From a Washington Post story by Taylor Telford headlined “Bosses want workers back by Labor Day. They’re not going in without a fight.”:
“I feel like I’m being punished,” Jackson said. “It’s been working so well and now you’re making me go back when I’m doing the exact same job there that I’m doing from home.”
This time last year, companies big and small were gearing up for a push to bring workers back to offices after Labor Day. The same thing is happening now. But this time, the bosses really mean it — probably — which could set companies up for clashes with their workers, experts say.
“For employers, they need to understand the tide has turned,” said Scott Dobroski, vice president of corporate communications at Indeed. Employees still have the upper hand in a white-hot labor market. “This demand for flexibility among employees, no longer just a request, will likely have a direct impact on their hiring and retention efforts, which also directly impact a company’s bottom line.”
Employees are more committed to working from home than they were last fall, according to a June survey of more than 8,000 workers by Gallup, with the desire to work exclusively from home more than doubling since October 2021. Among fully remote workers, 60 percent said they would be “extremely likely” to look for other opportunities if their employer decided not to offer remote work at least some of the time.
After Apple told employees it would increase in-person work requirements from two days a week to three, more than a thousand employees signed a petition demanding “location flexible work,” arguing that the company’s mandate “does not consider the unique demands of each job role nor the diversity of individuals.” The company declined to discuss its return-to-office plans with The Washington Post.
For Joe, who works as the engineering manager for a metal fabricator in California that builds rides and special effects for theme parks, the gradual return to office is starting to feel “hurtful.” (Joe is identified only by his first name to speak candidly about his employer.)
The company started the year fully remote. But in early spring, Joe and the company’s few dozen other employees were asked to come in for half-days on Fridays. In April, they were asked to come in two days a week. And last week, in a hasty hallway meeting, employees were told to start coming in four days a week after Labor Day.
His bosses offered no justification beyond saying that having employees back in person was “better for the company,” Joe said. He’s worked there for 10 years but said he’s thinking seriously about leaving.
“It’s a line I’m starting to draw,” he said. “They’re trying to turn back to where we were before.”
The return to offices has been inching forward since the start of the year. In the first four months of 2022, office occupancy rose 20 percent according to Kastle Systems, which has been tracking the return to work through key fob and swipe data. But since April, it’s hovered around 44 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels, despite efforts to coax workers back with free food, bonding activities and other perks.
As of Aug. 22, occupancy in 10 of the country’s top business centers, including D.C., New York City and Los Angeles, was 43.5 percent of what it was before the pandemic.
“We think that it’s going to continue to rise, but it probably is not going to go back to pre-pandemic levels in the near future, if ever,” said Mark Ein, chairman of Kastle Systems.
Although the pandemic restrictions have been lifted, the coronavirus is continuing to hamper return-to-office plans as fears of getting sick fuel worker reluctance.
Google, which has required employees to be in offices three days a week since April, is dealing with an outbreak impacting hundreds of employees in its California offices, according to CNBC.
The outbreaks have frustrated workers on Google’s campuses. A meme shared on the company’s internal image-sharing site showed a photo of an email inbox with the subject line of one email from a manager reading “We’re so excited to see you back in the office!” and a subsequent subject line of “Notification of Confirmed COVID-19 Case,” CNBC reported.
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