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Tech CEOs are backtracking on RTO mandates—now, just 3% want workers in the office full-time

  • Tech CEOs have been trying to force workers back into the office for the past two years, often threatening layoffs.
  • However, a new study shows that tech bosses are now backing down from their demands.
  • Only 3% of tech companies now require workers to be in the office full-time, down from 8% last year.
  • The study, conducted by Flex Index, analyzed the flexible work policies of 2,670 tech companies employing over 11 million people.
  • The number of fully flexible tech firms has increased from 75% in 2023 to 79% this year.
  • The most popular policy among tech firms is now the “employee’s choice” model, where employees can choose when and where they work.
  • This model is now used by 56% of tech firms, up from 38% in 2023.
  • Only 18% of firms now dictate which days their workers need to work from the office.
  • Despite tech companies being well-positioned to work from home, many CEOs have flip-flopped on their remote work policies.
  • In 2020, companies like Meta, Twitter, and Shopify announced they would leverage remote work, but many have since backtracked on those promises.
  • A survey of US CEOs by KPMG found that only one-third expect a full return to the office in the next three years, down from 62% last year.
  • Resistance from workers has been cited as a reason for the change in CEO attitudes towards remote work.
  • Amazon is an example of how contentious the RTO battle can be, with around 30,000 employees signing a petition against the company’s in-office mandate.
  • Dropbox co-founder and CEO Drew Houston summed up the situation, saying that CEOs keep hitting the “go-back-to-2019” button, but it’s not working.
Vanth ,
@Vanth@reddthat.com avatar

I see my boss in person once per quarter. I routinely use her boss’s office because I haven’t seen him in about a year. And I’ve never seen his boss despite him having an office and executive parking spot.

I’ve been asked a half dozen times to come into the office more often but it’s been super easy to deflect by praising them for how effective they are while fully remote. Either they buy my BS or they’re wise enough to see their hypocrisy and drop the topic.

Mouselemming ,

And are they effective while remote? Except for the part about wanting you to go in? Are they decent bosses otherwise? Or do you just need the health insurance…?

Vanth ,
@Vanth@reddthat.com avatar

Boss is great, one of the best I’ve ever worked for and is fine with me working remote. Boss x 2 could just as soon not exist; he doesn’t help me but nor does he get in my way, and surprisingly the one pushing hardest for return to office. Boss x 3, really not a fan, if I didn’t have a couple layers of buffer between us, he might be enough to send me looking for a different job. 3 gets on return to office kicks, but he usually loses interest quickly.

And if I didn’t need a salary and health insurance, I wouldn’t work any job. This one isn’t terrible, relative to what else I’ve done and could do.

Magister ,
@Magister@lemmy.world avatar

The trick is to find a job quite far away, current one is 1h30 away, previous was 6h away, pre-previous was 2h30 away, etc. The local employees of those companies have to come 2 or 3 days a week, but me being too far, I can work 100% remote.

Mouselemming ,

That’s why my spouse works for a NYC company, from LA.

Lost_My_Mind ,

“We’re going to need you to come in to the office for a 1 hour meeting, while the boss is on a zoom call with the whole office to say things that could have been said in an email, and he won’t even notice you’re there.”

mesamunefire ,

We had a huge push to RTO…then the higher ups stopped showing up, which ment the workers were the only ones that really had to do it. So they stopped as well (whos going to snitch?) Now its back to once a week which is even less than before the RTO announcement. No one cares and it was over a year ago.

punkwalrus ,
@punkwalrus@lemmy.world avatar

I have had two tech jobs like that, even before COVID, starting in 2016. The first time, it was a company that outgrew their workspace. They put us in ‘rent-an-office’ spaces for a bit, and then my boss started working from home a few days a week. Then he allowed me to. We moved to a new office, but it was always empty in my section. That was fine, too, but the commute was terrible, so I started doing 2 days a week, then once a week, then a few times a month. I rarely saw my other coworkers in person, and nobody said anything aloud.

The next job started because of COVID, and when they started doing RTO, they also wanted to do “hot desking” (no assigned seating) and open office plans, and I was not having that. I was not going to work in a “cafeteria” like setting. So I got contracted work and have worked from home 100% for several years now. Nobody has office space, and we work all over the world to collaborate. I get paid very well.

I hope i never had to go back to an office. I reach retirement age in about 15 years, and I am hoping to make it.

mesamunefire ,

Sound like a good gig. Ive floated the idea of going back to being a contractor, but my job is very flexable and im liking it quite a lot. Its tempting…

“Hot desking” sounds terrible! Theres a reason people decorate their seating and have their own place! And open office…thats a productivity killer.

HobbitFoot ,

Yeah. If management isn’t going to show up, then there isn’t a reason for everyone else to show up.

That said, there are benefits to having some face time with people that you don’t get from full remote. It just has to be done in a thoughtful way.

Mouselemming ,

Not part of the corporate scene, but is it necessary those face time benefits occur at the office in a work context? Or could it be a monthly BBQ?

Oh wait, that either takes precious weekend hours or we’re back in office time, even if we’re outdoors.

Nvm.

HobbitFoot ,

I feel like the option has been working in a bullpen like area for one or two days a week.

You get a lot more of the small questions that people ask in person but seem resistant over Teams or a phone call.

You also get to hear other interactions, which can be valuable. Seeing someone else go through a new task can be a learning experience, or you can see someone else struggling with a task and help them.

You don’t really get that in corporate mandated fun time, and introverts need the time to better get to know others as they slowly open up. That said, the value of face time goes down from 2 days a week and there is some value in having alone work time.

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

My company has really put its foot down on RTO and yet they wonder why employee satisfaction is hovering at 6 out of 10.

ABCDE ,

Because they’ve fired everyone?

breadsmasher ,
@breadsmasher@lemmy.world avatar

Return to office was just an easy way to get people to quit instead of laying them off and having to pay severance

uninvitedguest ,
@uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca avatar

I tend to agree, but isn’t it a little harder to control whom gets caught in that kind of constructive dismissal rather than targeted layoffs?

breadsmasher ,
@breadsmasher@lemmy.world avatar

I dont think the big companies really care. They (FAANG for example) massively overhired

bluGill ,

Targeted layoffs are tricky to pull off. You can be sued for wrongful dismissal and then you need to show you were not targeting that person by anything other than random. You can easially lay off everyone on a project. Anything where you select individuals is risky if they can somehow argue you choose them because of some status (minority or whatever - even white male is not a status you can dismiss someone on) . Don't get me wrong, companies lay off part of a department all the time - but they would prefer to not do that.

Even if someone quits from a department you don't want to lose people from, you can just transfer an employee from a different department that didn't lose enough people. So this is good enough and someone who quits cannot sue.

Also if someone quits they cannot collect unemployment. Generally governments track how often a company lays off employees and charges higher unemployment rates to those who lay off more people so getting people to quit saves you here too.

masterspace ,

It’s wild that Amazon wants RTO so bad when they’re famous for a philosophy of not letting teams talk to each other directly, and instead forcing every team to publish APIs for their services that other teams can consume.

I mean, sure you could still be collaborating internally with your team but they seem ideally suited to take advantage of remote work.

My guess is that for a lot of big tech companies, half the RTO push was just because they didn’t want to have to look like they overspent so much on super fancy lavish offices now that everyone was suddenly happier at home.

bstix ,

“flex index”… I don’t know what they do, but it’s a proper description of what employers used RTO do do.

CosmoNova ,

Resistance from workers huh? Let me guess CEOs realized they couldn‘t fill important positions that opened up when skilled workers left because of ‚return to office‘ mandates?

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