Moves by employers to end 'Work From Home' could backfire: Report 

With the tightening labour market appreciating remote work as a key benefit, moves by employers to make it mandatory for workers to return to office are backfiring, a Business Insider report said.

After the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread adoption of work-from-home policies, companies like Amazon, Disney, JPMorgan, and even the video conferencing platform Zoom have asked its employees to return to the office. However, employees are unhappy about the new diktat.

Workers have the upper hand in labor negotiations as deaths due to COVID-19 have reduced the American workforce by roughly 500,000, according to The Guardian. The unemployment rate is close to the half-century record low of 3.5 per cent, according to July statistics from the Labor Department.

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According to the Entrepreneur magazine, pressure from employers to return to office can lead to unionisation and strikes among workers. The Writers’ and Screen Actors Guilds, Amazon warehouse and delivery workers, Starbucks employees, and digital media publications, including Business Insider, have all gone on strike in large numbers.

Business Insider previously reported that employees like an Arizona administrator, who made a six figure salary, quit their jobs after being called back to office.

The Wall Street Journal reported that companies that allow full-time remote work have seen a five per cent increase in staffing levels over the past year, compared to just 2.6 per cent for full-time in-person offices. This means that employers who insist on bringing workers back to in-person work are experiencing slower hiring rates.

Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economics professor, told The Wall Street Journal that workers now place an increasing importance on a flexible workplace and view hybrid work arrangements equal to an eight per cent salary rise. Additionally, Bloom told Wall Street Journal that ensuring employees have a healthy work-life balance increases employee retention, boosts performance, and improves customer satisfaction.

Prithwiraj Choudhury, an associate professor at the Harvard Business School, said in his research published earlier this year that employees who worked from home 75 per cent of the time were the most productive. “When you allow flexibility, it expands your talent pool”, Business Insider quoted Choudhury as saying.

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