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Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Revenge RTO: Workers are coming in late, leaving early and stealing snacks as they find small ways to get get back at their bosses
At an online reselling platform in Chicago, one employee always makes a pit stop by the communal fridge before heading home for the day. The employee, who like other workers interviewed requested anonymity for fear of retribution, always picks out a few soft drinks and snacks to take home. After her workplace started instituting RTO mandates forcing her to come in a few days a week, she believes it's her right to take a few extra refreshments. 'I keep my home fridge fully stocked with all of my office drinks,' she tells Fortune. 'If the shareholders are taking my wages, at the very least, I'm going to take home three Gatorades and a couple Uncrustables.' The Chicago-based employee is just one of the countless workers engaging in a kind of revenge RTO strategy: complying with their workplace demands, but taking advantage in other ways, like coming in late, leaving early, or stealing snacks. Reddit's AntiWork forum, for instance, has an entire thread dedicated to brainstorming 'subtle acts of resistance' when it comes to RTO. These include never answering your phone when you're not in the office, spending as much time as possible socializing, bothering your bosses when they look busy, and intentionally burning popcorn in the microwave. Experts tell Fortune that the roots of this defiance can be traced to a wave of RTO mandates instituted with little explanation or thought for employee well-being, which is now leading them to act out in small ways. And although these little rebellions might seem petty, they're actually a sign that workers have lost faith and confidence in their employer in a way that should make managers take notice of their own actions. 'When employees feel that something is unfair, they act to make it fair,' Peter Cappelli, professor of management and director of the Center for Human Resources at UPenn's Wharton Business School, tells Fortune. 'That reflects poorly on the leadership, down to the manager.' The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed offices around the world when millions of employees transitioned to remote work on a dime. When pandemic restrictions began to lift, many companies took a soft approach to work arrangements, allowing employees to continue working from home, or only requiring them to come in a few days a week. But those privileges have slowly eroded as CEOs and managers become more insistent that employees work from the office all or most of the time. One thing, however, is clear: workers do not want to go back to the old days. A resounding 95% of employees want some form of remote work option, according to a 2024 FlexJobs survey. 'Because remote work is such a cherished benefit, it doesn't surprise me that companies that implement a RTO mandate may have employees who are not thrilled with the decision,' Toni Frana, career expert manager at FlexJobs, tells Fortune. Some employers have taken a smarter approach to RTO by basing their mandate on data, and communicating effectively with workers. But others have been more heavy handed, and demanded that employees go back into the office with little to no evidence or explanation why. That has made many workers feel that an important social contract has been broken, leading them to act out, says Denise Rousseau, a professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon. The formal term for this is 'counterproductive work behavior,' defined as voluntary behavior that violates the organizational and social norms of a workplace. 'The precursors are unfair treatment, broken promises, or perceptions of an employer who does not have the workers interests at heart,' says Rousseau.'If this behavior is increasing, it's because employers have violated some implicit agreement.' That certainly seems to be the case with one New York City government contract employee that Fortune spoke with. She says she stopped clocking in and out for her lunch hour, and now charges the agency for that time. 'I'm just going to keep doing it,' she tells Fortune. 'I have s****y health insurance, so this makes up for it.' Another employee at a luxury goods brand in New York City that Fortune spoke with said she has seen an increase in revenge RTO behavior among her colleagues who are required to come to the office four days a week, including skipping out for a workout class or taking back food to their families. She adds that if a manager or member of leadership leaves early, other employees follow suit. 'Because we don't want to be here so often, we really are taking advantage of the moments when it is okay to leave, because nobody really sees it,' she says. Employees who take a few extra bags of Cheez-its or lightly embellish a 'doctor's appointment' might be aggravating for bosses, but they should think twice about trying to crack down on workers taking small liberties. 'If I'm an employer, before I get all my nose all out of joint about the insubordination, I think it is important to recognize that there are all kinds of rules that get violated all the time,' says Cappelli. That's especially true when workplace norms have recently changed. 'You might think this one is really fundamental, but have you done anything to persuade people that it really is fundamental now? Because it wasn't the week before.' These micro-transgressions, however, can also signal a deeper problem; a company may have flubbed the way they communicated their RTO demands, overlooked the needs of groups that particularly value flexible schedules, or generally made their workers feel unappreciated. 'It's a heads-up to the company that [they have] benefit[ed] from people's goodwill for many years, and that [they] don't want to throw that away,' says Rousseau. Experts emphasize that there's still hope for employers trying to cut down on incidents of RTO revenge, and say the solution is quite simple: listen to workers. Town halls, anonymous surveys, and collecting feedback from managers are all different ways to better understand the kind of work arrangements that are compatible with employee productivity, and the kind of policies that will win back their trust. Rousseau argues that there is no way to move forward as an organization without incorporating some type of employee feedback. And she warns that any company doing so proceeds at their own peril. 'I don't think not caring is an option,' she adds. This story was originally featured on
Mint
22-04-2025
- Health
- Mint
Offices ditch harsh fluorescent lights. New tech is on the way.
Glaring fluorescent lights in the office are on the way out. The technologies coming in promise to do much more than make everyone look better. Improved, and potentially more healthful, lighting is high on the list for companies and building owners trying to lure employees back to offices after an era of remote work. They are investing in new technologies such as faux skylights that mimic natural light—complete with a virtual sun and moon—and adjustable illumination systems designed to sync with employees' circadian rhythms. 'We've known for a long time that natural light is better and makes people feel better, so it's not a completely crazy idea," says Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School. Aside from psychological benefits, research studies have shown that light can have an impact on nonvisual brain function during cognitive tasks, particularly those that involve sustained attention. Office-lighting revamps are expensive—installing some of these technologies can add 20% to 30% to the cost of a project, those in the industry say—and it could take time for them to become mainstream. Here's a preview of technologies coming to the workplace. Playing into post-Covid wellness trends, office designers are exploring so-called circadian lighting to sync with the body's circadian rhythms—the biological clocks inside our cells that time when we sleep and wake. Expect to see illumination that can be tuned by intensity—brighter or dimmer—and 'color temperature"—cooler or warmer—throughout the day to mimic the light outdoors. Efforts to develop such lighting took off after researchers in the early 2000s discovered photosensitive cells in the retina that detect light generally below the level of our awareness, says George Brainard, a professor of neurology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Those photoreceptors, independent of vision, can affect biology and behavior, researchers found. 'We have seen a huge uptick in requests," says Jake Pack, an architectural lighting and materials specialist at Seattle-based SeaTac Lighting & Controls. SeaTac worked with JPC Architects to install a mix of tunable LED lighting at the Seattle headquarters of Hargis Engineers. The mix includes cylinders mounted from the ceiling with technology that allows users to control color intensity and temperature. In this case, the lighting is preprogrammed by the company rather than tuned by individual workers. The lighting will in theory help employees keep melatonin and serotonin levels in balance. But Hargis Engineers also wanted to showcase the technology for clients and its design staff, says Brendon Inman, a principal at the company. 'As engineers, we're always trying to have the cool new stuff within our space." Faux lighted windows give the illusion of a blue sky outside, fading to a sunset over the course of the day. Skylights show a virtual sun. At night, office workers see what appears to be the moon. 'I was always fascinated by trying to make stuff look more realistic," says Jonathan Clark, chief executive of Innerscene, a San Francisco-based lighting equipment manufacturing company that makes the products Circadian Sky and Virtual Sun. Clark, who previously co-founded a company that made videogames and who worked with Sony to develop 3-D graphics libraries for the PlayStation 2, likens the concepts to how virtual reality works. The windows and skylights are intended for office spaces with little natural lighting. Floors in multistory-buildings that otherwise wouldn't be able to have skylights, or where light is blocked by nearby skyscrapers are also potential uses. While prices vary depending on location and contractor, the products range from around $1,000 for the smallest, lowest-end versions to $15,000 for the largest and highest-end, Clark says. In March, Innerscene announced its next product: sensors that sample the color and intensity of the sky and wirelessly transmit that data into the artificial windows and skylights to show the same view. Won't some workers find the illusions a bit odd and even eerie? 'It's really rare that we don't get 'Wow,' " Clark says. Forget industrial-style banks of fluorescent lights. Companies are turning to more variety to bring a 'home" vibe into their offices and provide different working venues. Working from a desk, soundproof booth or lounge area demands different types of lighting, says Jonah Takagi, an industrial designer who teaches lighting at the Rhode Island School of Design. He envisions offices using cordless rechargeable lamps seen in homes to allow employees to dock anywhere with their preferred lighting during the workday. At LinkedIn's offices in Sunnyvale, Calif., and in Omaha, Neb., workers can go into private focus rooms or break rooms and, with a remote control, tailor the intensity and color gradient of the light. 'It's all about giving employees more control over their space," says Kelly Dubisar, a design director at architecture, design and planning firm Gensler, which worked with LinkedIn on its offices. Gensler sought to incorporate aspects of chromotherapy, a treatment that aims to boost mood and well-being with exposure to certain color and lighting combinations, Dubisar says. Adjustable lighting in conference rooms is on the rise, says Jean Chandler, senior director of design at Industrious, a division of commercial real-estate services and investment firm CBRE Group that provides co-working and other flexible-work spaces. For video calls, for example, a push of a button dims the central overhead light by 20% so that faces at the table have ample glow without shadows. Meanwhile, lights at the edges of the room darken by 50% to allow the participants on video to stand out. Imagine passageways that glow with lights leading from office areas to amenity areas such as a gym or game room. 'The intent is to give a real disconnect from your working environment as you're taking a break," says Jason Romine, an associate principal at JPC Architects, which worked on such lighted 'portals" for T-Mobile in Kingsburg, Calif., and Irving, Texas. The light portals started out in 2021 as purely functional bridges between different areas but have since evolved to include design elements such as tree imagery. Clients now increasingly ask about the portals on new projects, Romine says. 'It's really become something that they gravitate to as both a wayfinding element and this kind of demarcation of place and time." Welcome to windows that tint themselves to cut down the sun's glare. On the 25th floor of The Eight, a new high-rise office building in the Seattle area developed by New York-based Skanska USA, large windows controlled with an app that uses artificial intelligence adjust automatically in response to outdoor conditions. The window glass, manufactured by View, based in San Jose, Calif., uses a proprietary coating that reacts to a small electric charge to make the windows tint according to how much light is coming in. 'In Seattle, natural light is at a premium, so we wanted the tenants to be able to always have access to that natural light and also to the views," says Charlie Foushée, executive vice president at Skanska USA's commercial development division. Write to Ray A. Smith at
