Mandated return-to-office decisions benefit no one

As a future of work researcher, I have become somewhat of an agony uncle for those dealing with RTO mandates.

One email that came across my desk was originally sent by a CEO. It said all staff are required to be back in the office five days a week. In their all-staff email, they said "engagement across the business is dropping" and "coupled with the challenging FY23 financial performance, there is a need to change the way we go to work".

So, the problem is profit is dropping and employees are less happy. And the solution is to force people to work full-time from the office?

I'm no rocket scientist, but given the well-cited economic slowdown, I can't say I'm shocked profit might have dropped year-on-year. I'm not entirely sure why people working a portion of their week from home are to blame for company performance.

Now, I'm no evangelist for full-time remote work. I believe the office absolutely has a place and in many ways it is more important than ever. A study by Qualtrics found those who went into the office one to three days a week had higher wellbeing and inclusion markers than those who worked remotely. And a study led by the universities of Oxford and Pittsburgh found while remote collaboration has the potential to deliver new and creative scientific ideas through easier access to a global knowledge pool, there were fewer scientific breakthroughs compared to being together in person.

The issue, though, is mandating peoples' attendance. Why? Because one size fits no one. The exact number of days people might need to use the office will vary depending on their work style, their team, their customers,= and the type of the work they do. And those needs might shift each week. So, the idea of saying everyone, whether you're Johnny the sales rep, or Krishna from accounting, or Martha the software developer, should be in the office on the same days at the same time is ridiculous. And it will see productivity take a hit.

Then there's the whole thing about trusting people to work remotely and hybrid for the better part of three years, and then treating them like children and taking that trust away from them by forcing them to come into the office, just like you'd tell a kid they can't have dessert unless they eat their veggies.

One driver for return to office mandates is that executives think people are taking the piss or bludging while they work from home. I ask them how many of those people are being managed for underperformance, to which I hear crickets. That's a performance management issue, not a work-from-home issue. And to respond by bringing people into the office is just lazy leadership.

Research out of the University of Pittsburgh examined 137 of America's biggest companies and found office mandates did not result in a significant improvement to firm performance.

The study also found it was largely male CEOs enforcing RTO mandates and, unsurprisingly, employee satisfaction plummeted and turnover spiked as a result.

Do leaders truly believe forcing people to come in to the office against their will, will make them happier? Or is this more about egocentric leaders bringing staff back so they can once again walk the halls of the office? Either way, it's clear workers' wellbeing isn't going to improve if we force them back to the four walls five days a week.