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When the acute aspects of the pandemic receded, some who at first struggled began to settle into a work-from-home (WFH) groove and appreciated the newfound flexibility.
Many made the argument that the return-to-office (RTO) policies and mandates were better for their companies; workers are more productive at the office, and face-to-face interactions promote collaboration, many suggested.
Overall, the analysis, released as a pre-print, found that RTO mandates did not improve a firm’s financial metrics, but they did decrease employee satisfaction.
Drilling down, the data indicated that RTO mandates were linked to firms with male CEOs who had greater power in the company.
Although CEOs often justified RTO mandates by arguing it will improve the company’s performance, “Results of our determinant analyses are consistent with managers using RTO mandates to reassert control over employees and blame employees as a scapegoat for bad firm performance,” the researchers concluded.
Specifically, after an RTO mandate, employees’ ratings significantly declined on overall job satisfaction, work-life balance, senior management, and corporate culture.
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For those who expect RTO == “Recovery time objective” (for data backups)… and who then wondered if this was going to be about Required Time Off – because it couldn’t make people unhappy if it was Requested Time Off, no, it is none of those. It’s yet more junk jargon:
Return to Office
saved you a click
They’re right.
I’m lucky. My employer treats us like gold and we’ve gone the opposite direction from most of corporate America. In April 2022 we started back with 3 required in-office days a week and have since gone down to 1.
It works great. I wish it were zero but I think there is some value to getting face time with coworkers, so I put up with one day a week.
Killing WfH isn’t about boosting company value, it’s about restoring corporate real-estate value, which execs and shareholders are invested balls deep into. Pretty sure everyone knows this, and claims otherwise are just super transparent lies
Also it’s bad for the environment, and transport is expensive
Quelle fucking surprise, the thing every worker was saying about the relationship between RTO and productivity turned out to be true.
