Return-to-Office Mandates Will Drive Your Best People Away, Fuel Competitors

When Amazon recently announced its decision to end hybrid work, bosses the world over popped champagne.

I think they’re going to eventually choke on their bubbly.

Yes, some predict that within three years, corporate desks will once again chain employees. The hybrid and remote work era will wither away.

But they should brace themselves for a harsh reality: The end of hybrid work will likely spark more frustration and rebellion than productivity and innovation.

I’ve been saying this for years, ever since the 2020 pandemic forced many workers out of the office full time. The future of work will be increasingly hybrid or remote. Some environments could benefit from in-office attendance. But return-to-office mandates create a risk for long-term damage.

Out of my 50-plus business calls a week, 90% of the people on the other end of Zoom are in a home office. That’s the wave of the future for most corporate and office work.

Backdoor Layoffs Will Backfire

Many theorize that large companies like Amazon are using return-to-office (RTO) mandates to reduce headcount. Frustrated workers who walk out the door don’t require generous severance packages.

On paper, an RTO mandate that reduces your workforce by the planned 15% sounds like a winner. But as I’ve written before, this view is short-sighted. Because your high-performance workers are the ones likely to quit. You want to keep those capable, innovative and ambitious employees, not drive them off.

That 15% in payroll savings trims your company’s operational capacity by 30%, 40% or even more. And, as I’ve also written before, these former team members could become your fiercest competitors.

Consider startups like Perplexity AI, where one co-founder formerly worked at Google-owned DeepMind. Perplexity AI, other AI startups and Tik Tok are challenging Google’s share of the nearly $300 billion search advertising business, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Maybe that’s why business startups have surged since 2020. A record 5,481,437 new businesses were started in last year. The second highest year? 2021, with 5,380,477 new businesses startups.

I’ll bet a lot of those offer hybrid working arrangements.

The Brain Drain Benefits Your Nimble Competitors

Smaller, more agile companies also stand to gain from your RTO mandates. They will welcome your top talent with open arms and flexible, remote work environments.

This is a fantastic opportunity for smaller companies to hire top personnel without the high costs and overhead of office real estate.

With better talent and lower costs, these nimble outfits can pivot quickly in our age of perpetual disruption. They can innovate while you’re counting how many people are in cubicles. They’re not clinging to the notion that they can recapture 2019 by bringing employees back to the office.

If you won’t pay attention to me, listen to Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom. Bloom, who has spent years researching work-from-home trends, told The Wall Street Journal that high-performing employees have an easier time getting hired elsewhere.

“Managers are very happy to tell underperformers, ‘You gotta come in or you’re out of here,’” Bloom told the newspaper. With more coveted employees, “they often just don’t want to enforce it, because it impacts their own bonus from promotions.”  

Clinging to Outdated Notions of Control

Let’s be honest: Some bosses pushing for RTO have a misplaced need for control.

They can’t shake the idea that they must physically see their employees to feel in charge. This mentality reveals more about their own leadership insecurities than about any actual benefits of in-office work. Research shows that most people are just as productive, if not more so, working from home.

The world has changed. Workers aren’t eager to go back to hour-long commutes, rigid schedules and the daily grind of office life. They’ve tasted a better way of working. They can eat dinner with their families, attend their children’s games and recitals and save hours a week.

They love their families and hate their commutes a lot more than they love you. Particularly since those commutes cost them, not you, thousands of dollars a year.

And the ones who don’t start new businesses or go to your competitors might just up and retire.

Either way, your outfit is less productive and scrambling to put out fires.

Embrace a Hybrid Future, Not a Rigid Past

So, don’t rejoice at the return to office life. Instead, avoid it.

Insightful leaders should recognize the value of hybrid work and adapt to new working arrangements.

That might be fully remote, like Tompkins Ventures. Or that could mean flexible working arrangements that involve one or two days a week in the office. Or maybe one or two days a month. Or maybe five days every three months.

It’s not your call anymore. Because insightful leaders are not the cubicle police. Insightful leaders are adjusting to their best workers.

Flexibility is the future, and companies that embrace it will have the talent, productivity and innovation to thrive.

Related Reading

• Remote Work Revolution Can Help You Win the Talent War
• How Return-to-Office Policies Could Fuel Your Competition
• Return-to-Office Mandates Spark Rebellion