network. That email required workers within 24 hours to click “yes” to keep their jobs or else effectively resign.

Musk’s email and OPM’s share a few striking similarities. Both featured nearly identical subject lines referencing a “fork in the road.” They both emphasized that buyouts were intended to elevate performance standards—with OPM’s email suggesting only the “best” workers “America has to offer” should stick around. And they both ended by thanking workers for their service, whether they took the buyout or not.

“Whichever path you choose, we thank you for your service to The United States of America,” OPM’s Tuesday email ended.

“Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful,” Musk’s 2022 email said.

Musk’s email was unpopular with some Twitter staffers, including one employee based in Ireland who won a $600,000 court battle when the Irish Workplace Relations Commission agreed his termination for not clicking yes on the email was unfair. In that dispute, the commission took issue with Musk not providing staff enough notice and ruled that any employee’s failure to click “yes” could in no way constitute a legal act of resignation.

OPM’s email departed from Musk’s, which essentially gave Twitter staff a negative option by taking employee inaction as agreeing to resign when the staffer’s “contract clearly stated that his resignation must be provided in writing, not by refraining to fill out a form.” OPM instead asks federal workers to respond “yes” to resign, basically agreeing to sign a pre-drafted resignation letter that details the terms of their separation plan.

While OPM expects that a relatively modest amount of federal workers will accept the buyout offers, Musk’s memo had Twitter employees resigning in “droves,” NPR reported, with Reuters estimating the numbers were in the “hundreds.” In the Irish worker’s dispute, an X senior director of human resources, Lauren Wegman, testified that about 87 percent of the 270 employees in Ireland who received Musk’s email resigned.

It remains unclear if Musk was directly involved with the OPM plan or email drafting process. But unsurprisingly, as he’s head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk praised the buyouts as “fair” and “generous” on his social media platform X.

Workers slam buyouts as short-sighted on Reddit

Declining the buyout guarantees no job security for federal workers, OPM’s email said.

“We will insist on excellence at every level—our performance standards will be updated to reward and promote those that exceed expectations and address in a fair and open way those who do not meet the high standards which the taxpayers of this country have a right to demand,” the email warned.

“The majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force,” OPM’s email continued. “These actions are likely to include the use of furloughs and the reclassification to at-will status for a substantial number of federal employees.”

And perhaps most ominously, OPM noted there would be “enhanced standards of conduct” to ensure employees are “reliable, loyal, trustworthy,” and “strive for excellence” daily, or else risk probes potentially resulting in “termination.”

Despite these ongoing threats to job security that might push some to resign, the OPM repeatedly emphasized that any choice to accept a buyout and resign was “voluntary.” Additionally, OPM explained that employees could rescind resignations; however, if an agency wants to move quickly to reassign their roles, that “would likely serve as a valid reason to deny” such requests.

On Reddit, workers expressed concerns about “critical departments” that “have been understaffed for years” being hit with more cuts. A lively discussion specifically focused on government IT workers being “really hard” to recruit.

“Losing your IT support is a very efficient way to cripple an org,” one commenter wrote, prompting responses from two self-described IT workers.

“It’s me, I work in government IT,” one commenter said, calling Trump’s return-to-office mandate the “real killer” because “the very best sysadmins and server people all work remote from other states.”

“There is a decent chance they just up and ditch this dumpster fire,” the commenter said.

Losing talented workers with specific training could bog down government workflows, Redditors suggested. Another apparent government IT worker described himself as “a little one man IT business,” claiming “if I disappeared or died, there would be exactly zero people to take my place. Between the random shit I know and the low pay, nobody is going to be able to fill my position.”

Accusing Trump of not caring “about keeping competent workers or running government services properly,” a commenter prompted another to respond, “nevermind that critical departments have been understaffed for years. He thinks he’s cutting fat, but he’s cutting indiscriminately and gonna lose a limb.”

According to another supposed federal worker, paying employees to retire has historically resulted in spikes in agency costs.

“The way this usually works is we pay public employees to retire,” the commenter wrote. “Then we pay a private company twice the rate to do the same job that public employee was doing. Sometimes it’s even the same employee doing the work. I’ve literally known people that left government jobs to do contractor work making far more for doing the same thing. But somehow this is ‘smaller government’ and more efficient.”

A top 1 percent commenter on Reddit agreed, writing, “ding ding ding! The correct answer.”

“Get rid of career feds, hire contractors at a huge cost to taxpayers, yet somehow the contract workers make less money and have fewer benefits than federal employees,” that Redditor suggested. “Contract companies get rich, and workers get poorer.”

Cybersecurity workers mull fighting cuts

On social media, some apparent federal workers suggested they might plan to fight back to defend their roles in government. In another Reddit thread discussing a government cybersecurity review board fired by Trump, commenters speculated that cybersecurity workers might hold a “grudge” and form an uprising attacking any vulnerabilities created by the return-to-office plan and the government workforce reduction.

“Isn’t this literally the Live Free or Die Hard movie plot?” one Redditor joked.

A lawsuit filed Monday by two anonymous government workers, for example, suggested that the Trump administration is also rushing to create an email distribution system that would allow all government employees to be contacted from a single email. Some workers have speculated this is in preparation for announcing layoffs. But employees suing are more concerned about security, insisting that a master list of all government employees has never been compiled before and accusing the Trump administration of failing to conduct a privacy impact assessment.

According to that lawsuit, OPM has hastily been testing this new email system, potentially opening all government workers to harmful data breaches. The lawsuit additionally alleged that every government agency has been collecting information on its employees and sending it to Amanda Scales, a former xAI employee who transitioned from working for Musk to working in government this month. The complaint suggests that some government workers are already distrustful of Musk’s seeming influence on Trump.

In a now-deleted Reddit message, the lawsuit alleged, “Instructions say to send these lists to Amanda Scales. But Amanda is not actually an OPM employee, she works for Elon Musk.”

Photo of Ashley Belanger

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Trump cribs Musk’s “fork in the road” Twitter memo to slash gov’t workforce Read More »

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All federal agencies ordered to terminate remote work—ideally within 30 days

Donald Trump, Policy, remote work, return-to-office, telework / /

Exceptions may be granted

Ezell’s memo expanded criticism of the Biden administration’s approach to remote work, suggesting that it enabled federal unions’ alleged attempts “to abuse the collective-bargaining process to guarantee full-time telework into the indefinite future and forestall any requirement to return to the office.”

Suspecting that the “rampant use of telework is likely underreported,” the committee’s report concluded that “even the reported levels are excessive, there is little evidence that it is enhancing productivity or addressing recruitment and retention gaps, and there is evidence it is harming agency missions and citizen-facing services.”

To overcome these supposed deficiencies, the committee recommended that remote work policies be linked to performance metrics, rather than “employee preferences or union demands.” Any remote work that is granted should be tracked through automated systems, the report further prescribed, and any attempts for federal agencies to compete for talent using remote work perks should not be tolerated.

This will allow the government to alleviate the “national embarrassment” of empty offices and “dispose of unneeded property and terminate unnecessary leases,” the report said.

While some employees may be eligible for RTO exemptions—either to accommodate a disability or qualifying medical condition, or for some “other compelling reason certified by the agency head and the employee’s supervisor”—Ezell’s memo insisted that a general return-to-office push was necessary. He said that Trump’s presidential memo reflected “a simple reality” that “the only way to get employees back to the office is to adopt a centralized policy requiring return-to-work for all agencies across the federal government.”

“Seeking to cajole individual agencies to try to get employees to return to the worksite has not succeeded,” Ezell said.

Although Trump’s memo set no deadline for RTO efforts to begin, Ezell gave federal agency heads rather short notice to fall in line. All agencies must submit their RTO plans by 5 pm ET on Friday, January 24, Ezell’s memo said.

Those plans should specify “the date that the agency will be in full compliance with the new telework policy,” with a recommended deadline of 30 days to comply, Ezell said.

All federal agencies ordered to terminate remote work—ideally within 30 days Read More »

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Tech worker movements grow as threats of RTO, AI loom

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Advocates say tech workers movements got too big to ignore in 2024.

Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

It feels like tech workers have caught very few breaks over the past several years, between ongoing mass layoffs, stagnating wages amid inflation, AI supposedly coming for jobs, and unpopular orders to return to office that, for many, threaten to disrupt work-life balance.

But in 2024, a potentially critical mass of tech workers seemed to reach a breaking point. As labor rights groups advocating for tech workers told Ars, these workers are banding together in sustained strong numbers and are either winning or appear tantalizingly close to winning better worker conditions at major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

In February, the industry-wide Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) noted that “the tech workers movement is far more expansive and impactful” than even labor rights advocates realized, noting that unionized tech workers have gone beyond early stories about Googlers marching in the streets and now “make the headlines on a daily basis.”

Ike McCreery, a TWC volunteer and ex-Googler who helped found the Alphabet Workers Union, told Ars that although “it’s hard to gauge numerically” how much movements have grown, “our sense is definitely that the momentum continues to build.”

“It’s been an exciting year,” McCreery told Ars, while expressing particular enthusiasm that even “highly compensated tech workers are really seeing themselves more as workers” in these fights—which TWC “has been pushing for a long time.”

In 2024, TWC broadened efforts to help workers organize industry-wide, helping everyone from gig workers to project managers build both union and non-union efforts to push for change in the workplace.

Such widespread organizing “would have been unthinkable only five years ago,” TWC noted in February, and it’s clear from some of 2024’s biggest wins that some movements are making gains that could further propel that momentum in 2025.

Workers could also gain the upper hand if unpopular policies increase what one November study called “brain drain.” That’s a trend where tech companies adopting potentially alienating workplace tactics risk losing top talent at a time when key industries like AI and cybersecurity are facing severe talent shortages.

Advocates told Ars that unpopular policies have always fueled workers movements, and RTO and AI are just the latest adding fuel to the fire. As many workers prepare to head back to offices in 2025 where worker surveillance is only expected to intensify, they told Ars why they expect to see workers’ momentum continue at some of the world’s biggest tech firms.

Tech worker movements growing

In August, Apple ratified a labor contract at America’s first unionized Apple Store—agreeing to a modest increase in wages, about 10 percent over three years. While small, that win came just a few weeks before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that Amazon was a joint employer of unionized contract-based delivery drivers. And Google lost a similar fight last January when the NLRB ruled it must bargain with a union representing YouTube Music contract workers, Reuters reported.

For many workers, joining these movements helped raise wages. In September, facing mounting pressure, Amazon raised warehouse worker wages—investing $2.2 billion, its “biggest investment yet,” to broadly raise base salaries for workers. And more recently, Amazon was hit with a strike during the busy holiday season, as warehouse workers hoped to further hobble the company during a clutch financial quarter to force more bargaining. (Last year, Amazon posted record-breaking $170 billion holiday quarter revenues and has said the current strike won’t hurt revenues.)

Even typically union-friendly Microsoft drew worker backlash and criticism in 2024 following layoffs of 650 video game workers in September.

These mass layoffs are driving some workers to join movements. A senior director for organizing with Communications Workers of America (CWA), Tom Smith, told Ars that shortly after the 600-member Tech Guild—”the largest single certified group of tech workers” to organize at the New York Times—reached a tentative deal to increase wages “up to 8.25 percent over the length of the contract,” about “460 software engineers at a video game company owned by Microsoft successfully unionized.”

Smith told Ars that while workers for years have pushed for better conditions, “these large units of tech workers achieving formal recognition, building lasting organization, and winning contracts” at “a more mass scale” are maturing, following in the footsteps of unionizing Googlers and today influencing a broader swath of tech industry workers nationwide. From CWA’s viewpoint, workers in the video game industry seem best positioned to seek major wins next, Smith suggested, likely starting with Microsoft-owned companies and eventually affecting indie game companies.

CWA, TWC, and Tech Workers Union 1010 (a group run by tech workers that’s part of the Office and Professional Employees International Union) all now serve as dedicated groups supporting workers movements long-term, and that stability has helped these movements mature, McCreery told Ars. Each group plans to continue meeting workers where they are to support and help expand organizing in 2025.

Cost of RTOs may be significant, researchers warn

While layoffs likely remain the most extreme threat to tech workers broadly, a return-to-office (RTO) mandate can be just as jarring for remote tech workers who are either unable to comply or else unwilling to give up the better work-life balance that comes with no commute. Advocates told Ars that RTO policies have pushed workers to join movements, while limited research suggests that companies risk losing top talents by implementing RTO policies.

In perhaps the biggest example from 2024, when Amazon announced that it was requiring workers in-office five days a week next year, a poll on the anonymous platform where workers discuss employers, Blind, found an overwhelming majority of more than 2,000 Amazon employees were “dissatisfied.”

“My morale for this job is gone…” one worker said on Blind.

Workers criticized the “non-data-driven logic” of the RTO mandate, prompting an Amazon executive to remind them that they could take their talents elsewhere if they didn’t like it. Many confirmed that’s exactly what they planned to do. (Amazon later announced it would be delaying RTO for many office workers after belatedly realizing there was a lack of office space.)

Other companies mandating RTO faced similar backlash from workers, who continued to question the logic driving the decision. One February study showed that RTO mandates don’t make companies any more valuable but do make workers more miserable. And last month, Brian Elliott, an executive advisor who wrote a book about the benefits of flexible teams, noted that only one in three executives thinks RTO had “even a slight positive impact on productivity.”

But not every company drew a hard line the way that Amazon did. For example, Dell gave workers a choice to remain remote and accept they can never be eligible for promotions, or mark themselves as hybrid. Workers who refused the RTO said they valued their free time and admitted to looking for other job opportunities.

Very few studies have been done analyzing the true costs and benefits of RTO, a November academic study titled “Return to Office and Brain Drain” said, and so far companies aren’t necessarily backing the limited findings. The researchers behind that study noted that “the only existing study” measuring how RTO impacts employee turnover showed this year that senior employees left for other companies after Microsoft’s RTO mandate, but Microsoft disputed that finding.

Seeking to build on this research, the November study tracked “over 3 million tech and finance workers’ employment histories reported on LinkedIn” and analyzed “the effect of S&P 500 firms’ return-to-office (RTO) mandates on employee turnover and hiring.”

Choosing to only analyze the firms requiring five days in office, the final sample covered 54 RTO firms, including big tech companies like Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. From that sample, researchers concluded that average employee turnover increased by 14 percent after RTO mandates at bigger firms. And since big firms typically have lower turnover, the increase in turnover is likely larger at smaller firms, the study’s authors concluded.

The study also supported the conclusion that “employees with the highest skill level are more likely to leave” and found that “RTO firms take significantly longer time to fill their job vacancies after RTO mandates.”

“Together, our evidence suggests that RTO mandates are costly to firms and have serious negative effects on the workforce,” the study concluded, echoing some remote workers’ complaints about the seemingly non-data-driven logic of RTO, while urging that further research is needed.

“These turnovers could potentially have short-term and long-term effects on operation, innovation, employee morale, and organizational culture,” the study concluded.

A co-author of the “brain drain” study, Mark Ma, told Ars that by contrast, Glassdoor going fully remote at least anecdotally seemed to “significantly” increase the number and quality of applications—possibly also improving retention by offering the remote flexibility that many top talents today require.

Ma said that next his team hopes to track where people who leave firms over RTO policies go next.

“Do they become self-employed, or do they go to a competitor, or do they fund their own firm?” Ma speculated, hoping to trace these patterns more definitively over the next several years.

Additionally, Ma plans to investigate individual firms’ RTO impacts, as well as impacts on niche classes of workers with highly sought-after skills—such as in areas like AI, machine learning, or cybersecurity—to see if it’s easier for them to find other jobs. In the long-term, Ma also wants to monitor for potentially less-foreseeable outcomes, such as RTO mandates possibly increasing firms’ number of challengers in their industry.

Will RTO mandates continue in 2025?

Many tech workers may be wondering if there will be a spike in return-to-office mandates in 2025, especially since one of the most politically influential figures in tech, Elon Musk, recently reiterated that he thinks remote work is “poison.”

Musk, of course, banned remote work at Tesla, as well as when he took over Twitter. And as co-lead of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk reportedly plans to ban remote work for government employees, as well. If other tech firms are influenced by Musk’s moves and join executives who seem to be mandating RTO based on intuition, it’s possible that more tech workers could be forced to return to office or else seek other employment.

But Ma told Ars that he doesn’t expect to see “a big spike in the number of firms announcing return to office mandates” in 2025.

His team only found eight major firms in tech and finance that issued five-day return-to-office mandates in 2024, which was the same number of firms flagged in 2023, suggesting no major increase in RTOs from year to year. Ma told Ars that while big firms like Amazon ordering employees to return to the office made headlines, many firms seem to be continuing to embrace hybrid models, sometimes allowing employees to choose when or if they come into the office.

That seeming preference for hybrid work models seems to align with “future of work” surveys outlining workplace trends and employee preferences that the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) conducted for years but has seemingly since discontinued. In 2021, CTA reported that “89 percent of tech executives say flexible work arrangements are the most important employee benefit and 65 percent say they’ll hire more employees to work remotely.” The next year, which apparently was the last time CTA published the survey, the CTA suggested hybrid models could help attract talents in a competitive market hit with “an unprecedented demand for workers with high-tech skills.”

The CTA did not respond to Ars’ requests to comment on whether it expects hybrid work arrangements to remain preferred over five-day return-to-office policies next year.

CWA’s Smith told Ars that workers movements are growing partly because “folks are engaged in this big fight around surveillance and workplace control,” as well as anything “having to do with to what extent will people return to offices and what does that look like if and when people do return to offices?”

Without data backing RTO mandates, Ma’s study suggests that firms will struggle to retain highly skilled workers at a time when tech innovation remains a top priority for the US. As workers appear increasingly put off by policies—like RTO or AI-driven workplace monitoring or efficiency efforts threatening to replace workers with AI—Smith’s experience seems to show that disgruntled workers could find themselves drawn to unions that could help them claw back control over work-life balance. And the cost of the ensuing shuffle to some of the largest tech firms in the world could be “significant,” Ma’s study warned.

TWC’s McCreery told Ars that on top of unpopular RTO policies driving workers to join movements, workers have also become more active in protesting unpopular politics, frustrated to see their talents apparently used to further controversial conflicts and military efforts globally. Some workers think workplace organizing could be more powerful than voting to oppose political actions their companies take.

“The workplace really remains an important site of power for a lot of people where maybe they don’t feel like they can enact their values just by voting or in other ways,” McCreery said.

While unpopular policies “have always been a reason workers have joined unions and joined movements,” McCreery said that “the development of more of these unpopular policies” like RTO and AI-enhanced surveillance “really targeted” at workers has increased “the political consciousness and the sense” that tech workers are “just like any other workers.”

Layoffs at companies like Microsoft and Amazon during periods when revenue is increasing in the double-digits also unify workers, advocates told Ars. Forbes noted Microsoft laid off 1,000 workers “just five days before reporting a 17.6 percent increase in revenue to $62 billion,” while Amazon’s 1,000-worker layoffs followed a 14 percent rise in revenue to $170 billion. And demand for AI led to the highest profit margins Amazon’s seen for its cloud business in a decade, CNBC reported in October.

CWA’s Smith told Ars as companies continue to rake in profits and workers feel their work-life balance slipping away while their efforts in the office are potentially “used to increase control and cause broader suffering,” some of the biggest fights workers raised in 2024 may intensify next year.

“It’s like a shock to employees, these industries pushing people to lower your expectations because we’re going to lay off hundreds of thousands of you just because we can while we make more profits than we ever have,” Smith said. “I think workers are going to step into really broad campaigns to assert a different worldview on employment security.”

Photo of Ashley Belanger

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Tech worker movements grow as threats of RTO, AI loom Read More »

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Amazon’s RTO delays exemplify why workers get so mad about mandates

Amazon, Policy, return-to-office, Tech / /

Concern about RTO planning is underscored by Amazon reportedly lacking enough space for its current in-office policy. Bloomberg said that “in recent interviews, employees complained of working from shared desks, crowded corporate canteens, and a lack of conference rooms for confidential calls or team meetings.”

The publication also pointed to employee displeasure with having to work in an office full-time when other tech firms have more lax policies. This could result in Amazon losing some of its best talent. Per the study from the University of Pittsburgh, Baylor University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business researchers, senior, skilled workers are more likely to depart a company over an RTO mandate because they have “more connections with other companies.”

Employees eyeing greener pastures could put Amazon at risk of losing some of its most experienced employees. That also reportedly happened to Apple, Microsoft, and SpaceX following their RTO mandates, per a May study from University of Chicago and University of Michigan researchers (PDF). Following Amazon’s RTO announcement, 73 percent of 2,285 workers that Blind surveyed said they were “considering looking for another job” due to the rule change.

Finally, banning remote work while giving workers a few months to figure out how to adjust resulted in a lot of negative discourse, including Garman reportedly telling workers that if they don’t work well in offices, “that’s okay; there are other companies around.” As the November RTO study put it:

“An RTO announcement can be a big and sudden event that is distasteful to most employees, especially when the decision has not been well communicated, potentially triggering an immediate response of employees searching for and switching to new jobs.”

If Amazon had communicated RTO dates with greater accuracy once office plans were finalized, it could have alleviated some of the drama that followed the announcement and the negative impact that had on employee morale.

For its part, Amazon has instituted a tool for reserving conference rooms, which requires workers to commit to using the space so it’s not wasted, Bloomberg reported.

But with companies now having had years to plot their RTO approaches, employees are expecting more accurate communication and smooth transitions that align with their respective department’s culture. Amazon’s approach missed those marks.

Amazon’s RTO delays exemplify why workers get so mad about mandates Read More »

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Companies issuing RTO mandates “lose their best talent”: Study

Policy, return-to-office, Tech / /

Despite the risks, firms and Trump are eager to get people back into offices.

Return-to-office (RTO) mandates have caused companies to lose some of their best workers, a study tracking over 3 million workers at 54 “high-tech and financial” firms at the S&P 500 index has found. These companies also have greater challenges finding new talent, the report concluded.

The paper, Return-to-Office Mandates and Brain Drain [PDF], comes from researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Baylor University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. The study, which was published in November, spotted this month by human resources publication HR Dive, and cites Ars Technica reporting, was conducted by collecting information on RTO announcements and sourcing data from LinkedIn. The researchers said they only examined companies with data available for at least two quarters before and after they issued RTO mandates. The researchers explained:

To collect employee turnover data, we follow prior literature … and obtain the employment history information of over 3 million employees of the 54 RTO firms from Revelio Labs, a leading data provider that extracts information from employee LinkedIn profiles. We manually identify employees who left a firm during each period, then calculate the firm’s turnover rate by dividing the number of departing employees by the total employee headcount at the beginning of the period. We also obtain information about employees’ gender, seniority, and the number of skills listed on their individual LinkedIn profiles, which serves as a proxy for employees’ skill level.

There are limits to the study, however. The researchers noted that the study “cannot draw causal inferences based on our setting.” Further, smaller firms and firms outside of the high-tech and financial industries may show different results. Although not mentioned in the report, relying on data from a social media platform could also yield inaccuracies, and the number of skills listed on a LinkedIn profile may not accurately depict a worker’s skill level.

Still, the study provides insight into how employees respond to RTO mandates and the effect it has on corporations and available talent at a time when entities like Dell, Amazon, and the US government are getting stricter about in-office work.

Higher turnover rates

The researchers concluded that the average turnover rates for firms increased by 14 percent after issuing return-to-office policies.

“We expect the effect of RTO mandates on employee turnover to be even higher for other firms” the paper says.

The researchers included testing to ensure that the results stemmed from RTO mandates “rather than time trends.” For example, the researchers found that “there were no significant increases in turnover rates during any of the five quarters prior to the RTO announcement quarter.”

Potentially alarming for employers is the study finding that senior and skilled employees were more likely to leave following RTO mandates. This aligns with a study from University of Chicago and University of Michigan researchers published in May that found that Apple and Microsoft saw senior-level employee bases decrease by 5 percentage points and SpaceX a decrease of 5 percentage points. (For its part, Microsoft told Ars that the report did not align with internal data.)

Senior employees are expected to be more likely to leave, the new report argues, because such workers have “more connections with other companies” and have easier times finding new jobs. Further, senior, skilled employees are “dissatisfied” when management blames remote work for low productivity.

Similarly, the report supports concerns from some RTO-resistant employees that back-to-office mandates have a disproportionate impact on certain groups, like women, which the researchers said show “more pronounced” attrition rates following RTO mandates:

Importantly, the effect on female employee turnover is almost three times as high as that on male employees … One possible reason for these results is that female employees are more affected by RTO mandates due to their greater family responsibilities, which increases their demand for workplace flexibility and work-life balance.

Trouble finding talent

RTO mandates also have a negative impact on companies’ ability to find new employees, the study found. After examining over 2 million job postings, the researchers concluded that companies with RTO mandates take longer to fill job vacancies than before:

On average, the time it takes for an RTO firm to fill its job vacancies increases by approximately 23 percent, and the hire rate decreases by 17 percent after RTO mandates.

The researchers also found “significantly higher hiring costs induced by RTO mandates” and concluded that the findings combined “suggest that firms lose their best talent after RTO mandates and face significant difficulties replacing them.”

“The weakest form of management”

RTO mandates can obviously drive away workers who prioritize work-life balance, avoiding commutes and associated costs, and who feel more productive working in a self-controlled environment. The study, however, points to additional reasons RTO mandates make some people quit.

One reason cited is RTO rules communicating “a culture of distrust that encourages management through monitoring.” The researchers noted that Brian Elliott, CEO at Work Forward and a leadership adviser, described this as the “weakest form of management—and one that drives down employee engagement” in a November column for MIT Sloan Management Review.

Indeed, RTO mandates have led to companies like Dell performing VPN tracking, and companies like Amazon, Google, JP Morgan Chase, Meta, and TikTok reportedly tracking badge swipes, resulting in employee backlash.

The new study also pointed to RTO mandates making employees question company leadership and management’s decision-making abilities. We saw this with Amazon, when over 500 employees sent a letter to Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Matt Garman, saying that they were “appalled to hear the non-data-driven explanation you gave for Amazon imposing a five-day in-office mandate.”

Employees are also put off by the drama that follows an aggressive RTO policy, the report says:

An RTO announcement can be a big and sudden event that is distasteful to most employees, especially when the decision has not been well communicated, potentially triggering an immediate response of employees searching for and switching to new jobs.

After Amazon announced it would kill remote work in early 2025, a study by online community Blind found that 73 percent of 2,285 Amazon employees surveyed were “considering looking for another job” in response to the mandate.

“A wave of voluntary terminations”

The paper points to reasons that employees may opt to stay with a company post-RTO mandates. Those reasons include competitive job markets, personal costs associated with switching jobs, loyalty, and interest in the collaborative and social aspects of working in-office.

However, with the amount of evidence that RTO mandates drive employees away, some question if return-to-office mandates are subtle ways to reduce headcount without layoffs. Comments like AWS’s Garman reportedly telling workers that if they don’t like working in an office, “there are other companies around” have fueled this theory, as has Dell saying remote workers can’t get promoted. A BambooHR survey of 1,504 full-time US employees, including 504 HR managers or higher, in March found that 25 percent of VP and C-suite executives and 18 percent of HR pros examined “admit they hoped for some voluntary turnover during an RTO.”

Yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump said he plans to do away with a deal that allowed the Social Security Administration’s union to work remotely into 2029 and that those who don’t come back into the office will “be dismissed.” Similarly, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump announced will head a new Department of Government Efficiency, wrote in a November op-ed that “requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.”

Helen D. (Heidi) Reavis, managing partner at Reavis Page Jump LLP, an employment, dispute resolution, and media law firm, previously told Ars that employees “can face an array of legal consequences for encouraging workers to quit via their RTO policies.” Still, RTO mandates are set to continue being a point of debate and tension at workplaces into the new year.

Photo of Scharon Harding

Scharon is Ars Technica’s Senior Product Reviewer writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer technology, including laptops, mechanical keyboards, and monitors. She’s based in Brooklyn.

Companies issuing RTO mandates “lose their best talent”: Study Read More »

rto-mandate-was-attempt-at-thwarting-grindr-workers-unionizing:-us-labor-board

RTO mandate was attempt at thwarting Grindr workers unionizing: US labor board

grindr, nlrb, Policy, return-to-office, unions / /

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is accusing Grindr of using a return-to-office (RTO) mandate in an attempt to block employee efforts to form a union.

On July 20, 2023, employees at the LGBTQ+ dating app announced plans to unionize. On August 3, 2023, Grindr told employees that they had two weeks to decide if they would start working in an office location two days per week or exit Grindr with six months of severance, per The New York Times, which reported that it saw the memo. Grindr also reportedly offered up to $15,000 for relocation expenses to its offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington DC. Before the RTO mandate, Grindr allowed fully remote work.

Despite the announcement’s timing, Grindr said in August 2023 that it had been working on an RTO mandate for months and that employees were notified of this in early summer 2023, per the NYT. On August 4, 2023, the Communications Workers of America Union, which Grindr employees were working to join, filed a complaint with the NLRB.

Most workers attempting to unionize quit after RTO mandate

About 80 of the 120 workers who were trying to unionize left due to the RTO mandate, Bloomberg reported on Monday. Grindr was said to have 178 employees when it announced the mandate, meaning it lost about 45 percent of employees overall.

In August 2023, a Grindr spokesperson told The Times that Grindr’s RTO plans were unrelated to union efforts and claimed that Grindr executives “respect and support our team members’ rights to make their own decision about union representation.”

In a September 2023 statement, Eric Cortez, a member of the group organizing the Grindr union, said regarding the employee departures: “These decisions have left Grindr dangerously understaffed and raises questions about the safety, security, and stability of the app for users.”

NLRB files complaint against Grindr

The NLRB’s general counsel office followed up on Friday with a complaint against Grindr, saying that the RTO mandate was issued illegally in retaliation of workers unionizing, Bloomberg reported Monday. The NLRB’s also accusing Grindr of breaking the law by not recognizing or negotiating with the union.

RTO mandate was attempt at thwarting Grindr workers unionizing: US labor board Read More »

over-500-amazon-workers-decry-“non-data-driven”-logic-for-5-day-rto-policy

Over 500 Amazon workers decry “non-data-driven” logic for 5-day RTO policy

Amazon, Policy, return-to-office, Tech / /

More than 500 Amazon workers reportedly signed a letter to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) CEO this week, sharing their outrage over Amazon’s upcoming return-to-office (RTO) policy that will force workers into offices five days per week.

In September, Amazon announced that starting in 2025, workers will no longer be allowed to work remotely twice a week. At the time, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the move would make it easier for workers “to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture.”

Reuters reported today that it viewed a letter from a swath of workers sent to AWS chief Matt Garman on Wednesday regarding claims he reportedly made during an all-hands meeting this month. Garman reportedly told attendees that 9 out of 10 employees he spoke with support the five-day in-office work policy. The letter called the statements “inconsistent with the experiences of many employees” and “misrepresenting the realities of working at Amazon,” Reuters reported.

“We were appalled to hear the non-data-driven explanation you gave for Amazon imposing a five-day in-office mandate,’” the letter reportedly stated.

Employees banding together to protest against new, unfavorable work policies isn’t exclusive to Amazon. And the reported 500 workers who signed the letter represent just a fraction of Amazon’s worker base, which regulatory filings reported consisted of 1.5 million people in 2023. However, with the global conglomerate remaining firm about its stern policy thus far, eyes are on the Seattle firm’s HR approach, which could impact how other companies decide to implement RTO policies.

In the letter, hundreds of Amazon workers reportedly lamented what they believe was a lack of third-party data shared in making the RTO policy. It said that Garman’s statements “break the trust of your employees who have not only personal experience that shows the benefits of remote work but have seen the extensive data which supports that experience.”

Over 500 Amazon workers decry “non-data-driven” logic for 5-day RTO policy Read More »

amazon-exec-tells-employees-to-work-elsewhere-if-they-dislike-rto-policy

Amazon exec tells employees to work elsewhere if they dislike RTO policy

Amazon, AWS, Policy, return-to-office / /

Amazon workers are being reminded that they can find work elsewhere if they’re unhappy with Amazon’s return-to-office (RTO) mandate.

In September, Amazon told staff that they’ll have to RTO five days a week starting in 2025. Amazon employees are currently allowed to work remotely twice a week. A memo from CEO Andy Jassy announcing the policy change said that “it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture” when working at the office.

On Thursday, at what Reuters described as an “all-hands meeting” for Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS CEO Matt Garman reportedly told workers:

If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s okay, there are other companies around.

Garman said that he didn’t “mean that in a bad way,” however, adding: “We want to be in an environment where we’re working together. When we want to really, really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in-person.”

Interestingly, Garman’s comments about dissatisfaction with the RTO policy coincided with him claiming that 9 out of 10 Amazon employees that he spoke to are in support of the RTO mandate, Reuters reported.

Some suspect RTO mandates are attempts to make workers quit

Amazon has faced resistance to RTO since pandemic restrictions were lifted. Like workers at other companies, some Amazon employees have publicly wondered if strict in-office policies are being enacted as attempts to reduce headcount without layoffs.

In July 2023, Amazon started requiring employees to work in their team’s central hub location (as opposed to remotely or in an office that may be closer to where they reside). Amazon reportedly told workers that if they didn’t comply or find a new job internally, they’d be considered a “voluntary resignation,” per a Slack message that Business Insider reportedly viewed. And many Amazon employees have already reported considering looking for a new job due to the impending RTO requirements.

However, employers like Amazon “can face an array of legal consequences for encouraging workers to quit via their RTO policies,” Helen D. (Heidi) Reavis, managing partner at Reavis Page Jump LLP, an employment, dispute resolution, and media law firm, told Ars Technica:

Amazon exec tells employees to work elsewhere if they dislike RTO policy Read More »

dell-sales-team-told-to-return-to-office-5-days-a-week,-starting-monday

Dell sales team told to return to office 5 days a week, starting Monday

dell, Policy, return-to-office / /

office culture —

“… sales teams are more productive when onsite.”

–

The exterior of a Dell Technologies office building is seen on January 04, 2023 in Round Rock, Texas. (

Most members of Dell’s sales team will no longer have the option to work remotely, starting on Monday, Reuters reported this week, citing an internal memo. The policy applies to salespeople worldwide and is aimed at helping “grow skills,” per the note.

Like the rest of Dell’s workforce, Dell’s salespeople have previously been allowed to work remotely two days per week. A memo, which a Reddit user claims to have posted online (The Register reported that the post “mirrors” one that it viewed separately), says that field sellers aren’t required to go into an office but “should prioritize time spent in person with customers and partners.” The policy doesn’t apply to “remote sales team members,” but Dell said to expect additional unspecified communications regarding remote workers “in the coming weeks.” Bloomberg reported that top sales executives Bill Scannell, Dell’s president of global sales and customer operations, and John Byrne, president of sales and global regions at Dell Tech Select, signed the memo, saying:

… our data showed that sales teams are more productive when onsite.

Dell is viewing mandatory on-site work as a way to maintain its sales team’s culture and drive growth, according to the memo, which mentions things like “real-time feedback” and “dynamic” office energy. Moving forward, remote work will be permitted as an exception, Dell said.

Notably, the letter, which was reportedly sent to workers on Thursday, doesn’t give employees much time for adjustments. The memo acknowledges that workers have built schedules around working from home regularly but doesn’t offer immediate solutions.

In a statement to The Register, a Dell spokesperson confirmed the policy change.

“We continually evolve our business so we’re set up to deliver the best innovation, value and service to our customers and partners,” they said. “That includes more in-person connection to drive market leadership.”

Dell’s RTO push

After permitting full-time remote work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in February, Dell started requiring workers to go into the office 39 days per quarter (or about three days per week) or be totally remote. The latter, however, seemed discouraged, as Dell reportedly told remote workers they were ineligible for promotions in March. Still, nearly 50 percent of Dell workers chose to stay remote, Business Insider reported in June, citing internal Dell Data.

Dell’s return-to-office (RTO) mandates have reportedly been enforced with VPN and badge tracking. Some employees have accused Dell of trying to reduce headcount with RTO policies. Other companies pushing workers back into offices have also been accused of this; there’s research showing that at least some companies have used RTO policies to lower headcount while avoiding layoffs. Dell laid off 13,000 people in 2023 and plans more layoffs. In August, it announced plans to lay off an undisclosed additional number of people. The company is expected to have 120,000 employees.

Dell’s RTO change follows an announcement this week requiring Amazon employees to work on-site five days a week starting next year. Following the announcement, a survey of 2,585 US Amazon employees found that 73 percent of Amazon workers are “considering looking for an another job” in response.

“Yes, this is a shift…”

The memo, according to Reddit, acknowledges to workers, “Yes, this is a shift from current expectations.” Dell’s RTO push represents an about-face from previously stated positions on remote work from the company. In 2022, for example, CEO and founder Michael Dell wrote a blog that said Dell “found no meaningful differences” between remote and on-site workers, including before the pandemic. Dell COO Jeff Clarke made similar arguments in 2020.

The idea that remote work hinders productivity has been a hot topic of debate, especially as companies grapple with their remote work policies following pandemic restrictions. Dell says that its decision to force sales workers back into offices is backed by data, and its claims of boosted productivity could potentially be true when it comes to this specific Dell division. However, there have also been studies suggesting that return-to-office mandates hurt productivity. For example, a Great Place to Work survey conducted in July 2023 of 4,400 employees concluded that “productivity was lower for both on-site and remote employees when their employer mandated where they work.” Workers with companies allowing employees to choose between remote and on-site work were more likely to give “extra effort,” the survey found.

Dell sales team told to return to office 5 days a week, starting Monday Read More »

return-to-office-mandates-hurt-employee-retention,-productivity,-survey-says

Return-to-office mandates hurt employee retention, productivity, survey says

Policy, return-to-office / /

RT-Oh No —

Survey of 4,400 US employees who are at least 18 years old.

–

Businessman leaning on corridor wall

US workers who work remotely are 27 percent more likely to look forward to doing their job, according to a survey of over 4,400 employees aged 18 and older.

The survey from Great Place to Work took place in July 2023, which was “the third year of an ongoing market study of US workplaces,” according to the report entitled “Return-to-Office Mandates and the Future of Work” (PDF). Of the participants, 51 percent were female, 49 percent were male, and less than 1 percent were “non-binary or other gender,” according to Great Place to Work. In terms of roles, half were “individual contributors,” 25 percent were “frontline managers,” 20 percent were mid-level managers, and 5 percent were executives. Eighty-eight percent were full-time workers versus part-time.

The survey also found that remote workers were 23 percent more likely to say they have “a psychologically and emotionally healthy workplace,” 19 percent were more likely to cite “high levels of cooperation,” and 18 percent were more likely to say that people avoid office politics and backstabbing.

Notably, however, survey respondents were unevenly on-site (65 percent) versus people who work remote all the time (16 percent) or sometimes (20 percent). When Ars Technica asked about this, a Great Place to Work spokesperson said that the report uses a confidence interval of 95 percent. They added: “Because of the overall size of our sample with 4,400 responses, we are still able to have statistically significant findings that illustrate the different needs of these two groups.”

The report says:

One explanation for the gap between remote and on-site workers: Employees of color reported finding a reprieve from unconscious bias and code switching when working remotely.

That doesn’t mean that companies must embrace fully remote work to be inclusive. Instead, great workplaces are finding ways to meet the needs of their employees and provide support to all workers regardless of where they work.

A theme of the report is highlighting the benefits of workplaces working with employees to understand their views on remote work and whether remote work options fit specific needs within the company. It’s also important to consider why people want to work remotely; if it’s due to factors like a toxic work environment, there are other ways to address worker concerns besides remote work, the authors said.

Earlier this year, another survey pointed to return-to-office (RTO) mandates hurting company morale. The survey of some companies on the S&P 500 list by University of Pittsburgh researchers found that RTO policies hurt employee satisfaction while failing to boost company value.

RTO mandates hurt employee retention

Great Place to Work’s report encourages companies to ensure that workers without remote work options “find special meaning in their work.” Companies should talk with in-person workers “about how their efforts are delivering on your brand mission” and hold valued in-person activities, the report said. Cisco, which the report notes doesn’t have an RTO mandate, tries to lure people to the office with things like hackathons, career coaching, and team gatherings, for example.

The report also says RTO mandates can hurt employee retention:

When employees have a say in where they work, retention improves.

Employees who report being able to decide where they work are more likely to stay with their company long-term.

More specifically, the report’s authors concluded that employees who are allowed to choose between in-person, remote, or hybrid work are three times more likely to want to stay at their company. They also found that workers who aren’t facing RTO mandates are 14 times less likely to “quit and stay.”

Great Place to Work

This isn’t the first survey we’ve seen suggesting that RTO mandates have driven workers away. In May, a study published by University of Chicago and University of Michigan researchers examining a reported 260 million résumés from People Data Labs reported that mandates requiring workers to return to the office either full or part-time led to a higher rate of employees, particularly of a senior level, leaving Apple, Microsoft, and SpaceX. (In 2022, numerous prominent Apple staff publicly resigned over RTO mandates.) A March survey of 1,504 full-time employees, including 504 HR workers, found that some firms have issued RTO mandates in the hopes of making people quit.

Return-to-office mandates hurt employee retention, productivity, survey says Read More »

some-company-heads-hoped-return-to-office-mandates-would-make-people-quit,-survey-says

Some company heads hoped return-to-office mandates would make people quit, survey says

Policy, return-to-office, work from home / /

HR study —

1,504 workers, including 504 HR managers questioned.

–

Man and woman talking at an office water cooler

Enlarge / RTO mandates can boost workers’ professional networks, but in-office employees may also spend more time socializing than remote ones.

A new survey suggests that some US companies implemented return-to-office (RTO) policies in the hopes of getting workers to quit. And despite the belief that such policies could boost productivity compared to letting employees work from home, the survey from HR software provider BambooHR points to remote and in-office employees spending an equal amount of time working.

BambooHR surveyed 1,504 full-time US employees, including 504 human resources (HR) workers who are a manager or higher, from March 9 to March 22. According to the firm, the sample group used for its report “The New Surveillance Era: Visibility Beats Productivity for RTO & Remote” is equally split across genders and includes “a spread of age groups, race groups, and geographies.” Method Research, the research arm of technology PR and marketing firm Method, prepared the survey, and data collection firm Rep Data distributed it.

Trying to make people quit

Among those surveyed, 52 percent said they prefer working remotely compared to 39 percent who prefer working in an office.

A generation-based breakdown of respondents who prefer remote work. BambooHR's report didn't specify how many respondents it surveyed from each category.

Enlarge / A generation-based breakdown of respondents who prefer remote work. BambooHR’s report didn’t specify how many respondents it surveyed from each category.

Despite an apparently large interest in remote work, numerous companies made workers return to the office after COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted. The report suggests that in at least some cases, this was done to get workers to quit:

Nearly two in five (37 percent) managers, directors, and executives believe their organization enacted layoffs in the last year because fewer employees than they expected quit during their RTO. And their beliefs are well-founded: One in four (25 percent) VP and C-suite executives and one in five (18 percent) HR pros admit they hoped for some voluntary turnover during an RTO.

It’s hard to get a firm understanding of the effectiveness of RTO policies, as 22 percent of HR professionals surveyed said that their company has no metrics for measuring a successful RTO. The report points to a “disconnect between stated goals for RTO and actually measuring the success of those goals.”

The report also found that 28 percent of remote workers fear they will be laid off before those working in the office. While BambooHR’s report doesn’t comment on this, some firms have discouraged employees from working remotely. Dell, for example, told remote workers that they can’t be promoted.

“By using RTO mandates as a workforce reduction tactic, companies are losing talent and morale among their employees,” BambooHR’s report says. The report notes that 45 percent of people surveyed whose companies have RTO policies said they lost valued workers. The finding is similar to that of a May study of Apple, Microsoft, and SpaceX that suggested that RTO mandates drove senior talent away.

In BambooHR’s survey, 28 percent said they would consider leaving their jobs if their employer enacted an RTO mandate.

Productivity

A frequently cited reason for in-office mandates is to drive teamwork, collaboration, and productivity. BambooHR’s data, however, doesn’t support the idea of RTO mandates driving productivity.

According to the report, regardless of whether they’re working in their home or in an office, employees work for 76 percent of a 9-to-5 shift. The report adds:

When it comes to who’s more productive overall, in-office workers spend around one hour more socializing than their remote counterparts, while remote workers spend that time on work-related tasks and responsibilities.

Despite this, 32 percent of managers said that one of the main goals of their firm implementing an in-office policy was to track employee working habits, with some companies tracking VPN usage and company badge swipes to ensure employees are coming into the office as expected.

RTO works for some

Although the majority of people surveyed prefer working from home, the survey also highlighted some perceived benefits of working in the office. For example, 48 percent of the people surveyed said “their work results have improved” since returning to the office, per the report. And 58 percent said they have a “stronger professional network” since going back, BambooHR reported.

Preferences for working from home or in an office can vary by various factors, like age. This points to the benefits of building RTO strategies around worker feedback and needs.

“The mental and emotional burdens workers face today are real, and the companies who seek employee feedback with the intent to listen and improve are the ones who will win employee loyalty and ultimately customer satisfaction,” Anita Grantham, head of HR at BambooHR, said in a statement.

Some company heads hoped return-to-office mandates would make people quit, survey says Read More »