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.
I’m very fed up with the “I get treated like shit and so should you” crowd.
If they’re so jealous of public sector workers, then become one. It must be easy right?
I have family that work for the government, the salaries aren’t great and most of their paycheque goes to fees, taxes, and gets put aside to pay for that pension people are so jealous of (gov pensions aren’t just free money). They’ve got fixed sick and vacation amounts with insane fixed times between raises and increases in vacation. And the bureaucracy is next level, if you want a promotion then you have to apply to get into a pool to interview for a higher level role more than a year or from now, maybe. And that’s all after years of working contract to become permanent, and meeting rigid education criteria in the first place.
I work private sector, and if I hadn’t fought my way up by leveraging offers, switching jobs, and demanding promotions, I would still be working low level jobs and I’d make half my salary.
If you’re in the private sector and unhappy, do something about it. The private sector gives you the freedom to do so. Stop tearing down other people pretending if we were all miserable you’d finally be happy.
And those fucking actings that last forever because they don’t want to go through pools… I know some people who have been acting in the same position for 6 years! Technically they could be downgraded from AS7 to AS2 tomorrow morning!
My wife is in that position, but it hasn’t been nearly 6 years.
If that happened in the private sector people would quit.
Fucking this. Society loves punching down, and the one time they punch up they don’t punch up high enough and once again end up with shit on their own faces.