Return-to-office plans unravel as workers rebel in tight job market

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Even the most inflexible bosses are softening their return\u002Dto\u002Doffice expectations.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief Jamie Dimon has been one of the most vocal critics of remote work, arguing that it’s no substitute for the spontaneous idea generation that results from bumping into colleagues at the coffee machine.

“We are seeing policies slip in real time,” said Melissa Swift, the U.S. transformation leader at workforce consultant Mercer. “There was previously all this talk about how, for white-collar jobs, collaborating in the office was important. That’s slipping. Now, only the people who need to turn a screwdriver need to be in the office.”Article content

For some companies, there’s no longer any debate. Airbnb Inc. had previously pegged September 2022 as its return to the office, but Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky dumped that plan last month, instead telling his 6,000 employees that they could work remotely indefinitely. “Each of us works best in our own ways, and we’re giving you the flexibility to make the right choice based on where you’re most productive,” Chesky wrote in an email to staff.

A growing body of research supports these shifts. While many companies settled on three or four days in the office when initially establishing hybrid-work arrangements, the ideal setup is actually just one or two days in the office, according to a recent working paper from Harvard Business School. Hybrid work schedules can also reduce employee quit rates by 35% compared with those who work entirely from the office, research co-led by Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University found.

Eighty-two percent of working moms polled earlier this year by Future Forum, a research consortium backed by Slack Technologies Inc., said they wanted flexibility in where they work, the highest level since the group began surveying white-collar workers in 2020. Black workers are also more likely to want some say over where they work than White employees.Article content

 

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