With the COVID-19 pandemic thankfully in our collective rear view mirror, many companies are forcing their employees to return to in-office work at least part of the time. This is echoed by the Trump administration, which is forcing Federal workers to abandon remote work and return to their offices full time.
The question is, is returning to the office a good idea? Or should employers be more flexible and accept those workers who want to continue to work remotely? Put another way, is it a bad management decision to eliminate remote work?
The Case for Returning to the Office
Many companies believe that something was lost when their employees stopped coming into the office. While some work can be done from anywhere, there is some degree of spontaneous collaboration and communication lost when members of a team are not all together in the same physical space. This can affect innovation, team building, and company loyalty.
It’s also tough to find a mentor or to mentor someone else when your only interaction is via email, instant messages, and the occasional Teams meeting. This can have a deleterious long-term effect on the careers of younger workers, who simply can’t learn some of the subtle ways a workplace works when they’re never in a workplace.
In addition, allowing employees to work from home creates a lot of empty offices and cubicles. Companies end up paying for office space they no longer need, which impacts the bottom line. (There is also a residual impact on nearby restaurants and other businesses that used to depend on the now-absent office crowd.)
These are all arguably decent reasons to encourage employees to return to in-office work. There are also some less honorable reasons behind the return-to-office movement, not the least of which is that of control.
Many managers, at all levels, simply don’t trust their workers to give them a full 40-hour week when they’re working from home. These managers—often micromanagers—think that unsupervised employees will naturally slack off if they’re left to their own devices. They think at-home workers are more likely to be playing videogames or doing laundry instead of the work they’re being paid to do. They want to know what their employees are doing every minute of the day so that they get the full “value” from their workforce investment.
In essence, these companies and their managers believe that their employees are a lower breed, a subservient class that can’t be trusted and must be constantly supervised. It’s insulting to their workforce but it’s the way some management unfortunately thinks.
This classist mindset is exemplified by the actions of the current President of the United States, who ordered all Federal workers back to the office full time. Here’s what President Trump said during a press briefing just this weekend:
“Nobody’s going to work from home, they’re going to be going out, they’re gonna play tennis, they’re gonna play golf. They’re gonna do a lot of things—they’re not working… It’s a rare person that’s going to work. You might work 10% of the time, maybe 20%, I don’t think you’re going to work a lot more than that.”
In other words, Trump thinks that the average worker is less than him. He’s one of those bosses who doesn’t trust his staff to do their jobs unless they’re being constantly monitored. It’s insulting.
Unfortunately, the president is not alone in wanting to totally control the actions of their workers. It’s this mindset, which devalues workers and treats them as unfortunately necessary cogs in the machine, that is driving many executives to demand their employees return to in-office work.
The Case for Allowing Remote Work
Many workers, of course, would disagree with all these reasons for returning to the office. They would certainly disagree with and be insulted by the cynical assessment of them as natural slackers who require in-person micromanagement.
As to the claim that in-office workers are more productive, there are plenty of studies available that show otherwise. For example, the Fall 2022 Future Forum Pulse reports that remote workers with full schedule flexibility have productivity levels 29% higher than those less flexible in-office workers.
In addition, the majority of remote workers report much higher job satisfaction than in-office workers. A McKinsey study found that, on average, workers who are satisfied with their jobs are 31% more productive than less-satisfied workers. Of course, happier workers are less likely to take time off or quit, which reduces a company’s recruiting costs.
Remote workers say that the top three benefits of working remotely are not having to commute, not having to attend as many time-wasting meetings, and having fewer distractions. (That’s right, the typical office is more distracting than the typical home.) A study by Zapier found that 65% of remote workers feel more productive since they’ve started working from home.
Working remotely also results in a hidden pay increase for at-home employees, because they don’t have to spend time and money commuting to the office. One study showed that individuals working remotely can save up to $4,500 annually on commuting costs—and even more on clothing and eating lunches out. This is why 21% of remote workers say they would accept a pay cut of 10% or more to avoid returning to the office.
All of these are very good reasons why a company should support remote and hybrid work when it makes sense. Forcing workers to return to the office very well could result in lower productivity and less satisfied workers.
What Should a Good Manager Do?
Some jobs, of course, require in-person work. Counter workers at a fast-food joint don’t have the luxury of working from home, nor do nurses, tow truck drivers, and swim instructors. However, if work can be done from anywhere, letting workers do it from home may be the better option—for both your employees and your company.
A good manager trusts their employees to do their jobs without constant oversight. A good manager provides the tools necessary for their employees to do their jobs from wherever they may be, in the office, on the road, or at home. A good manager knows that happy employees are more loyal employees—and that working from home makes many employees very, very happy.
If you feel that your employees won’t do their best work unless you’re watching over them in the office, maybe you need to hire different employees. More likely, you need to change your management style, because micromanagers are very bad managers, indeed. And if you’re a really bad manager, you’ll have problems with your employees no matter where they’re working from.
In many if not most instances, forcing employees to return to the office is unnecessary and will result in increased employee dissatisfaction, lower productivity, and higher turnover. Now, if higher turnover is what you want—if you’re actually looking to reduce your workforce, as the current presidential administration seems to be doing—then forcing employees to return to the office is a sneaky way to get rid of staff without announcing big layoffs. But for companies and managers who want to retain their best employees and improve their productivity, allowing those employees to work from home is the better approach.
So if you’re a good manager, you’ll be okay with your staff working from wherever they want to work, whether that’s at home, in the office, or some hybrid of the two. It shouldn’t matter to you where, how, or when the work gets done, as long as it gets done and gets done well. Only really bad managers care more about the process than the results.
