By Stephanie Diana Eubank
There is a lot in the media about companies pushing for remote workers to return to the office. Companies demanding remote workers who were remote initially in their contract and those who are applying for remote work come in person, even in a hybrid capacity. When employees push back the toxic leadership narrative is, “People don’t want to work anymore”. This is only partly true. The truth is workers especially after COVID have learned about this method of toxic leadership and are just not willing to work for companies like that. This constant pushing is going to give leaders the business management equivalent of a hemorrhoid.
There are three main reasons why companies are trying to force people back into the office:
- Real Estate. The real estate side was a big issue at the start of the Pandemic. However, now in 2023, there are numerous articles of companies making moves in physical locations and scaling back office space. Yes, this can create a growing pain for big cities but once things level out it will be an opportunity for change to have a more socio-economic diverse community and housing affordability neighborhoods in bigger cities and encourage similar changes in smaller ones.
- Companies either need a change in talent focus (hiring more IT specialists versus physical laborers or salespeople), a reorganization (reorg), or need a layoff. So, to avoid not paying unemployment many companies choose to force people back into the office. This way people who don’t want to work in person have to quit and thus won’t get unemployment benefits. This also allows companies to not look as bad in the media and to board members. An early example of this behavior was in 2013 when Yahoo did the same thing in an effort to, “Improve collaboration”. Which has been statistically disproven then and since COVID. But, it later showed evidence of the above-noted reason and the company dwindled from there.
- The last reason is just insidious. Since most companies promote people who are good at their job but may not have specific leadership training and the company doesn’t provide said training these leaders scare away talent. The reason these leaders scare away talent is that they don’t know how to lead and mix up fear with respect. Because of this many of these leaders develop toxic leadership skills that are in many cases downright illegal and cultivate a hostile work environment. Yes, you can have a hostile work environment in a remote workplace. And because remote workplaces provide more transparency and the ability to document bad behavior HR and Companies want to protect themselves and exploit workers and toxic leaders by dragging everyone back into the office where the narrative can be controlled. And where legal proof can be dispelled.
These reasons are not reasonable and limiting remote work hurts companies more than it hurts anyone else. Companies lose out on savings on overhead, commercial space, energy costs, among other expenses. Also, many cities like San Francisco have additional fees and taxes so remote workplaces allow for a lot of business savings.
The issue isn’t if people want to work or not. The issue is that companies are being narrow
minded and doing things they shouldn’t.
And rather than change positively, many companies are trying to turn back
the clock. This insistence on pushing for Return
to Office or RTO is the equivalent of pushing too hard, and you won’t like the
after-effects.
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Dr. Stephanie Diana Eubank DBA Remote Team Research (AKA Dr. Bear) 