Many UK business leaders want their staff back in the office more frequently, but they’re scared to implement return to office (RTO) mandates in fear of worker revolts.
That’s according to a study from Hubble, which found that 52% of founders expressed a desire for their teams to work in-person. Just 12% said they didn’t mind.
There is concern about pushback from staff, though, with 60% of business leaders worried that stricter office mandates could lead to a surge in resignations.
RTO mandates have proved a controversial element of workplace strategy, Hubble noted. A host of major tech firms have faced staff revolts over stricter attendance strategies in the last year, including Amazon and Dell Technologies.
While RTO mandates are a risky strategy, Hubble’s research suggests that many firms that have adopted office-based strategies are satisfied with their approach. Leaders of fully office-based companies were the least likely to anticipate change in their workplace strategy over the next year.
“The tide seems to be turning towards office attendance. More founders are deciding that perhaps the office is the best place for their employees to be, and they’d like them to come in more often,” Hubble said.
Should business leaders enforce office attendance?
Only 7% of respondents claimed to strictly enforce office attendance by punishing non-attenders with disciplinary measures. More than one-third (37%) moderately enforce office attendance though, meaning it’s mandated but not backed up by disciplinary measures.
Hubble said this raises important questions over how businesses can bring employees back into the office when they aren’t strictly mandating office attendance.
It’s not the office that employees are resisting, though, according to Rebecca Perrault, VP of culture and diversity at Magnit. They’re resisting the mandates themselves, which Perrault thinks mistake visibility for value.
"The best companies don’t need attendance policies to force collaboration; they create workplaces where people want to show up because the time spent together is purposeful, not performative,” Perrault told ITPro.
“The workforce has changed. Top talent is asking: does coming into the office help me do my best work, or is this just a box to tick? If employers can’t answer that question convincingly, they shouldn’t be surprised when their best people vote with their feet,” she added.
RTO polices that focus simply on compliance will push top talent away, Perrault said, and businesses should try and refocus the conversation away from mandates and onto valuing the impact of staff rather than in person attendance.
RTO has caused serious backlash before
Business leaders are right to be worried about how staff might react to stricter RTO mandates given the stir these moves have caused over the last year.
Amazon has been a central part of the conversation, with CEO Andy Jassy announcing in September that the firm would be pivoting to a full five-day RTO scheme.
AWS CEO Matt Garman echoed the sentiment a month later, suggesting staff unhappy with the move should look for work elsewhere.
Employees at the tech giant have been less than pleased with the shift, with hundreds of staff complaining that the move will negatively impact their personal lives with little improvement to efficiency, according to an anonymous survey circulated via Slack.
Dell has been in a similar position since it introduced an RTO mandate, with a leaked internal survey revealing a plummet in a key employee satisfaction metric.
One Dell employee told Business Insider at the time that they had “never seen” a score move that quickly toward the negative.
A generational clash on RTO
The conversation around RTO has also revealed a generational divide, with multiple studies finding that Gen Z is eager to get back into the office while older members of staff are happier with remote working setups.
Research from last year found 80% of younger workers would prefer more time in the office, while research from earlier this month found 91% of Gen Z workers crave a balance between in-person and remote work.
More than two-thirds (69%) claimed that technology has made them feel more disconnected with others in their company or industry, a more pronounced figure than in other generations.
61% and 62% of millennials and Gen X feeling disconnected as a result of technology, respectively.
Many Gen Z workers feel that remote working will also impact their careers, the study found, with many believing that in-person attendance of live events is beneficial to businesses relationships and personal growth.
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