Sure, putting hard pants back on after three years of sweats can hurt. But is it really that bad?
The answer is yes, for some workers. More than one in four (26%) would rather get a root canalthe notoriously painful dental procedurethan work in their offices five days a week, according to job site Monsters new Work Watch Report. Monster surveyed 1,806 U.S. workers across industries about the return to office in September 2022.
Perhaps this shouldnt be entirely surprising (if not a bit dramatic). Since lockdowns began to lift, the prospect of goading workers back into their cubicles became a debacle. Countless bosses remained intransigent, some even insisting remote work had no place in business, but workers remained resolute.
Thats for good reason. Research shows most workers feel remote work improves their overall well-being. One big reason why: Full-time employees in the 10 largest U.S. cities lose an average of $5,679 a year commuting to work.
Now, weve arrived at something of a quasi-agreement with most companies operating on a hybrid model. As Monster put it in its report, flexible work isnt the future; its the present. Nearly two in five workers (38%) went so far as to say theyd quit a job that mandated just one day onsite.
The picture doesnt quite line up on the managerial side. Just half of bosses believe hybrid work is going well, Monster found, and more than a third want employees in the office full-time. Those respondents are in good company with some of the nations most prominent CEOs.
Earlier this week, Disney CEO Bob Iger told employees theyre now expected to be in the office four days a week. In a creative business like ours, nothing can replace the ability to connect, observe, and create with peers that comes from being physically together, nor the opportunity to grow professionally by learning from leaders and mentors, Iger wrote in an internal memo.
Some companies never gave up the fight, despite near-universal pushback. Indeed, 2022 may have been defined by the return-to-office war. Goldman Sachs demanded in-person work even before the vaccine rollout; CEO David Solomon said he believes in-office collaboration retains the banks cultural foundation and brings people together. And who could forget Twitters bombastic leader Elon Musk, who reversed the apps work from anywhere policy after loudly proclaiming that remote workers are just pretending to work.
Just look at the state of Americas business districtsand the office buildings at 10% capacityto get a sense of which side has the upper hand.
There are two kinds of companies: One is going to embrace work-from-anywhere, and the second is in denialI feel those companies will lose their workforce, Harvard Business School professor Raj Choudhury told Wired last week.
For a recession-prone company worried about its bottom line, a mass exodus of workers will probably hurt worse than a cavity.
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