In The Return-To-Office Standoff, Many Workers Say They Face Few Penalties For Staying Home

Called back to the office and don’t want to go in for all the requested days? The consequences for opting out may not be as bad as you think.

The latest iteration of one of the largest and most widely respected surveys of U.S.residents about remote work, released Monday, asked workers what their employers did to those who worked on business premises fewer days than expected. The most common answer? Nada. Zilch. Nothing.

Some 35% of employees gave that response in the latest update from WFH Research, a survey project started in May 2020 that tracks working arrangements and attitudes and collected 7500 responses in June. Nineteen percent said they received only a verbal reprimand.

Layoffs may be mounting and strict return-to-work policies may seem like a way to weed out those who prefer working from their sofa as economic concerns grow. But the survey from WFH Research, as well as another major report on sentiment about remote work released Tuesday, find that employees want to work remotely more than ever—and may not always face consequences for doing so.

“This is basically not being enforced in a lot of situations,” says Jose Maria Barrero, an assistant professor at ITAM business school in Mexico. “Not being there? Sure it’s breaking the letter of the rule. But it’s not really impacting the effectiveness of their organization.”

As more and more workplaces require some kind of office return—whether full-time onsite or in hybrid arrangements—some have experienced internal revolts over onsite requirements. Back in May, a group of Apple workers known as Apple Together wrote an open letter to the tech giant’s leadership, asking “to decide for ourselves, together with our teams and direct manager, what kind of work arrangement works best for each one of us.” Apple later delayed that requirement, according to Bloomberg.

To be sure, many professionals whose jobs can be done remotely aren’t being asked to work onsite full-time, according to the survey data. The latest quarterly survey of more than 10,000 knowledge workers released Tuesday by Future Forum found that only about one in three globally are actually working full-time in the office. But only about one in five actually want to work at the office full-time—the lowest rate the survey has found in two years—suggesting a disconnect between the two.

Still, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reminds us that as a portion of the overall workforce, those who can work remotely is small: In April 2022, 7.7 percent of employed people worked at home for pay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government agency reported, down 2.3 percentage points from March 2022 and down from 35.4 percent in May 2020 when the data was first collected.

Some workers did report penalties for slow-walking their office attendance in the WFH Research survey. Of the 3800 respondents whose answers were considered, 14% said they had a negative performance review, and 16.5% said they faced a reduction in their pay or bonus. Meanwhile, some reported being threatened with termination (15.6%) or fired outright (12.4%). It’s important to remember that in most states employers could terminate workers for not following return mandates unless you have a disability or could make a discrimination claim.

Yet Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford who collaborates with Barrero, said in an email he suspects punishments may not be more common because there are few good policies for enforcing such rules. He offers the example of a high-performing employee who returns to the office for three days a week when four is expected.

“The old saying is ‘don’t set bad rules because they are impossible to enforce,’ ”—Nicholas Bloom, economist, Stanford University

“What should the manager do? Ignore it as the employee is performing well—but then look weak. Or reprimand the employee, but risk losing them by pointlessly disciplining them.” In a tight labor market, few employers have wanted to make those choices—or build resentment for rules that are inconsistently applied. “The old saying is ‘don’t set bad rules because they are impossible to enforce,’” Bloom said.

The results come at the same time demand for working from home is higher than ever, according to the report from Future Forum, a consortium launched by Slack with other partners about the future of work. A preference for flexible work reached an all-time high in its survey released Tuesday, with 55% of knowledge workers saying they want to work fewer than three days a week in the office.

Brian Elliott, who leads the consortium, told Forbes in an interview that few of the companies he speaks with are tracking how often office workers show up on site, and if they do have such a policy, many have relaxed them. “The mandate is being softened quite dramatically,” he says. More employers are focusing on coming to the office for specific purposes such as team meetings or collaboration opportunities, he says, and despite speculation, aren’t using return-to-office policies as a way to grow attrition amid economic belt-tightening.

That’s partly because they know doing so could hurt diversity, Elliott says. Future Forum’s survey finds that employees from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups value remote or hybrid arrangements at a greater rate than white employees. Some organizations, like Facebook, have linked remote work policies to increased diversity figures. “If you were going to use this as a way to force some attrition, what a rough way to do it,” Elliott says, noting that’s not something he’s seeing.

While such attitudes could shift if a downturn proceeds, many workers may be counting on their bosses turning a blind eye to perfect office attendance if their jobs allow them to work from home. For now, says Barrero: “Employees know they can kind of call the firm’s bluff.”

Original Article: (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenamcgregor/2022/07/20/in-the-return-to-office-standoff-many-workers-say-they-face-few-penalties-for-staying-home/?sh=607390387188)