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Time Magazine
29-05-2025
- Business
- Time Magazine
The return-to-office reality gap
By Fortune 500 companies are leading a significant shift in workplace policies, with full-time office mandates nearly doubling from 13% to 24% since Q4 2024, according to the latest Flex Index data. But a critical gap has emerged that's impossible to ignore: these increasingly rigid policies are colliding with stubborn workplace realities. The most revealing finding? While policy requirements for office attendance have jumped 10% since early 2024, actual attendance has barely moved, increasing less than 2% during the same period based on data collected by Stanford Professor Nick Bloom and his team. This growing compliance gap signals something fundamental: employees are quietly rejecting mandates they find disconnected from both their needs and their demonstrated productivity. The conventional narrative that American workplaces are abandoning flexibility doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Overall, 67% of US companies still maintain flexible work arrangements, with structured-hybrid models (for example, three-day-a-week policies) dominating at 43% of firms. While larger companies push for more office days, the vast majority of organizations with fewer than 500 employees (70%) remain fully flexible (no requirements for people to be in offices.) Even in companies with the strictest policies, reality proves stubborn. According to Occuspace CEO Nic Halverson, whose workplace occupancy sensor technology is deployed across Fortune 500 companies, many firms mandating five days in office see almost the same rate of utilization as those with more flexible policies. Even organizations threatening termination for non-compliance haven't moved the needle significantly. Why does this gap persist? Three key factors: The underlying math is flawed. Pre-pandemic office utilization already averaged around 50-60% due to vacations, business travel, sick days—and employees who already had a flexible setup. Firms who set three-day in-office policies in the past few years typically see 1.5 to two days of actual attendance, which isn't an outlier given the broader historical context. Compliance isn't performance. Managers facing pressure to 'do more with less' are unlikely to terminate high-performing employees whose only shortcoming is imperfect attendance. While non-compliance might occasionally facilitate the removal of underperformers, the persistent attendance gap suggests this remains rare. The silent agreement between managers and their best talent is evident: results matter more than physical presence. Mandates exclude critical talent pools. Five-day in-office requirements disproportionately impact significant segments of the workforce. Women, regardless of caregiving situations, prefer more flexibility and are three times more likely to leave under rigid return-to-office (RTO) mandates. Neurodivergent employees who thrived with fewer sensory challenges at home face renewed barriers. For workers with disabilities, the flexibility revolution had finally created more accessible employment opportunities—which mandates now threaten to reverse. Executives now face a consequential choice: double down on attendance policies they know put them at odds with their workforce and place their managers in untenable positions, or invest in systems that make flexible work truly effective. The most successful organizations are choosing the latter path, developing regular purposeful gatherings for distributed teams and implementing robust outcomes-based management frameworks that focus on results rather than visibility. The irony shouldn't be lost on anyone: many of the same leaders imposing rigid, top-down RTO mandates are simultaneously urging their teams to embrace generative AI and other transformative technologies. These contradictory approaches—command-and-control rigidity for workplace presence versus innovation and adaptation for technology adoption—create organizational whiplash. There are only so many 'sticks' leaders can wield before something breaks, usually in the form of disengagement, quiet quitting, or outright departures of valuable talent. The most effective leaders recognize that trust and flexibility aren't just employee perks, they're essential ingredients for navigating the multiple transformations reshaping today's workplace.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Andy Jassy Pushes For Start-Up Mindset At Amazon: 'When You Get Larger...You Can Get Slowed Down'
Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Andy Jassy reinforced his mission to return the e-commerce giant to its startup roots during remarks at the Harvard Business Review Leadership Summit on Monday, emphasizing improved collaboration from the company's return-to-office mandate and streamlined management. What Happened: Jassy, who succeeded Jeff Bezos as CEO in 2021, brings nearly three decades of Amazon experience, including his pivotal role in building Amazon Web Services (AWS) from a small team to a $40 billion business. His leadership has been marked by structural changes aimed at streamlining operations, such as increasing the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% — a target Amazon achieved in Q1 2025, Observer reported. Don't Miss: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — this is your last chance to become an investor for $0.80 per share. Donald Trump just announced a $500 billion AI infrastructure deal — here's how you can invest in the entertainment market's next big disruptor at $2.25 per share. 'When you get larger, there are all sorts of ways—natural ways—that you can get slowed down,' said Jassy, who joined Amazon in 1997 shortly after its IPO. He recalled AWS's early days when 'our storage service started with 13 people, our compute service had 11 people.' Why It Matters: A cornerstone of Jassy's strategy is Amazon's return-to-office (RTO) mandate, implemented in January. Jassy argues that in-person collaboration boosts productivity and innovation, stating, "People riff on top of each other's ideas better if they're together." However, this policy has sparked significant internal resistance, with nearly half of the affected employees considering leaving and 87% believing productivity may decline, according to Flex Index. These operational changes support Jassy's broader AI strategy outlined in his recent shareholder letter, where he described AI as 'a once-in-a-lifetime reinvention of everything we know.' The company has achieved its goal of increasing the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% in Q1 2025 while establishing a 'bureaucracy tipline' for employees to report unnecessary processes. With $100 billion in planned capital expenditures for 2025, Amazon is positioning for what Jassy calls a 'generational opportunity' in AI. Amazon will report first-quarter earnings on May Next: Invest Where It Hurts — And Help Millions Heal: Invest in Cytonics and help disrupt a $390B Big Pharma stronghold. Deloitte's fastest-growing software company partners with Amazon, Walmart & Target – Many are rushing to grab 4,000 of its pre-IPO shares for just $0.26/share! Image Via Shutterstock Send To MSN: Send to MSN Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Andy Jassy Pushes For Start-Up Mindset At Amazon: 'When You Get Can Get Slowed Down' originally appeared on
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Andy Jassy Pushes For Start-Up Mindset At Amazon: 'When You Get Larger...You Can Get Slowed Down'
Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Andy Jassy reinforced his mission to return the e-commerce giant to its startup roots during remarks at the Harvard Business Review Leadership Summit on Monday, emphasizing improved collaboration from the company's return-to-office mandate and streamlined management. What Happened: Jassy, who succeeded Jeff Bezos as CEO in 2021, brings nearly three decades of Amazon experience, including his pivotal role in building Amazon Web Services (AWS) from a small team to a $40 billion business. His leadership has been marked by structural changes aimed at streamlining operations, such as increasing the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% — a target Amazon achieved in Q1 2025, Observer reported. Don't Miss: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — this is your last chance to become an investor for $0.80 per share. Donald Trump just announced a $500 billion AI infrastructure deal — here's how you can invest in the entertainment market's next big disruptor at $2.25 per share. 'When you get larger, there are all sorts of ways—natural ways—that you can get slowed down,' said Jassy, who joined Amazon in 1997 shortly after its IPO. He recalled AWS's early days when 'our storage service started with 13 people, our compute service had 11 people.' Why It Matters: A cornerstone of Jassy's strategy is Amazon's return-to-office (RTO) mandate, implemented in January. Jassy argues that in-person collaboration boosts productivity and innovation, stating, "People riff on top of each other's ideas better if they're together." However, this policy has sparked significant internal resistance, with nearly half of the affected employees considering leaving and 87% believing productivity may decline, according to Flex Index. These operational changes support Jassy's broader AI strategy outlined in his recent shareholder letter, where he described AI as 'a once-in-a-lifetime reinvention of everything we know.' The company has achieved its goal of increasing the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% in Q1 2025 while establishing a 'bureaucracy tipline' for employees to report unnecessary processes. With $100 billion in planned capital expenditures for 2025, Amazon is positioning for what Jassy calls a 'generational opportunity' in AI. Amazon will report first-quarter earnings on May Next: Invest Where It Hurts — And Help Millions Heal: Invest in Cytonics and help disrupt a $390B Big Pharma stronghold. Deloitte's fastest-growing software company partners with Amazon, Walmart & Target – Many are rushing to grab 4,000 of its pre-IPO shares for just $0.26/share! Image Via Shutterstock Send To MSN: Send to MSN Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Andy Jassy Pushes For Start-Up Mindset At Amazon: 'When You Get Can Get Slowed Down' originally appeared on
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US workers with remote-friendly jobs are still working from home nearly half the time, 5 years after the pandemic began
Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted office life, American workplaces are settling into a new rhythm. Employees in remote-friendly jobs now spend an average of 2.3 days each week working from home, a research team that tracks remote employment has found. And when you look at all workers – and not just those in remote-friendly positions – they're working remotely 1.4 days a week, or 28% of the time. That's a huge change from 2019, when remote work accounted for only 7% of the nation's paid workdays, even if it's down from the height of the pandemic in 2020, when 61.5% of all work was remote. And it's a giant leap from 1965, the dawn of telework. At that time, fewer than 0.5% of all paid workdays were out of the office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As management professors who study remote work and collaboration, we've learned a lot about remote work's challenges and its often underappreciated advantages. In analyzing the latest data, we've observed that employers and employees are still trying to strike the balance between working from home and at the office. That's why employers' requirements for in-person work don't always align with their employees' preferences. Employers swiftly made the jump to remote work in 2020. Zoom, along with other previously unfamiliar collaboration software companies, became commonplace overnight. Five years later, many employers, including JPMorgan, TikTok, Amazon and the federal government, are rejecting remote work, demanding that employees return to the office full time. But these examples are not the norm. According to Flex Index, which tracks the workplace strategies of over 10,000 U.S. companies quarterly, fully in-office work is on the decline. At the start of 2023, 49% of employers insisted that their staff report to the office daily. That percentage fell to 32% at the end of 2024. Companies are also retreating from remote-only work. While 31% of employers were fully remote in 2023, only 25% had remained fully remote at the end of 2024. Instead, companies are increasingly turning to hybrid arrangements, in which employees spend a part of their week at the office. About 20% of professional workplaces were hybrid at the start of 2023. Just two years later, hybrid's share had risen to 43%. The story of remote work is more complicated than general trends indicate. Its prevalence varies widely by industry, location and employer size. The technology, insurance, telecommunications, professional services, and media and entertainment industries are among the biggest adopters of long-term remote and hybrid arrangements. The states where remote and hybrid work are the most popular are Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Colorado and California. The states where it's the least popular are Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, Nebraska and Alaska. In part, some of these regional differences are due to where remote-friendly industries like technology and insurance are concentrated. Businesses with 500 or fewer employees are the most likely to embrace remote work. Staying connected and coordinating with your colleagues is easiest with smaller teams, we've observed. Midsize employers, with 500 to 25,000 employees, are equally split across fully in-office, remote and hybrid strategies. Very large employers, which have 25,000 employees or more, are the most likely to adopt hybrid work. These patterns show that remote work tends to be more popular among small employers, and in remote-friendly industries and states, whereas hybrid work has found a home in large companies. The remote work story is complicated also because employees have developed different preferences for in-office work, hybrid work and remote work over the course of the pandemic and since it subsided. In 2024, roughly 25% of professional employees preferred office work, 35% preferred remote work, and 40% preferred hybrid work, according to research by Zoom. Even recent college graduates express a range of preferences: 15% prefer to work at an office, 20% prefer remote work, and 65% would rather have a hybrid schedule. However, the ideal balance of office and remote work remains a point of contention. While employees favor three days at home and two in the office, employers prefer the opposite: three days in the office and two working remotely, the Zoom survey found. Generally, the future of work looks hybrid. But the remote work of the lockdown days – what's now known as 'fully remote' – is also here to stay. This is good news for those who prefer fully remote work. These employees are often parents or are caring for adults in need of assistance. They may live in rural communities or reside too far from their offices to regularly commute. Many LGBTQ+ employees and people of color have expressed a preference for remote work as a way to limit the microaggressions they experience on the job. On the fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 lockdown, there's no one-size-fits-all workplace. And we believe that's a good thing. The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Chicago Tribune
17-02-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Loop restaurants, caterers hope for boost from new return-to-work requirements
Duce Raymond, managing partner of a Chicago-area catering company, is always trying to build more corporate business. In the last four years, weddings have made up about 60% of SBR Events Group's business, followed by corporate events at roughly 30% and social events at 10%, Raymond said. Social events include birthday parties and baby showers. 'You can get more recurring business from corporate,' Raymond said. 'They could do a monthly sales meeting, a holiday event, a summer picnic (and) smaller events throughout the year.' If a company finds that SBR Events Group does a good job, it may very well turn to the caterer again and again. The latest return-to-work mandates may help give a boost to businesses in Chicago, especially in the Loop. A number of high-profile employers in recent months have taken steps to significantly curb pandemic-era remote work. According to a report from Flex Index, a workplace flexibility information company, the percent of U.S. firms requiring in-person work all the time remained roughly flat during the final three quarters of 2024. But the report also said the average U.S. firm required 2.78 days per week in the office in the fourth quarter of 2024, up from 2.63 days in the third quarter and 2.49 in the second. Amazon announced in September that it would ring in the new year by expecting employees in the office five days per week. AT&T made a similar directive, and Dell and the executive branch of the federal government have decided to bring people back to the office on a full-time basis. JP Morgan Chase also is requiring workers on-site five days a week, and Salesforce has called some workers back to the office four days per week. Clodagh Lawless, proprietor of The Dearborn in the Loop, said the restaurant depended on Loop office workers to hit its lunch revenue projections. 'Pre-COVID, our demographic for lunch was predominantly the in-person office worker — the worker in the Loop,' said Lawless, who opened the urban-American tavern with her family in 2016. The restaurant would also fill up from 4 to 6 p.m. People would order appetizers and drinks and relax with colleagues after work. The pandemic took a big toll on The Dearborn and many other restaurants, Lawless said. The Dearborn is the livelihood of Lawless, her spouse, her sister, her sister's spouse and their children, she added. So the pandemic was a really dark time for them. 'When it reopened, it wasn't much better because the whole professional office work landscape had shifted,' Lawless said. At the start of 2025, The Dearborn's lunch business was not as good as it was before the pandemic, but there have been more office workers coming in recently, Lawless said. Happy hour business has yet to come back in a big way, but it's definitely improved, which likely is attributable to an uptick in-person work requirements, Lawless said. 'What's best for the restaurant business in the Loop in Chicago is for office workers to be in their office,' she said, while expressing empathy for those who find it easier to work from home. Jonathan Capitanini, president of Italian Village Restaurants, a family-owned restaurant concept that's been in the Loop since 1927, said that since last year, catering orders have picked up. He said many businesses are using catered food to tempt young people, as well as their older colleagues, to come to the office. Capitanini's relatives have told him lunch has been on the decline since the mid-20th century. Only one of the four eatery concepts is open for lunch. But when the city 'got to the other side' of the pandemic, Capitanini helped retool to make the business more appealing to people in their 20s and 30s, including downtown workers, those without kids and those who enjoy grabbing drinks after work. The Village opened a basement eatery called Sotto in December with refined Italian comfort food and a relaxed climate and decor that the owners hope will attract a younger crowd. The accompanying tavern, Bar Sotto, aims to be 'an extension of your living room.' The Loop, Chicago's central business district, has seen its challenges in the past two decades, well before the pandemic, Capitanini said. 'We as a family never felt like you could ever, ever bet against the Loop,' Capitanini said. 'Sure it's going to go up and down and it has several times over the years and decades that we've been here. But we know that if it is going down, it will one day return and turn around. And I think as a family, we've really decided that that is now.' Sarah Finlayson-Banasiak, chief creative officer for the Chicago events company the Revel Group, said in an email that she's seen a growing demand for daily meals as more companies have brought employees back to the office on a hybrid basis or full time. The Revel Group has noticed companies that don't have their employees in the office five days per week still value in-person gatherings. 'For companies that remain remote or hybrid, we're seeing a shift toward intentional, high-impact gatherings,' Finlayson-Banasiak wrote.
