Ordering workers back to the office a 'power grab' by bosses, research suggests
Ordering workers back to the office a 'power grab' by bosses, research suggests
Return-to-office (RTO) mandates are often a control tactic by managers and don't boost company performance, new research suggests. Read on.
Remote workers who’ve been ordered back to the office might suspect the directive is nothing more than a power trip by the boss, and research suggests they’re probably right.
Return-to-office (RTO) mandates are often a control tactic by managers and don’t boost company performance, according to a new research paper from the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. What’s more, the mandates appear to make employees less happy with their jobs.
Article content Article content Researchers at the university examined how RTO mandates at 137 S&P 500 companies affected profitability, stock returns and employee job satisfaction. They discovered that companies with poor stock market performance were more likely to implement RTO policies. Managers at such companies were also likely to point the finger at employees for the company’s poor financial showing, seeing it as evidence that working from home lowers productivity. Companies pushing for more days in the office tended to be led by “male and powerful CEOs,” the researchers said, underlining a belief among workers that mandates were being used by leaders to reassert control.
“Our findings are consistent with employees’ concerns that managers use RTO for power grabbing and blaming employees for poor performance,” the authors said in their paper. “Also, our findings do not support the argument that managers impose mandates because they believe RTO increases firm values.”
Indeed, requiring more days in the office did nothing to improve profitability or boost stock prices, the researchers said. But it did seem to make employees miserable, and more likely to complain about the daily commute, loss of flexibility and erosion in work-life balance, according to reviews on Glassdoor. It also made them less trusting of their managers. “We find significant declines in employees’ overall ratings of overall job satisfaction, work-life balance, senior management and corporate culture after a firm announced an RTO mandate,” the researchers said.
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I think it's more likely a way to get a portion of your employees to resign without having to deal with the socio-econo-political headache of layoffs or give severance packages.
It doesn't boost productivity, but it may cut payroll.
It absolutely does.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3712680/return-to-office-or-quit-ibm-tells-managers.html
IBM has a history of this kind of stuff - when they need to expand: Remote work schemes, and flexible work hours become more common. When they need to tighten the belt, the first step is a RTO. So long as you are willing some flexibility in the time line, and support employees in the move - it will lead to plenty of people quiting, a few people moving, then you do a small round of layoffs avoiding people who willingly moved closer to the office etc as these are people unlikely to have quick new opertunities and are more stuck with the company/loyal to it.
The Pandemic is not the first time IBM has done something like this, and it won't be the last.
Now, if we really get into the weeds - a lot of Companies that know this can be pulled off REALLY DO NOT want Remote work/hybrid work schedules to become industry norms, as once they do - these practices for ridding your company of say 1-2% of it's staff periodically stop being viable and you need to go for a more traditional layoff scheme.
IBM has a history of this kind of stuff
But they never shed the people they'd want: they shed the talent, where those who can't leave will stay behind.
This is why they can now only exist by buying companies, sucking them dry and moving on, as they slowly offshore all actual work. #byeRedHat
Of course IBM does - who runs them: Engineers? Or Bean Counters?