ReportWire

Tag: return to office

  • Asking employees to come back to the office like the old days is the same as trying to ‘jam the toothpaste back in the tube,’ workforce expert says | Fortune

    Return-to-office mandates continue to feel like high-level math equations that even the business world’s brightest can’t solve.

    Amazon, JPMorgan, and AT&T are among the most recent companies to require a full-time RTOs. But some of these mandates have faced obstacles, including a lack of office space and dissatisfied employees.

    Amazon, for example, said in September, it wanted its 350,000-person workforce in the office by early January. As of February, many of their offices didn’t have enough desks to accommodate the return, leaving many employees continuing working from home. AT&T had a similar issue. In response to JPMorgan’s RTO mandate, employees expressed their outrage on an internal platform. The company then disabled comments. Some JPMorgan and Amazon workers have also signed petitions protesting their employers’ requirements.

    What’s missing from some of these RTO plans is the recognition of a cultural change, said Jennifer Moss, workplace strategist and author of Why Are We Here?: Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants. The post-pandemic workplace should combine lessons from the pre-pandemic and pandemic-era models, she said.

    “When we’re trying to get people back into the office, we still are executing the office in the same way that it used to be,” Moss told HR Brew. “We just can’t jam the toothpaste back in the tube.”

    Recognize the new environment. Improved collaboration, culture, and productivity are often cited as reasons for an RTO, Moss said, but being in the office won’t necessarily help employees achieve these goals.

    “People are going into the office, unfortunately, it feels very much like what it feels like to be at home,” she said. “You’re still on Zoom, and you’re still spending your day doing the exact same things you could be doing at home. It feels very arbitrary.”

    To facilitate this new era of work, employers should embrace a model Moss called “the third office.” Instead of “pushing” for employees to go back to pre-pandemic norms, she said, employers should consider how they can incorporate the benefits of remote work, like autonomy and flexibility. To that end, a hybrid approach, she said, typically works best.

    Moss also urged mindfulness around how the physical office space can affect employees. If a company doesn’t have enough desks, for example, she said HR leaders should rethink how employees work in the office, and create quiet or collaborative spaces outside of the open floor plan.

    “The [third office] is a place where you have challenging discussions, where you learn to network, develop soft skills, be able to have team building, build up that social energy and that cohesion,” she said, adding that these activities were undervalued pre-pandemic and lost during the pandemic, and should be part of this new era.

    Eventually, however, companies that require five days in the office should offer employees their own dedicated workspace, Moss said. It may seem simple, but being able to personalize a desk is something that, she said, may help employees feel more connected to their workplace.

    Identify and communicate the play-by-play. Some executives want RTO to alleviate their own “trust issues,” without considering how it might affect employees, according to John Frehse, the global head of labor strategy at consulting firm Ankura.

    “You only trust me when I’m in the office. You don’t trust me when I’m at home. What kind of a worker and employer relationship are we dealing with?” Frehse told HR Brew.

    Sujay Saha, an employee experience strategist and founder of consulting firm Cortico-X, emphasized the need for a plan. “Don’t make the decision and then try to figure it out, how do I make that decision happen for people…that is the biggest problem in a lot of this,” Saha said. He suggested HR start by identifying employees’ “personas,” like whether they’re working parents or belong to the sandwich generation. This can give HR a sense of employees’ needs and schedules, which can help inform what kind of RTO might make sense.

    “There are pros and cons in all of this, so the most important thing that we can tackle is how we do it,” Saha said. “Maybe there is a pace at which you could do it…Reduce the pace and give people that mental adjustment time that is needed genuinely, to take care of their lives before you change [their lives].”

    Frehse also advised against focusing an RTO announcement on the enforcement and repercussions of not following the mandate. Instead, communicate the steps and value-add for professional growth.

    “It’s both culturally and intellectually lazy to announce a certain number of days of return to office each week, without listing in heavy detail the reasons why—not just benefits for the business, but the benefits for the employee,” he said.

    Saha agreed. “Don’t do it, just for the heck of doing it…Be clear about why you’re doing it.”

    This report was originally published by HR Brew.

    A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on February 28, 2025.

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    Mikaela Cohen, HR Brew

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  • How RTO Plans That Accommodate Working Parents Can Help Retain Staff

    Renewed or stiffer return to office (RTO) rules are often met with protest from employees who cherish the flexibility of remote options. But new data indicates the greatest resistance comes from working parents who feel their domestic commitments have been ignored by employers ordering staff back to the workplace.

    Previous studies showed strengthened RTO rules or full, five-day weekly mandates have led to a rising number of women dropping out of the labor market. Many departed female workers said they left to fulfill child-raising and other domestic commitments that became difficult with less job flexibility. A new survey by workplace mental well-being services provider Modern Health indicates increased pressure created by reduced remote work options is now being felt by parents of both genders. That’s especially true for people juggling a career, looking after kids, and caring for older family members as well.

    Survey responses suggest spending more time in the office needn’t be that difficult, so long as workers’ personal commitments are taken into account. But 71 percent of the 1,000 full-time U.S. employees aged 30–65 who were questioned said RTO decisions are usually made without considering domestic demands on parents — particularly women.

    There are solid business reasons why employers might want to keep those workers in mind when altering in-office rules in the future.

    The Modern Health survey found most employees didn’t regard reinforced RTO conditions as a zero-sum change for the worse. About 85 percent of participants said tighter return to the office rules had strengthened workplace collaboration and culture, and 84 percent reported it had helped reduce loneliness and disconnection at work. 

    However, 91 percent of participants stressed requirements to spend more time in the office are most productive when they remain mindful of employees work-life balance and flexibility — especially after they sought their employees’ input. But most surveyed workers said that hasn’t been happening often when RTO tightening has been carried out so far.

    In addition to the over 70 percent of participants who said reinforced rules had been planned without considering the impact on working parents, 74 percent viewed that neglect as making it more difficult, particularly for mothers, to continue pursuing their careers. 

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    Bruce Crumley

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  • Amazon’s Return To Office Chickens Come Home To Roost

    If your week began like mine, Monday morning was a parade of broken web pages and non-working apps. The root of the problem was that Amazon’s AWS premier region had barfed all over itself, and took a lot of the internet down with it.

    This was coming. 

    I called it a year ago, when Amazon started hard-line mandating a return-to-office. I connected the dots then, and now the picture is starting to become clear – a picture of a server farm in flames.

    Look. I’m totally speculating here, but I’m no longer alone in my speculation. And Amazon wasn’t alone in making the mistake of allegedly using a return to office mandate as the most blunt kind of employee weeding-out mechanism. A ton of companies did the same thing. A ton of companies are now paying the price for it.

    However, there’s no more painful example of that payback than when your company takes down a ton of other people’s businesses – then finds itself frozen in place for far too long before being able to determine cause and correction, because no one in the room could figure it out. 

    Again, I’m only connecting dots, not taking a victory lap. 

    Although I think I could take that victory lap. Because it’s becoming clear exactly why something like this was going to happen. And it’s clear that it’s going to happen again. 

    OK, it’s a victory lap, but I also have a fix.

    Amazon’s Big RTO Mistake

    A little over a year ago, I wrote about Amazon kicking off a much more hardline wave of return to office mandates. In that article, I pointed to five reasons why their love-it-or-leave-us approach was a major mistake:

    1. Even before Amazon’s RTO announcement, their competitors’ recruiters were already using said forthcoming announcement to cherry pick Amazon’s most experienced talent.
    2. Amazon would effectively shrink their pool for recruiting new talent by up to 90 percent. This means the more senior talent available outside of Amazon’s geography were more likely to land somewhere else than relocate.
    3. The morale hit that their workforce would take would impact their most senior talent the hardest, and those are the folks with the option to repair their morale by going somewhere else.
    4. The productivity hit they would take by adding commutes and removing focus time would also impact their most senior people the hardest, as their time was logically the most valuable to the company.
    5. The excuses spun up to cover the more obvious reason for RTO – Amazon’s sunk investments in additional corporate HQs – would be most apparent to those folks who had been at Amazon when those HQ investments were made. 

    You don’t have to be a distinguished engineer to see the common thread here. If a company like Amazon wants to smack its most senior and experienced resources in the back of the head five times, their 2024 RTO mandate was the most efficient way to do it.

    The Tech Industry Is Leaking Senior Experience

    It’s not just Amazon. And it’s not necessarily just an RTO mandate that will push experienced talent out the door. It’s actually the use of RTO mandates without exception, which could easily be interpreted as a “shoot first and separate later” way to trim an overhired workforce, that turns an RTO mandate into a self-inflicted wound.

    It happened the same way with overarching AI adoption mandates, cut-at-all-costs calls for profitability, blanket adoption of tired product development practices – basically it seemed like every trendy corporate organizational move since 2022 was invoked to treat all talent as equal and equally expendable. 

    I came up through the industry as a developer. One thing I learned very early on in my corporate executive journey is that if you don’t treat more talented resources with the respect their talent demands, you’ll be left with the talent you deserve. 

    That statement irritates a lot of modern non-tech corporate executives to no end, until they discover that all their experienced employees got tired of their flat-org-for-thee-but-not-for-me bullshit, and they realize they fired all their junior employees to make room for AI productivity theater. 

    Now these executive leaders are left with managers who follow outdated methodologies, leading shell-shocked junior employees who are just fighting to stay on payroll, because without the job, they can’t afford to live where the company HQ is.

    Did this happen to Amazon? I don’t know. But the Register seems to think it’s a possibility.

    A Strong Case for AWS Brain Drain as the Root Cause

    As I was searching for why the hell it took so long for AWS to fix the glitch, I found this column from the Register’s Corey Quinn, a “Chief Cloud Economist” no less, who took a stab at connecting even more dots. DNS dots.

    “And so, a quiet suspicion starts to circulate: where have the senior AWS engineers who’ve been to this dance before gone? And the answer increasingly is that they’ve left the building — taking decades of hard-won institutional knowledge about how AWS’s systems work at scale right along with them.”

    It took 75 minutes, which might as well be 75 days in low-level back end time, just to get to what was going on. Corey speculates why:

    “When that tribal knowledge [experience with ‘wonky’ DNS issues] departs, you’re left having to reinvent an awful lot of in-house expertise that didn’t want to participate in your RTO games, or play Layoff Roulette yet again this cycle. This doesn’t impact your service reliability — until one day it very much does, in spectacular fashion. I suspect that day is today.”

    Gangster.

    Then, knowing the punches are coming, Corey pre-emptively lists “27,000+ Amazonians impacted by layoffs between 2022 and 2024, continuing into 2025,” and Amazon suffering “from 69 percent to 81 percent regretted attrition” and “anecdata of senior Amazonians lamenting the hamfisted approach of their Return to Office initiative.”

    He calls it a tipping point. I love a good tipping point. But I think this is just the first domino to fall. Because…

    Brain Drain Caused the Problem, But Cost Cutting Made It Worse

    My websites stayed up. My apps continued to work.

    For me, the damage was limited to websites and platforms that I use as an extension of what I do, not my primary business. And every time I got stopped out of doing what I do, reading error messages coming unfiltered directly from AWS, the only thing I could think of was:

    “Where is your failover?”

    In other words, why were these websites and app platforms unprepared for their lifeblood provider – hosting and processing – to go down in flames? 

    But my question was hypothetical. I didn’t need an answer because I happen to know something about almost all the companies who provide the platforms that help me do what I do. And I can again speculate, comfortably, that every single one of them cut their costs to the bone, including cutting their own experienced talent.

    Which made this quote from Corey hit home: “I want to be very clear on one last point. This isn’t about the technology being old. It’s about the people maintaining it being new. If I had to guess what happens next, the market will forgive AWS this time, but the pattern will continue.”

    This is exactly what I said a year ago. The pattern continues. And it will continue to get more painful until we bring experience back to the table and give it the respect it deserves.

    Please join the rebel alliance of over 10K tech professionals on my email list. Some of us are old like Kenobi, others are young like Rey, but we all kind of hated “Rise”

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    Joe Procopio

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  • New Data Says Women and Black Employees Are the Biggest Losers Under RTO and Trump Policies

    Ongoing workplace and political policy trends are disrupting, or even eliminating millions of U.S. jobs. But recent data suggests those changes penalize two historically disadvantaged groups of people more severely: women and Black workers. The mix of private and public policies is again widening the gender wage gap and driving unemployment rates for Black workers at a higher rate than the national average.

    The trend among employers to tighten return to office (RTO) mandates by requiring increased or full-week in-person workplace timepresence is a major factor in this disruption, which hits women especially hard. Other reasons for this distorted effect include the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal employees, and its accompanying drive to eradicate diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) practices by government agencies, contractors they work with, and even private sector businesses.

    Those pressures have coincided with — or perhaps directly caused — a widening of the gender pay gap that had been narrowing since the 1960s, and a sharp increase in unemployment among Black Americans.

    Return to office, return to pay inequality?

    “Are RTO mandates reversing decades of progress on gender pay equity?” asked a recent post by Flex Index, which tracks changes in remote work rules at 9,000 companies. “The timing is striking: the wage gap has widened two years running; women now earn 81 cents on the dollar, down from 84 cents in 2022, the lowest since 2016.”

    That broadening of gender pay disparity came as Fortune 100 companies requiring full week in-office presence rose from 16 percent to 29 percent in the past two years, according to Flex Index. It also cited a recent Baylor University study of 3 million employees that found “women are nearly three times as likely to quit when RTO mandates hit.”

    But leaving a job over lost flexibile work arrangements — usually a response from working mothers who can’t find or afford childcare for the additional hours they’d be spending away from home — isn’t the only way tightening RTO rules appear to be setting women back.

    The Baylor study found that 46 percent of women employees ordered to spend more time in the office had negotiated taking on lower-level positions that allowed them to maintain their flexible working arrangements. Just over 40 percent more opted lateral job transfers with the same goal.

    Those moves often involved women employees accepting pay cuts, with one executive participating telling Baylor researchers she took a $30,000 a year pay cut to avoid going to the office five days a week.

    Those responses to tighter RTO mandates have coincided with the median income of U.S. men rising by 3.7 percent from 2023 to 2024, according to a recent Washington Post report. During the same period, that pay metric remained mostly unchanged for women. The paper also cited data for the first six months of 2025 showing women aged 25 to 44 who have young children dropped by 3 percent as a proportion of the total workforce.

    “These results suggest that the cause for leaving a firm after RTO are not the usual reasons for promotion or mobility,” a summary of the Baylor study said. “Instead, they highlight that employees are willing to sacrifice career advancement for remote work options.”

    Anti-DEI efforts hit Black workers twice as hard

    Many employees taking pay cuts or quitting in the face of new RTO restrictions are Black women, who also facing increasing employment challenges arising from shifting political policies.

    The current trend of most companies to limit hiring only to replacing departing workers has hit Black employees harder than most, and may well make bouncing back even harder. In a recent New York Times article, the unemployment rate among Black Americans has risen from 6 percent to 7.5 percent in the last four months, while the rate among white workers dipped slightly to 3.7 percent.

    The jobless increase among Black workers has come as the Trump administration slashed over 250,000 positions from the federal workforce, whose composition has more closely reflected the racial makeup of U.S. society than private companies — especially in entry-level positions. The Pew Research Center said 48.3 million people self-identified as Black in 2023. That’s about 14.4% of the U.S. population. Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2022 said Black employees made up about 12 percent of the national workforce, and noted that 18 percent of Black and Hispanic men worked in lower-paying service occupations, compared with 12 percent of White men.

    Meantime, companies working as federal contractors quickly and meticulously applied new White House bans on DEI policies in order to avoid losing government business. For decades, those same employers carefully complied with federally imposed equal opportunity requirements, including in their recruitment and hiring Black applicants and other minority job candidates.

    But with those policies now banned and drawing retribution from the White House when they are applied, those same companies may no longer be as available an option for the rising number of unemployed Black people looking for work. Meaning that as the wider labor market grinds to a near stop, Black job applicants may be facing an even tougher road back to employment than other candidates for the foreseeable future.

    “I think the speed at which things have changed, in such a dramatic fashion, is out of the ordinary,” Valerie Wilson, director of the race, ethnicity and the economy program at the Economic Policy Institute, told the Times. “There’s been such a rapid shift in policy, rather than something cyclical or structural about the economy.”

    Bruce Crumley

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  • How Tighter RTO Rules May Cost Employers High Performer Pet Owners

    Company announcements of reinforced return to office (RTO) rules often spark vociferous protests from employees who have come to cherish more flexible working arrangements. But a recent report suggests employers ordering staff to spend more time back in the cubicle also provoke dissenting barks, meows, and threats to quit from many staffers who work at home in the company of their beloved pets.

    The risk of loud, even dogged RTO pushback from animal loving workers became clear in a recent report by Employee Borderless, a research platform that reviews remote work service providers. It noted that 71 percent of all U.S. households — or 94 million in all — now own a pet, up from 65 percent in 2015. More significantly for workplace harmony and stability, 67 percent of employees who live with a dog, cat, parrot, Guinea pig — or the potbellied variety — and other domestic critters said they’d find a new job if their employer decided to reduce or terminate their remote working arrangements.

    Similarly, 41 percent of pet owners questioned said they’d take a cut in pay in order to continue working alongside their animal companions, and 78 percent said they’d reconsider their office job if dogs were banned from company premises. About 60 percent of respondents said they’d take themselves for a walk away from work that created conflicts in caring for their pet.

    There are reasons to fear the bite of those warnings would be worse than their bark for employers. For starters, the report cited research showing pet owning worker surpass colleagues who don’t have animal roommates in many performance metrics.

    Take for example the 91 percent engagement rates of pet owners compared to 65 percent for critter-less colleagues. The same gap exists for productivity rates of 88 percent versus 65 percent, and intent to remain with employers — so long as remote working options allow them to stay with Fido and Sheeba — of 88 percent versus 73 percent.

    Similar differences in favor of the animal cohabitation crowd were found in work-life balance, commitment to the company’s mission, and workplace stress reduction.

    Pet owning workers offer other advantages to employers. Those include better structuring of their workday, heightened focus on work, and more clearly defined times and duration of breaks they take.

    “What happened between 2020 and 2025 wasn’t just people getting pets,” the Employee Borderless report said. “It was millions of workers discovering they could structure their days around both work and pet care, leading to unprecedented productivity gains. They learned to take walking meetings, use pet breaks for mental resets, and leverage the calming presence of animals during stressful projects.”

    That latter effect also reduces employer costs for pet-owning workers’ mental health care.

    More than 90 percent of surveyed employees with fur babies said they have lower levels of stress when their animals are around. That benefit is higher within remote working situations.

    Even though companies like Amazon and Google have very accommodating pet policies, polls found 89 percent of owners said their mental health was better while working at home with their animals, compared to 53 percent saying they got the same effect in traditional offices that allow critter companions.

    The upshot, the Employees Borderless report says, is that in addition to the shouts, yelps screeches, and occasional whinnies that tighter RTO mandates will draw from employees with pets, business owners may risk losing valuable workers by restricting their remote work permissions.

    “Companies issuing return-to-office mandates will face resistance from pet owners, with the majority saying they would rather change jobs than give up remote work,” it said. “This is leaving them at risk of losing their happiest and most productive workers.”

    Bruce Crumley

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  • Remote Employees Remain Highly Productive, a New Survey Says

    Here’s one in the eye for managers who insist on strict return-to-office mandates, despite sometimes ferocious staff pushback. A new study found very high levels of productivity at by companies with remote-friendly working policies. This shines an interesting spotlight on highly publicized RTO rules from companies like Amazon, whose CEO Andy Jassy insisted the policy was all about boosting workplace culture and teamwork. It may also give you pause if you’re thinking of shifting your company to more of an in-person in-office model, because other studies suggest that work-life balance “perks” like flexible working or hybrid work modes are a great way to attract talented staff.

    The data from Institute for Corporate Productivity and cybersecurity company Akamai Technologies shows that an astonishing 83 percent of companies with remote-friendly work policies report high staff productivity. Breaking that figure down, fully 21 percent of the companies in the survey said that productivity remains “very high,” and 62 percent said “high.” 

    Interestingly, many of these companies demonstrate their faith in their employees’ honesty and dedication while working remotely by not surveilling their online activities. In fact 62 percent of remote-friendly companies don’t deploy tools like VPN usage logs or key-press tracking software, industry news site HRDive noted. The report suggests that this statistic means there’s a “strong culture of mutual trust” between workers and staff about the productivity and honesty of working remotely.

    The study also found that remote work is now the new norm: 52 percent of companies surveyed said remote-first models were their default, and only 7 percent said they had plans to revert to more traditional in-office working models. To keep team work ticking over, the companies in the report also indicated they have annual or semiannual in-person meetings for reasons like strategy sessions (86 percent did this), team-building exercises (76 percent) and social gatherings designed to foster a sense of camaraderie. 

    As to why remote-first work models were chosen by these companies, the study found that finding talented workers is the key driver. Fully 72 percent said that offering remote-first policies gave them access to a wider talent pool. Meanwhile 31 percent said they wanted to retain staff for the long term. And, interestingly, 62 percent said it was a deliberate effort to boost work-life balance for workers. This resonates with the workplace desires of Gen-Z staff, the age cohort now entering the workforce in ever-increasing numbers, and bringing with them a focus on lifestyle over work. Perhaps savvy to these changing attitudes, the new study also found that over 50 percent of remote-first workplaces offer reimbursement for home office costs, and 79 percent offer mental health benefits (because it’s hard to deny that remote work can be a lonely occupation).

    In the report Akamai explained the benefits of its own remote working policy, which include higher employee performance ratings, and a 7.3 percent worker attrition rate — which HRDive notes is far below the global tech industry average of 13.2 percent.

    The report backs up numerous other studies into remote work, including a September study by polling and analytics outfit Gallup which showed that hybrid working models are indeed the new normal, and a July report saying that even though some companies and leadership are pushing for RTO rules, and greater in-office work, many workers are simply ignoring the pressure and keeping their hybrid schedules. This latter situation may be enabled by overtired, stressed out middle managers, with the duty of enforcing RTO rules being the least of their worries, another report suggests. 

    What lessons are there in this data for your company?

    Simply, if you’re seeking higher productivity from your workers via forcing them back to the office, you may not get the results you’re looking for. If Akamai and the Institute for Corporate Productivity’s data are to be believed, high productivity is very possible for remote-first workers. This suggests that if you’re pushing for an RTO because your remote workers aren’t delivering, then a different aspect of your corporate culture may be to blame for efficiency failings.

    Kit Eaton

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  • Quarter of bosses admit return-to-office mandates were meant to make staff quit | Fortune

    Bosses have spent the better part of two years summoning their employees back to the office, making remote-loving workers “quiet quit” in protest, while others have threatened to quit for real. But that’s secretly what a significant chunk of CEOs were hoping for.

    According to research from BambooHR, a survey of more than 1,500 U.S. managers found a quarter of C-suite executives hoped for some voluntary turnover among workers after implementing an RTO policy. 

    Meanwhile, one in five HR professionals admitted their in-office policy was meant to make staff quit.

    It’s why the report concludes what many workers have long suspected: that “RTO mandates are layoffs in disguise”.

    Return-to-office mandates haven’t gone as hoped

    It’s no secret that rigid in-office policies haven’t landed well with workers. Amazon is perhaps the most documented example of how ugly the RTO battle can get.

    Around 30,000 employees signed a petition protesting the company’s in-office mandate, and more than 1,800 pledged to walk out from their jobs to take a stand. When the tech giant eventually demanded workers show face in the office five days a week, numerous staffers told Fortune they were immediately updating their LinkedIn profiles and “rage applying” for new jobs. “Honestly, I’ve lost so much trust in Amazon leadership at this point,” one person said.

    Research has shown 99% of companies with RTO mandates have seen a drop in engagement.

    Meanwhile, separate data shows that nearly half of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated, and 29% of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. 

    Even BambooHR’s research has highlighted that nearly a third of workers would consider leaving their positions if forced to return to their company’s vertical towers.

    But in reality, many workers aren’t following through with such threats—and fewer are quitting than bosses had hoped.

    Nearly 40% of all managers in the survey said they believe their organization did layoffs because not enough workers quit in response to their company’s RTO mandate.

    A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on July 24, 2024.

    More on RTO mandates:

    • ‘Hushed hybrid’: Even as RTO mandates grow, workers still aren’t fully showing up to the office—a sign managers are too burnt out to enforce policies
    • Robinhood CEO admits his RTO call was wrong and now says execs must be in the office 5 days a week: ‘Your manager is going through more pain than you’
    • More than 60% of workers have considered changing jobs due to rigid RTO policies and would take a pay cut for better flexible work options
    Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.

    Orianna Rosa Royle

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  • NBCUniversal Sets 4-Day-A-Week Return To Office Plan

    NBCUniversal is phasing in a mandate for employees to work at least four days a week in the office.

    News of the updated policy due to take effect on January 5, 2026, was conveyed to employees by COO Adam Miller in a memo, a copy of which was obtained by Deadline.

    “As we look ahead toward an exciting 2026 and reflect on the past years, it has become increasingly clear that we are better when we are together,” Miller wrote. “As we have all experienced, in-person work and collaboration spark innovation, promote creativity, and build stronger connections.”

    The move follows a number of similar initiatives across the media and entertainment sector. Paramount last week made the eye-opening decision to implement a five-days-a-week mandate, following in the mold of tech giants like Amazon, which have cited productivity advantages from workers collaborating in person.

    NBCU parent Comcast has already gone to a 4-day in-person work week.

    Industries like finance have also moved toward a full-time in-person stance. The commercial real estate market in New York and other major cities has lagged behind national occupancy rates coming out of Covid. NBCU has a significant number of employees at its longtime base at 30 Rock in Midtown Manhattan. The Los Angeles home of NBCU at Universal City recently got some upgrades, including a new commissary, which could have also factored into the larger thinking.

    Here’s Miller’s full memo:

    Hi all,

    I’m reaching out to share an update to our in-office schedule for hybrid employees. As we look ahead toward an exciting 2026 and reflect on the past years, it has become increasingly clear that we are better when we are together. As we have all experienced, in-person work and collaboration spark innovation, promote creativity, and build stronger connections.

    To that end, effective Monday, January 5, 2026, the company will implement a 4-day in-office workweek for hybrid employees, who will now be required to be onsite from Monday through Thursday, with the continued option to work remotely or in the office on Fridays. We recognize that for some of you, being onsite on Fridays is part of your role, and for others, it’s a choice. Our offices are open daily, and we encourage everyone to take full advantage of working together in person.

    Flexibility will remain an important part of our culture, and the company will continue to accommodate life events with options such as time off, adjusted hours, or additional remote days when appropriate. As always, employees should discuss these needs with their manager as they arise. We understand you may need to make adjustments to adhere to this change. We ask that you use the time between now and January to make any necessary plans. If you will not be prepared to comply with the 4-day in-office requirement by January 5, 2026, please discuss your options with your HR manager. If you are VP level or below, you may be eligible for a voluntary exit assistance package.

    We have a lot to look forward to across the company as we gear up for 2026: an unprecedented “Legendary February” featuring the Milan-Cortina Olympics, Super Bowl LX and the NBA All-Star Game; the 2026 FIFA World Cup on Telemundo; the opening of our first-ever Universal Kids Resort; and NBC News’ coverage of the midterm elections. We’ll also celebrate important film releases, including Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey; Illumination’s Minions 3 and a new original film from Steven Spielberg, as well as new and returning series across Bravo, Peacock and NBC including The Real Housewives of Rhode Island, The Burbs and The Traitors returning to Peacock plus premiering for the first time on NBC. And of course, we will celebrate the 100-year anniversary of NBC.

    It is shaping up to be quite a year, and I am looking forward to working with you all to bring it to life.

    Adam Miller

    Chief Operating Officer, NBCUniversal

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  • Is RTO Hurting Your Employee Morale? Manager Burnout Could Be to Blame

    Return to office (RTO) mandates aren’t popular, as report after report shows. Whether they are announced in a my way or the highway style, like Amazon’s Andy Jassy or JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, or with less bluster. Some research shows RTOs are not effective tools for boosting productivity, and that plenty of workers are finding ways to skirt the policy.

    Now a new report suggests that the gap between RTO mandates and employee compliance remains because many managers may be so burnt out that they’re completely uninterested in forcing their staff to follow controversial and deeply unpopular company rules. It could be that over-stressed managers are driving this so-called “hushed hybrid” office culture, Fortune suggests.

    Support for this conclusion comes from a survey by Flex Index, which describes itself as a platform for analyzing flexible workplace habits. Among 14,000 companies it looked at, increasing numbers of RTO mandates drove required in-office time up by 12 percent since early 2024, meaning staff have gone from an average expected office attendance rate of 2.57 days a week to 2.87. That may sound modest, but remember this includes companies that remain fully remote. Regardless of what the RTO rules say, actual attendance has not risen at the same rate. Over the same period while in-office time expectations rose 12 percent, actual attendance only rose by 1 percentage point, to 3 percent.

    Brian Elliott, CEO of Work Forward, which publishes the Flex Index, told Fortune that some workers can get away with ignoring leadership demands that they spend more time in the office in person with practical arguments supporting more flexible arrangements. For example, managing online meetings with multiple staff members across multiple time zones remains challenging in any setting — so staying at home on a day like that wouldn’t make a difference to productivity.

    And, given high levels of management burnout and disengagement, employees may be more likely to get away with this sort of trick more often than you may expect. “If I’m the manager and I’ve got a solid performer and they’re coming in two or three days a week, but not five, I’m not going to fire them,” Elliott said. That’s because as long as someone is “delivering the goods and getting their work done,” managers who are under severe pressure themselves may simply decide that compliance with certain policies is lower on the list of priorities.

    Anecdotally, Elliott’s thinking makes sense: reports show that executive burnout remains a serious issue in U.S. workplaces, with a survey in March reporting some 72 percent of workplace leaders report feeling burned out. Given the trend toward flatter business structures with fewer middle managers, led by big tech firms like Meta and Microsoft, it’s entirely plausible that stressed-out middle managers, overburdened with work and worried about the threat technology like AI represents to their own jobs, would simply ignore the exact amount of time that key workers spend in the office, even if it violates RTO rules that have been sent down from upper management.

    Why should you care about this?

    It’s another signal that RTO rules sometimes just don’t make good business sense. If you expect your managers to enforce an unpopular new rule, you might be adding to their already high stress levels while also genereating resentment from the employees that report to them. That’s a recipe for increasing the chance your strict RTO policy might simply be ignored by the people who are supposed to enforce it.

    If your company is requiring people to spend more time in the office, then perhaps the way to make your policy work is with encouragement and perks: Flex Index’s data show that if you try stamping your foot, you might just end up being ignored, and, possibly, hurting your workforce’s perception of your leadership.

    Also, there’s an underlying data point here: managers may be burning out under your leadership, and it’s possible you may not have noticed. It might be time for a pep talk, and honest chats about work burdens and stresses. 

    The final deadline for the 2025 Inc. Best in Business Awards is Friday, September 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Kit Eaton

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  • 1 in 5 workers are ignoring their companies’ RTO mandates

    1 in 5 workers are ignoring their companies’ RTO mandates

    Regardless of how many days per week workers—or their bosses—want to be in the office, nobody likes being told what to do. Case in point: nearly 1 in 5 workers are outright ignoring their employer’s mandates.

    That’s according to a new report from Resume Builder, which surveyed over 1,000 full-time U.S. workers at companies where a return-to-office (RTO) mandate has been implemented some time since 2020. 

    Just under 80% of workers said they follow the rules, while 18% occasionally ignore it, 2% “rarely” follow the policy, and 1% don’t adhere to mandates—at all.

    How do workers get away with snubbing their boss?

    To get away with RTO snubbing, workers told Resume Builder they’re getting crafty. 

    Many enlist a coworker for help—mainly asking them to swipe them in. 

    Others will sneak in for a moment on weekends and administer a swipe, just to make it look like their weekly tally is up to par. 

    But the most common tactic is the simplest: They flout the policy by simply leaving the office early.

    Broken down by schedule type, workers who are required to come in a handful of days per week—on a hybrid schedule, as Resume Builder puts it—have the highest rates of noncompliance with the mandate. 

    Just 3 in 5 hybrid workers follow their company’s RTO policy.

    Still, forcing defiant workers to show face five days a week in the hopes of increased compliance could backfire: Resume Builder’s respondents only want to be in-person for three days a week at most. 

    If their companies start taking a hard line on in-person attendance, more than half of workers said they’d sooner quit than comply. 

    Want your workers to comply with an RTO? Pay for their commute and some

    The reasons behind the noncompliance are exactly as one might expect; it’s simply inconvenient, and workers deem those in-office hours to be a poor use of their time. It’s also expensive; some estimates say between commuting or gas, lunch, parking, and pet care, each day of in-person work can cost $51. 

    Perhaps that explains why Resume Builder respondents had a straightforward answer as to what would actually push them to comply with the mandates: More money.

    In fact, 2 in 3 workers said a raise would move them to cooperate. They also wouldn’t mind their company’s help in paying for costs associated with a commute, like transportation benefits and a lunch stipend—or even better, catered lunch at the office. 

    In second place: More flexibility, including having their pick of start and end times to their workdays that best align with their needs. 

    Being a worker in 2024 means enjoying a level of flexibility that, prior to the pandemic, was unthinkable, Stacie Haller, Resume Builder’s chief career advisor, noted in the report. 

    While bosses once viewed remote work as a temporary stopgap as COVID receded, the toothpaste is out of the tube: Millions of workers, thrilled to avoid long commutes, sad desk lunches and early-morning routines, are demanding a better balance. 

    Remote work has become a “non-negotiable” for many professionals, Haller said. “Employers should know job seekers today still have options if they are looking to work remotely.”

    Companies need to balance their in-office desires with their workforce’s preferences, Haller concluded, “or they risk losing valuable employees to more flexible competitors.” 

    Just ask the Amazon employees who boss Andy Jassy is forcing back full-time in January, and are “rage-applying” to other, more flexible jobs as a result.

    Jane Thier

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  • Walmart Employees Push Back Against Return-to-Office Mandate | Entrepreneur

    Walmart Employees Push Back Against Return-to-Office Mandate | Entrepreneur

    Walmart announced in May that it would require hundreds of remote workers to work in person at its Bentonville, Arkansas corporate headquarters, and other hubs in Hoboken, NJ and Northern California. A new Bloomberg report shows that employees pushed back on the return-to-office (RTO) mandate in a companywide Zoom call, and some chose to quit.

    On the call, one participant said the RTO policy was “a bunch of bullsh-t” and others expressed concerns about life in Arkansas, childcare, increased work, and their partner’s jobs being affected by the move.

    Related: Survey Says C-Suite Executives Secretly Hoped Employees Would Quit After Implementing Return-to-Office Mandates

    One Walmart employee told Bloomberg that he decided to leave the company instead of relocating on short notice.

    Walmart’s Chief People Officer, Donna Morris, told the publication that the majority of employees are choosing to return to the office. Employees had to tell Walmart by July 1 if they were planning to relocate and make the move by October 31.

    Employees who can’t make the move will have to leave the company between August 2024 and January 2025, per Bloomberg.

    Walmart CEO Doug McMillon. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    Walmart isn’t the only company to implement a strict RTO policy. Salesforce announced last month that employees across departments have to come into the office, weeks after laying off 300 employees. Bank of America threatened “disciplinary action” for employees who have not had an in-person presence in the office.

    Related: Walmart to Lay Off Hundreds of Employees, Relocate Remote Workers Back to the Office

    Dell asked employees back to the office and said that those who didn’t would not be promoted. In May, Dell began tracking employee badge swipes and said it would consider the metric when determining how employees were reviewed, rewarded, and compensated.

    A July survey from Bamboo HR showed that C-suite executives secretly hoped that RTO mandates would prompt employees to quit and bring voluntary turnover. Bamboo HR called RTOs “layoffs in disguise.”

    Related: Dell Is Labeling Hybrid Employees With ‘Red Flags’ Based on How Often They’re in the Office

    Sherin Shibu

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  • Tech CEOs are backtracking on their RTO mandates—now, just 3% of firms asking workers to go into the office full-time

    Tech CEOs are backtracking on their RTO mandates—now, just 3% of firms asking workers to go into the office full-time

    Many tech firms have spent the last two years summoning workers back into the office—all the while threatening them with layoffs. Even Zoom reverted to in-person working last year.

    But now, it looks like tech bosses have given up their war on working from home. 

    Just 3% of tech firms are now asking their workers to go into the office full-time—a significant drop from 8% last year.

    Flex Index analyzed the flexible work policies for 2,670 tech companies that collectively employ over 11 million people—and it found that tech firms have conceded that flexible working is here to stay.

    In fact, 79% of the tech firms surveyed are fully flexible, up from 75% in 2023. 

    Meanwhile, more and more firms are giving employees the choice of when and where they work.

    While 38% of tech firms had an “employee’s choice” model in 2023, today that percentage has jumped to 56%. It’s now the most popular policy among tech firms.

    In comparison, just 18% of firms are dictating which days their workers need to work from the office with a “structure hybrid model”.

    Tech CEOs can’t make their minds up on RTO

    Tech companies are perhaps the most well-positioned to work from home—and, in some cases, have even created the tools to do so.

    It’s why in 2020, the likes of Meta, Twitter (now X), Shopify, and more declared that they were going to leverage the new decentralized way of working for good. 

    “We are going to be the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our scale, with a thoughtful and responsible plan for how to do this,” Mark Zuckerberg boasted, while claiming that half of Meta’s employees would be working remotely within the next five to 10 years. 

    That was until last year, when Zuckerberg declared that 2023 was going to be the “Year of Efficiency” and demanded workers return to work in the name of productivity, while simultaneously scaring staff into complying with mass layoffs.

    Meanwhile, just two years after declaring that 60% of its workforce would operate remotely, Dell has now told workers that they must go into the office three days a week if they want any hope of a promotion.

    Google, Salesforce and Amazon are also among major tech companies that are cracking down on return-to-office policies—and meeting resistance from workers.

    CEOs have given up on RTO

    It’s not just in the tech world that defeated CEOs have given up on forcing their workers to return to their vertical towers. Separate research echoes that CEOs across the board have softened their stance on working from home. 

    KPMG surveyed U.S. CEOs of companies turning over at least $500 million and found that just one-third expect a full return to the office in the next three years.

    It’s a complete 360 from their stance last year, when 62% of CEOs surveyed predicted that working from home would end by 2026.

    Why the change of heart? It’s no secret that rigid in-office policies haven’t landed well with workers.

    Leaders are perhaps experiencing more resistance than they had anticipated.

    Amazon is perhaps the most documented example of how ugly the RTO battle can get: Around 30,000 employees signed a petition protesting the company’s in-office mandate, and more than 1,800 pledged to walk out from their jobs to take a stand. 

    The tech giant is still complaining that workers are dodging the three-day in-office mandate, over a year after it was announced.

    Dropbox cofounder and CEO Drew Houston perfectly summed up the situation with bosses struggling over RTO: “They keep hitting the go-back-to-2019 button, and it’s clear it’s not working.”

    Orianna Rosa Royle

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  • Businesses are using ‘sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists’ to get staff back to the office

    Businesses are using ‘sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists’ to get staff back to the office

    Bosses have tried everything to convince staff they’ll be happier working in the office than at home, from free lunches to subsidized commutes. When that hasn’t worked, they’ve tried putting their foot down.

    Now, exasperated employers want to know what makes their workers tick.

    Neil Murray, CEO of Work Dynamics at real estate services group Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), indicated businesses were examining every angle of a worker’s brain to find the right formula to get them back to the office. 

    Most bosses want workers back under their noses, at least in a hybrid model, but are struggling with resistance from employees who have grown used to flexibility. 

    Murray’s unit consults significant corporations on their real estate footprint, covering everything from a space’s sustainability to workers’ interactions with that space. The latter is becoming increasingly crucial to businesses before they shell out a fortune on Grade A office space.

    Changing space

    He describes a new approach to designing these spaces as “a moment in time of reinvention of space” that emphasizes human behavior.

    “Sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists. You get an input, and everybody has slightly different opinions,” Murray told Fortune.

    Murray says this way of thinking has shifted drastically since the COVID-19 pandemic, and businesses now need to consider how their office spaces can benefit employees. 

    “You completely shift that paradigm and think, ‘Why do I need space in the first place if I can conduct my business virtually? What’s its purpose?’ And then you need those inputs from various people to try and think about the psychology of what’s going to make people comfortable.”

    The Future of Real Estate, a new report from JLL published Thursday, looks at the requirements of corporate office space following the AI revolution. Companies will likely focus more on the social impact of spaces, prioritizing “wellness, hospitality, and entertainment,” the authors say. 

    But that doesn’t mean an array of attractive workspace additions, like gyms and cinemas, is the answer to increasing office attendance.

    JLL’s Murray says his group has tested every possible amenity that might entice workers back to the office, including free lunches or coffee machines. However, there isn’t a silver bullet.

    “The most attractive amenity to bring people back is other people,” he says.

    Creating an office that brings them together, Murray says, is becoming a generational battle.

    The psychological differences between Gen Z workers and their older colleagues are emerging as one of the factors behind a reevaluation of office space. Murray says attending university in a remote setting before graduating into hybrid work has altered young workers’ needs compared with their predecessors. 

    “There’s bound to be some collective psychological differences in that generation in terms of expectations,” Murray said.

    Office space

    Beyond generational- and incentive-based considerations, Murray says businesses who are taking the stick approach to bringing staff into the office aren’t seeing much success.

    “The ones that try to be prescriptive and try to mandate three days, we’re seeing pretty much exactly the same attendance for the ones that aren’t pushing a mandate, and it’s settling at that just under three days a week.”

    Murray says that businesses are typically settling on a three-day hybrid model, adding that younger and later career workers spend more time in the office than mid-career workers. 

    Speaking to Fortune in February, Murray’s colleague, EMEA CEO Sue Aspey Price, said companies asking staff to come back to the office four days a week were doing so with the expectation they would only return for three days.

    Aspey Price says this because changes to office space requirements led to a downsizing through the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “If everybody followed the policies that are being put out there, a lot of companies don’t have anywhere near enough space,” she said.

    “If every working team came in on those days, the chances of them having enough space are almost non-existent.”

    Murray thinks offices will see a return of designated workspaces for employees, countering the widespread uptake of hot-desking, even if it means workers alternating days at their desks.

    “You think about the notion of everybody moving toward total unassigned, well where’s the ‘me’ space in there, and where’s your own personality?”

    Ryan Hogg

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  • Tata Consultancy Services cuts bonuses for employees who aren’t in the office 5 days a week

    Tata Consultancy Services cuts bonuses for employees who aren’t in the office 5 days a week

    Tata Consultancy Services, the main arm of Indian industrial giant Tata, is reportedly clamping down on office-shy workers by cutting their bonuses and hovering the threat of being passed up for promotions.

    The $168 billion Indian consultancy is using a carrot-and-stick approach to lure its consultants back into the office full-time after scrapping hybrid working for most employees last October.

    The consultancy plans to narrow its bonus payouts to exclude those shunning office work five days a week, and will also begin factoring in attendance to annual performance reviews, which are vital for promotion opportunities, Indian publications Mint and The Times of India reported.

    “The last quarter has seen most of you return to the workplace, creating shared experiences, nurturing greater learning, collaboration, and camaraderie,” TCS’s CEO K Krithivasan reportedly wrote to employees in March.

    Employees working less than three days in the office will not be paid any bonus, the publications reported. 

    From there, bonuses will be tiered, with staff working between 60% and 75% of their time in the office receiving half of their potential bonus, and those working between 75% and 85% of their time in the office receiving three-quarters of their “variable pay.”

    Only staffers working more than 85% of their time in the office can expect to receive full pay. 

    In effect, that means only those coming into the office five days a week are entitled to receive 100% of their prescribed bonus.

    A representative for TCS didn’t respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

    TCS clamps down on remote workers

    TCS is a major arm of the Tata group, hiring more than 600,000 people from 152 nationalities. The company hires 20,000 people in the U.K. across 30 locations, according to a 2022 press release. The company is the main sponsor of the London Marathon. 

    It has been hailed as a progressive employer and has the accolades to prove it.

    TCS was one of 16 companies recognized as a “Global Top Employer” for 2024 by the Top Employers Institute, a certification handed out based on employee surveys. The consultancy also made Fortune’s Most Admired Companies list for 2024.

    But TCS now risks flaring tensions among staffers as it goes beyond rules and rhetoric to actively punish workers who don’t make it into the office. 

    In October last year, TCS scrapped its hybrid work policy, ordering most employees back to the office five days a week. 

    The group’s CEO Krithivasan pointed out that in February nearly 40% of his workers joined the company during the COVID, and the company had no hope of assimilating them if they stayed at home.

    TCS’s chief operating officer NG Subramaniam said: “Around 40,000 employees joined us online and quit online without any offline interaction during the pandemic and that kind of situation cannot be helpful for any organization.

    “We are very clear that we have to get our original culture back.”

    The recent memo distributed to workers shows just how serious TCS’s C-suite is taking its own rhetoric.

    In addition to capping bonuses based on appearance, office attendance will also reportedly be factored into performance-related reviews.

    “Employees’ compliance to work from home will be reviewed every quarter. In the event an employee is found to be in violation of the laid down policies, there will be implications on the annual performance review, compensation, and career progression of the employee,” the policy reportedly reads.

    Tying company bonuses to attendance is a novel approach to getting staffers back to the office, but follows a familiar tactic from tech companies that involves using financial incentives to convince workers to come in.

    In 2021, several tech giants including Meta and Google said they would cut the pay of staff who had moved to remote areas with a cheaper cost of living than in their hubs in Silicon Valley.

    These companies have now introduced stricter hybrid policies that ask workers to come in at least four days a week. 

    Ryan Hogg

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  • L’Oréal just went there: Mandated Fridays in the office

    L’Oréal just went there: Mandated Fridays in the office

    Workers at French cosmetics giant L’Oréal have been back in the office three days per week for over a year now. But, company brass has decided, that’s no longer enough. As of last week, Fridays are now mandatory office days, twice a month. The company’s 87,000 employees were told of the new rule last month, and it took effect on Thursday, The Sunday Times reported. Leaders hope the new rule “boosts employee collaboration,” per the Times. 

    Things weren’t always like this. Back in November 2022, L’Oréal’s USA CEO David Greenberg, like many of his peers, announced that workers had to return to the office three days per week. And Greenberg sweetened the deal: workers at the cosmetic giant’s West Coast headquarters in El Segundo, Calif., would be welcomed back with a personal butler. 

    In-person workers at L’Oréal, whose subsidiaries include Kiehl’s, Maybelline, and La Roche-Posay, would—for $5 an hour—be able to hire a concierge for personal chores, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time. This included taking their cars to the gas station, picking up their laundry, or bringing their pets to and from doggy daycare. 

    L’Oréal has offered the concierge perk in some capacity since 2009, but after everyone went remote during the pandemic, it took on renewed significance as a bargaining chip in luring workers back to their desks. Ultimately, the company was better positioned than most: Its offices have gyms, restaurants, tons of free products, and even coffee bars that occasionally double as bars, Fortune reported in 2022.

    The nearly-free concierge perk is nonetheless the crown jewel. L’Oréal subsidized the cost of those concierges, which CEO Greenberg felt was worth it. “We’re in an industry that’s very much people-driven,” Greenberg told the L.A. Times. “[There is] necessary engagement, creativity, sharing, and learning from each other.”

    Among the large companies that similarly enacted return-to-office mandates, like Meta, Salesforce, and Google, only L’Oréal made a genuine effort to sweeten the deal. The others actually worked backwards, taking away the pandemic-era perks workers enjoyed. (Meta in 2022 ended its free laundry and dry cleaning benefit and it also curtailed the cutoff time for its free-meal rule, 6:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.)

    Passion, attachment and creativity 

    At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, its global CEO, Nicolas Hieronimus, said that even at three in-office days per week, workers were lacking “passion, attachment and creativity.”

    It’s an unusual move, if you ask other business leaders. Over the summer, Steven Roth, the billionaire chairman of Vornado, one of New York City’s biggest commercial landlords, officially deemed Fridays as “dead forever,” and even Mondays are on the chopping block. 

    “I thought this would be more stable, but I guess…Friday [is] increasingly winning out in the WFH stakes,” Stanford economist and WFH expert Nick Bloom told Fortune by email in August. “I think it’s part of the bigger push towards coordinated hybrid, whereby we have firms pushing for folks to come in on the same days.”

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fridays are consistently the emptiest days in the office. The average worker jumps at the chance to start their weekend a bit early, and even pre-pandemic, the allure of “Summer Fridays” spoke to the general population’s desire for a bit more of a soft entry into Saturday. Add the growing push for four-day workweeks—which generally shave off Fridays first—it’s no wonder that L’Oréal is one of the very few firms to mandate Fridays in particular. 

    Not as far as L’Oréal is concerned. One of the reasons L’Oréal “hit the ground running” on returning to the office after the pandemic, Hieronimus went on at Davos, “is that we did not do like many tech companies and say everybody works from home all the time, and now they say: ‘Oh my God, that was a mistake, please come back.’” 

    “I think it’s vital to be in the office. It’s about serendipity. It’s about meeting people,” Hieronimus said, adding that remote work is “very bad” for workers’ mental health to boot. In-person work, on the other hand, is “vital for the company, and it’s vital for the employees. It’s also fair to the blue-collar workers that work every day in the factory.” 

    Subscribe to the new Fortune CEO Weekly Europe newsletter to get corner office insights on the biggest business stories in Europe. Sign up for free.



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  • Bank of America Threatens Employees Who Don’t Return to Office | Entrepreneur

    Bank of America Threatens Employees Who Don’t Return to Office | Entrepreneur

    Bank of America has instituted a strict return to office policy for employees that threatens “disciplinary action” to those who don’t comply, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.

    The company reportedly sent “letters of education” to workers who have not been coming into the office to warn them that they could face trouble in a matter of weeks should their behavior not change.

    “Failure to follow the workplace excellence expectations applicable to your role within two weeks of the date of this notification may result in further disciplinary action,” one of the letters said, according to the Financial Times.

    Related: Bye Bye Summer Fridays: Goldman Sachs Employees Mandated to Return to Office 5 Days a Week Amid Turmoil

    According to Insider, the bank began sending letters at the end of last year, and most employees who receive one will have received some initial warning before the formal document.

    Bank of America requires most employees to come into the office at least three days a week, a policy it implemented in October 2022. Employees in client-facing roles are encouraged to return to the office five days a week.

    “You are receiving a letter of education for failure to follow the minimum expectation regarding your work location set by the Workplace Excellence Guidelines despite requests and reminders to do so,” a letter allegedly posted by a Bank of America employee said. “You are expected to adhere to all expectations of your role. Failure to meet expectations of your role in the future may result in further action.”

    Bank of America currently employs an estimated 160,000 people.

    The bank isn’t the first to crack down on in-office policies among employees.

    This summer, Goldman Sachs reportedly told employees they needed to be in the office five days a week. However, the bank claimed it was “simply reminding our employees of our existing policy” when asked about the protocol.

    Bank of America was down just over 5.3% in a one-year period as of Friday afternoon.

    Related: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Cracks Down on Return to Office Policy

    Emily Rella

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  • CEOs will finally admit next year that return-to-office mandates didn’t move the productivity needle, future of work experts predict

    CEOs will finally admit next year that return-to-office mandates didn’t move the productivity needle, future of work experts predict

    Happy holidays, remote workers. In software firm Scoop’s 2024 Flex Report, which includes flexible work predictions from an array of industry experts, one idea bubbled to prominence: CEOs might finally give up the effort on making mandated in-office days happen.

    “By the end of 2024, executives will be forced to admit their RTO mandates did not improve productivity,” read the top-line prediction from Annie Dean, longtime flexible work evangelist and head of Team Anywhere at software firm Atlassian. 

    For years now, experts like Dean have said flexibility is key, and employees have made that priority clear on their own terms, too—often with their feet. So why do so many bosses nonetheless hold out?

    “There are two camps on RTO mandates: Small companies and large companies,” Robert Sadow, Scoop’s CEO and co-founder, tells Fortune. Small companies, those with under 500 employees, “overwhelmingly” let workers choose whether or not to go in. It’s the bigger companies, especially those with over 25,000 employees, that tend to set mandates. 

    Dean went on to cite a recent Atlassian survey of Fortune 500 executives, which concluded that low productivity is expected to be a prime challenge for most of them in the coming year—as it’s been in years past. That’s despite the fact that nearly all (91%) of the leaders surveyed currently mandate some amount of in-office presence per week. 

    “It seems like many already know that these mandates aren’t the answer,” Dean commented. “Only one in three executives with an in-office mandate are convinced that their in-office policies have had a positive effect on productivity.” Rather than where work happens being of significance next year, how work gets done will become the “key cultural touchpoint.”

    Dean’s held this line for over a decade, even before the pandemic forced everyone to be a remote work proponent, if only temporarily. Another leader featured in the report, Cara Allamano, who heads up people operations at management software firm Lattice—which, like Atlassian, is remote-first—agreed with her. 

    Return to office mandates will not provide a “quick fix” to productivity and engagement issues, Allamano wrote, despite how badly bosses want that to be true. Amid continued uncertainty in the larger economy and workforce, she added, company leaders will remain focused on productivity and performance next year. To that end, many bosses will, as they did in 2023, continue to default to dragging employees back into the office to “solve” what they see as engagement problems. 

    It will be a wasted effort. “RTO will not solve challenges in engagement,” Allamano wrote plainly. Instead, companies should extend that effort diving deep into their business needs, evaluating their overall approach to gauging performance and engagement, and then come to an agreement on the strategies that will align those two. Their RTO policy, she advised, “should follow from there.”

    Innovative organizations are defined by how their people work—and what, if anything, keeps them from succeeding. Dean posited that efficient processes, leaders who are willing to disrupt the norms with new tools and AI, and well-run meetings will define companies instead. Leaders who actively seek out more effective tech will undoubtedly attract and retain the best talent. Any other way will be a non-starter.

    Who needs an office anyway?

    As in Dean’s prediction, Allamano said the real draw for workers will be companies who clearly prioritize flexibility wherever it’s possible. “Organizations with best-in-class management practices, led by HR teams who have centered their programs around what’s best for the business and managed towards that, will be able to navigate flexible work changes just fine,” she said. 

    She also noted that a recent Lattice report found that nearly half (48%) of employees said they’d consider quitting an otherwise great job if it doesn’t offer a satisfying flexible work policy. That dovetails with recent FlexJobs data finding that most companies would even take a pay cut to work a remote job.

    For his part, Sadow doesn’t expect mandates to totally disappear among those big, insistently pro-office companies in 2024. Rather, he anticipates that they’ll give workers more flexibility on how to implement mandates. That may mean shifting away from requiring specific days or weeks to be in-person in favor of outlining a minimum amount of in-person time which each team can decide how to use for themselves. (Which experts say is the best approach to hybrid plans anyway.)

    “It’s like bumpers on a bowling lane,” Sadow says. “Big companies may set bumpers, but they’ll let teams decide where they want to deliver the ball.”

    Here’s hoping everyone bowls a spare in 2024. 

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    Jane Thier

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  • Imposing harsh return-to-office mandates on employees was like taking candy from a baby. But CEOs will have to answer to their own bosses–investors

    Imposing harsh return-to-office mandates on employees was like taking candy from a baby. But CEOs will have to answer to their own bosses–investors

    Today’s smart investors are not just looking at financials–they’re diving deep into a company’s culture, including flexible work policies, recognizing them as a significant indicator of future success.

    The Q4 2023 Scoop Flex Index reveals an intriguing trend: Companies that embrace flexible work arrangements are not just surviving–they’re flourishing. The evidence is staggering: From 2020 to 2022, companies with full flexibility led their peers by a remarkable 16% in revenue growth, adjusted for industry differences. And the trend wasn’t confined to the tech world–non-tech companies with flexible policies still boasted a 13% growth advantage.

    Companies that follow hybrid models, which blend remote and office work, are also showing their prowess, outpacing fully in-office companies by a growth margin of 3%. The difference may seem modest, but it highlights the efficacy of a balanced approach to flexible work in driving business growth.

    Why investors are looking at work-from-home policies when making decisions

    The corporate world’s shift toward flexibility is unmistakable. By the end of 2023, 62% of U.S. companies had adopted some form of work location flexibility, a significant increase from 51% at the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, companies insisting on full-time office work dwindled to 38%. This shift transcends a mere pandemic reaction–it’s a strategic move towards adaptability and resilience.

    I get dozens of calls a week from investors who want to consult with me on evaluating the work-from-home policies of companies in which they want to invest–whether it’s a startup or a well-established company. These investors are not just interested in surface-level details. They are keen on understanding how WFH policies translate into tangible business outcomes that affect the bottom line. Their primary concern is not what feels comfortable for company leadership. Rather, they are focused on identifying policies that are optimized for organizational success. This shift in investor perspective marks a significant departure from traditional investment evaluation criteria, where leadership comfort often played a more central role.

    In a recent op-ed, one investor highlighted that in his decision-making of which companies deserve investment, the efficacy of WFH policies is undeniable. That’s especially the case for sectors where human capital reigns supreme, such as tech. With company assets primarily comprising laptops and data storage, the real value lies in the talent pool–from engineers to sales experts. How these teams collaborate significantly influences overall performance as seamless customer journeys are critical to these businesses.

    Startups are leading this change, with 93% offering flexible work arrangements. This number stands strong even outside the tech sector. The message is clear: the future business landscape will prioritize flexible work, with traditional office work likely dwindling to a minority.

    Startups need to realize that their WFH policies are increasingly becoming a key criterion for investment evaluation. The message is clear: In the modern business landscape, WFH policies are not just employee perks. Instead, they should be viewed as crucial determinants of a company’s growth trajectory and, consequently, its attractiveness to investors.

    What investors look at when assessing flexible work policies

    Importantly, investors look for companies that are not just adopting flexibility for the sake of it but are following best practices grounded in empirical research. These best practices are evident in the companies that have integrated flexibility into their core operational strategy, recognizing it as a driver of growth. As the Scoop Flex Index finds, companies offering flexible working arrangements are growing at a faster pace compared to those sticking to rigid, traditional models. This growth is not just in terms of revenue but also market share and innovation capacity.

    Moreover, the clarity of a company’s WFH policy and the degree of employee buy-in are critical factors that investors should evaluate. Policies that are well-defined, transparent, and have the support of the workforce lead to improved retention rates. In the current job market, where talent acquisition and retention are increasingly challenging, the ability to keep skilled employees is invaluable. Companies with strong, clear WFH policies are more likely to attract a diverse talent pool, offering them the flexibility and work-life balance that modern employees seek.

    Additionally, these policies play a significant role in enhancing employee engagement and morale. When employees feel that their needs and preferences are acknowledged and accommodated, it fosters a sense of belonging and commitment to the organization. This heightened engagement translates into higher productivity, creativity, and overall job satisfaction, which are key drivers of business success.

    In essence, for investors looking to gauge the potential of a company, evaluating its WFH policies offers a window into its future performance. Companies that have successfully integrated flexible work arrangements, backed by clear policies and strong employee support, are setting themselves apart as forward-thinking, resilient, and adaptable. These are the companies poised for sustainable growth in an increasingly dynamic and competitive business landscape, making them attractive prospects for discerning investors.

    Addressing biased thinking to appeal to investors

    Incorporating an understanding of cognitive biases into the decision-making process regarding WFH policies can greatly enhance a CEO’s ability to align with investor expectations. Two particularly relevant cognitive biases in this context are the status quo bias and the empathy gap.

    The status quo bias, which is the preference for the current state of affairs, often leads to resistance to change. In the realm of WFH policies, this bias might cause CEOs to lean towards maintaining traditional office-centric models due to comfort with the known, overlooking the potential benefits of flexible work models. This can result in missed opportunities for growth and innovation that flexible policies might bring. As one angel investor notes, “It is the fear of the unknown and the wish to stay in the comfort zones of the last 20 years that makes managers call people back to the office. Successful managers will embrace remote work as an opportunity for improvement and find smart solutions for the benefit of the company and the employees.” To counteract this, CEOs should challenge their assumptions about traditional work models, engaging in scenario planning and examining data from companies that have successfully implemented flexible work arrangements.

    Similarly, the empathy gap, which is the difficulty in understanding others’ feelings when they are in a different emotional or physical state, can create a disconnect between understanding the actual needs and preferences of employees regarding WFH policies. If a CEO hasn’t experienced the challenges and benefits of remote work personally, they might underestimate the value of flexibility for employees. This gap in understanding can lead to policies that do not fully address employee needs, reducing effectiveness in terms of morale, productivity, and ultimately, business performance. To bridge this gap, it’s crucial for CEOs to engage directly with employees to understand their experiences and perspectives. Conducting surveys, focus groups, or informal discussions can provide valuable insights into what employees actually need and value in WFH arrangements. Being aware of and actively addressing these cognitive biases can lead to more informed, balanced decisions that benefit the entire organization and enhance its appeal to investors.

    As we navigate the ever-evolving business environment, the focus on WFH policies as a key investment criterion is not just a trend but also a strategic necessity. Companies that recognize and adapt to this change are set to lead, and investors who identify and leverage this insight will find themselves at the forefront of a new era of smart investing.

    Gleb Tsipursky, Ph.D. (a.k.a. “the office whisperer”), helps tech and finance industry executives drive collaboration, innovation, and retention in hybrid work. He serves as the CEO of the boutique future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. He is the bestselling author of seven books, including Never Go With Your Gut and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams. His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting for Fortune 500 companies from Aflac to Xerox and over 15 years in academia as a behavioral scientist at UNC–Chapel Hill and Ohio State.

    More must-read commentary published by Fortune:

    • Bosses thought they won the return-to-office wars by imposing rigid policies. Now they’re facing a wave of legal battles
    • Inside long COVID’s war on the body: Researchers are trying to find out whether the virus has the potential to cause cancer
    • Access to modern stoves could be a game-changer for Africa’s economic development–and help cut the equivalent of the carbon dioxide emitted by the world’s planes and ships
    • Melinda French Gates: ‘It’s time to change the face of power in venture capital’

    The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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    Gleb Tsipursky

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  • Broadcom CEO tells VMWare workers to 'get butt back to office' after completing a $69 billion merger of the two companies

    Broadcom CEO tells VMWare workers to 'get butt back to office' after completing a $69 billion merger of the two companies

    Chip manufacturer Broadcom wrote the latest chapter in the long story of return-to-office tensions between bosses and employees. 

    After completing its $69 billion acquisition of cloud computing company VMWare, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan issued a direct order to his new employees about where they must work. “If you live within 50 miles of an office, you get your butt in here,” he told the workers of previously remote-friendly VMWare.  

    The comments came during a meeting Tan hosted on Tuesday after the merger between the two companies officially closed, following approval from Chinese regulators. Like many other executives, Tan cited in-person work’s benefits to collaboration and company culture. “Collaboration is important and a key part of sustaining a culture with your peers, with your colleagues,” he said. 

    There was no word on what employees thought of the mandate specifically, but there had been reports of broader concerns regarding the merger with Broadcom, according to Business Insider. Broadcom has a history of chafing at remote work even during the pandemic, going as far as ordering some employees back to the office as early as April 2020, in defiance of California’s statewide stay-at-home orders. 

    In recent months, a growing amount of research has pointed to the benefits of in-person work, especially when it comes to on-the-job training and career advancement. Proponents of remote work say it can help close gaps in promotion rates for women, for example. And workers seem to prefer at least partial remote work flexibility to the point that some would even be willing to take a 20% pay cut in order to keep the perk. However, in contrast to Broadcom, some companies, such as Atlassian, Dropbox, and Airbnb, have remained committed to remote work.  

    Broadcom isn’t alone in its back-to-the-office mandate. Insurance company Farmers Group faced an outcry from employees when new CEO Raul Vargas reversed his predecessor’s remote work policy. In February, Amazon changed its pandemic-era remote work policy to require employees to be in the office at least three days a week. The ecommerce giant went as far as asking managers to consider office attendance alongside other factors like job performance when evaluating whether someone should get a promotion. 

    Many other CEOs have opted for the carrot instead of the stick when trying to curb remote work. In KPMG’s annual CEO survey, 90% of respondents said they’d reward employees who make an effort to come into the office with “favorable assignments, raises or promotions.” Others have tried to spin it as a necessary sacrifice for the greater good of the company. “You might be able to execute your work on time and to standard in a remote environment, but what about your colleagues?,” wrote Jake Wood, CEO of software company Groundswell, on LinkedIn this summer. “Absent your presence, leadership, mentorship—can they thrive?”

    At Broadcom, Tan only permitted remote work in very limited cases, such as employees in the sales department who had to meet with clients regularly. Those who didn’t meet Tan’s requirements would need to clear an extraordinarily high bar. “Any other exception, you better learn how to walk on water if you want to work remote,” he told employees. “I’m serious.”

    Throughout the meeting, Tan and VMWare employees discussed how the two corporate cultures would mesh now that they were part of the same company. Return-to-office, though, wasn’t the only point of contention between VMWare and its new parent. When a VMWare employee asked if Broadcom would support employee resource groups (ERG), Tan again offered a skeptical answer. “What is that? I’m just kidding. You want me to be direct? That’s an alien concept to me,” he said. 

    While Tan admitted ERGs, which provide support for groups of underrepresented employees, weren’t part of Broadcom’s culture, he said he was open to them. Broadcom did not respond to a request for comment from Fortune about whether it would allow VMWare employees to continue their existing ERGs. 

    Adding to the difficulties in integrating the two companies were the looming layoffs that are often a harsh reality of corporate mergers. Broadcom laid off approximately 1,300 VMWare employees after the deal was completed while VMWare president Sumit Dhawan left to become the CEO of cybersecurity firm Proofpoint.

    Many of Broadcom’s employees will move into VMWare’s Palo Alto, Calif. headquarters, which ironically had been largely empty thanks to its longstanding remote work policy, according to the San Francisco Standard.

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    Paolo Confino

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  • Millennials stand apart from Gen Zers and boomers on work-from-home, and kids have a lot to do with it

    Millennials stand apart from Gen Zers and boomers on work-from-home, and kids have a lot to do with it

    The return-to-office debates show no sign of abating. While employees who violate Amazon’s return-to-office mandate will be blocked from promotions—or even fired—ones at Nvidia are free to work wherever they choose, be it at home or in the AI chipmaker’s lavish offices.

    But beyond attention-grabbing differences among particular companies, a new norm has emerged. Asked whether the work-from-home debate has been settled, Nick Bloom, a remote work guru and economics professor at Stanford University, told Fortune:

    “The debate is never settled, but I think practically, yes…Office occupancy on average is half what it was pre-pandemic. Separate research shows that about one-third of work days are happening at home. So on average, North Americans have decided they are in the new normal.”

    In other words, hybrid work has emerged victorious. It allows for some days spent working at home and some in the office, whatever the mix for a particular company or employee.

    Often overlooked, however, is a generational divide on what the ideal mix looks like. Gen Zers and boomers—a rare alliance—want to work more in the office, while millennials place more value on working from home, according to new research from Bloom and others.

    Whether someone is raising kids has a lot to do with it—and millennials are more likely to be doing just that.

    “People in their 30s and early 40s are more likely to live with children and face long commutes, raising the appeal of work from home,” the researchers noted. 

    By contrast, they added, “People in their 20s have high returns to professional networking, on-the-job training, and mentoring—activities that benefit greatly from in-person interactions. Young workers may also place more value on socializing at the workplace or nearby. They are more likely to live in small or shared apartments, which reduces the appeal of work from home.” 

    From a younger employee’s perspective, work from home often means “you get to sit in your studio apartment in front of your laptop, and good luck—you’re cut off from everything else,” venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said last year at the American Dynamism Summit, warning that remote work has “detonated” the way we connect as a society.

    As for older workers, they may be less keen to work from home “because they no longer have childcare responsibilities, or simply because they like to socialize at the workplace,” noted Bloom and his fellow researchers. 

    In the return-to-office debate, “we’ve treated things monolithically,” Hung Lee, founder of the Recruiting Brainfood newsletter, told the a16z podcast. “But we’re probably at the point now where we need to bring in the nuance, because what is positive for one group of people is negative for another.” 

    He pointed to surveys showing that, among university seniors entering the workforce, nearly 90% said they wanted to frequently meet in person with coworkers to network and build relationships. A third said they lack a dedicated workspace, and nearly 60% said they don’t have all the equipment they need at home. Only 2% said they wanted fully remote work.

    The people who are most in favor of remote work, Lee added, are often senior workers with plenty of experience who’ve already built up social capital and have an effective workspace at home—and often have children they want to be near. 

    “They don’t feel they need to come to the office in order to make friends,” he noted. 

    As Bloom and his team observed, “People who live with children value the ability to work from home more highly…The effect holds for men and women and is pervasive across countries.”

    That preference also translates to more actual working from home among that demographic. 

    “Moving from preferences to outcomes,” they wrote, “we find that people with children do indeed work from home at higher rates.”

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    Steve Mollman

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