Why CEOs Shouldn't Jump On The Return-To-Office Work Mandate Bandwagon

Forbes

2 days ago

Scott Francis is Technology Evangelist at PFU America, Inc. and Ricoh Document Scanners.
The pandemic proved that organizations can be agile, creative and innovative to preserve business continuity. A Pew Research report found that in October 2020, 71% of surveyed employees with jobs that could be done from home were working from remotely all or most of the time, a huge uptick from the 23% who said they teleworked frequently before Covid-19.
Five years later, many organizations—including the federal government, Goldman Sachs and Amazon—are issuing return-to-office (RTO) orders, while few remain committed to providing hybrid work options. The RTO trend could accelerate rapidly; a 2024 survey by ResumeBuilder.com found that 87% of responding executives planned to issue RTO demands by the end of 2025. However, a 2025 PTI Consulting survey found that 70% of responding U.S. remote or hybrid workers would be likely to seek new jobs rather than return to the office.
While the pandemic accelerated remote work, it didn't take long for most employees to fully embrace it. According to an August 2024 Zoom study, 83% of surveyed employees felt more productive in a remote or hybrid work model.
Similar to offering medical or retirement benefits, the ability to work from home (or a mix of remote and in-office work) is often seen as a perk. Once organizations offer any perk, it is very difficult to take it away without some backlash, which may lead to less productive teams.
It is too early to assess the impact on organizations mandating RTO policies, but there will be ramifications.
The impact of RTO mandates will vary from industry to industry. However, it's very possible that trained and experienced personnel will leave for better offers. According to a paper published by S&P Global Market Intelligence, workers most likely to resign after an RTO mandate were also more likely to be highly skilled and tenured employees. These same companies also took significantly longer to fill vacancies and saw their hire rates decrease.
Turnover is costly. The Society for Human Resource Management estimated in 2017 that the average cost to replace an employee was six to nine months of their salary. Organizations should weigh whether forcing employees back to the office is worth losing their top performers and replacing them.
A 2024 LinkedIn Workplace Report showed job posts that mentioned remote work were far more popular, while a 2023 Shiftboard study found that workplace flexibility was a significant consideration for surveyed Gen Z and Millennial workers.
Companies benefit by removing geographical limitations for their candidate pool. Office mandates can also be a red flag that management has trust or control issues, which stifles innovation and creative problem-solving and serves as a recruitment barrier.
Finally, more time in the office means job candidates have to factor in commuting costs and time. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that on average, the typical worker spends nearly one hour each day commuting to and from work, significantly impacting job-seekers' work-life balance.
The average car emits roughly 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to the EPA, mostly from burning gas during daily commutes. If every organization required its employees to return to the office, it would be impossible to decrease carbon emissions in the U.S. (or anywhere, for that matter).
Fewer commuters daily means fewer cars on the road, fewer carbon emissions, cleaner air and less wear and tear on our roads. I believe that if more companies offered work remotely, the U.S. could cut transportation-related emissions by millions of tons annually.
Organizations are constantly watching their bottom line and trying to cut costs. According to Global Workplace Analytics, hybrid and remote work can save businesses an average of $11,000 per year if employees are allowed to work remotely just half of the time.
Sustaining remote and hybrid workforces requires less space. Businesses can move to smaller and cheaper office spaces and employ 'hot desking' in which employees book desks to accommodate more workers with less space.
If this were the 1990s, remote and hybrid work would be impossible. Luckily, we have access to tools and advanced technologies that make team collaboration effective, fast and efficient. There is no shortage of unified communications platforms (Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.) to keep teams connected in real time. Videoconferencing tools like Zoom and Google Meet, as well as smart videoconferencing devices, are a good substitute for in-person meetings.
Dozens of project and task management tools (Asana, Zoho, Trello, Basecamp, etc.) are also available to drive productivity and collaboration. Document scanners drive centralization by enabling the digitalization of paper documents, which can then be integrated into workflows after being uploaded to Google Drive, Salesforce, accounting or ERP systems.
Beyond making sure remote teams are aligned on what needs to be done and by when, these solutions can reduce the need for meetings.
The 'future of work' had a lot of hype during and after the pandemic. Not just a buzzword, the 'future of work' is the transformation from endless cubicles and bright fluorescent lights (think Severance) to workplaces that put employees first by offering meaningful work, flexibility, purpose, the opportunity to upskill and the potential for upward mobility. Offering flexible work environments is a big part of the future work ecosystem.
While offices will never disappear, they're no longer the glue that holds businesses together. Organizations that embrace a remote-first work culture will attract top talent and create more diverse, distributed and global teams that will help them fuel expansion, growth and market success.
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