Some corporate giants are mandating employees to return to the office. Picture: Pavel Danilyuk/Pexels
Companies that are not flexible about their remote working policies are likely to suffer negative consequences as skilled professionals search for greater flexibility in their work locations.
Many opportunistic employers will therefore use remote or hybrid working as a carrot to attract top skills, believes John Loos, senior economist at FNB Commercial Property.
At the end of the day though, there will have to be some compromise.
“There is strong evidence from many surveys across the globe to suggest that flexible work arrangements are very popular amongst employees. This means that a significant portion of skills will search for greater flexibility in their work locations, and there will be many opportunistic employers who will use remote or hybrid working as a carrot to attract top skills.
“The less flexible companies will suffer the consequences.”
In general, he is “not overly impressed” by “the noise” from some companies that publicly try to take a hard line on getting employees back to the office. And in the end, the labour market has a big say in what employers and employees can and cannot do.
“So the market will settle somewhere between what employers want and what employees want, nobody entirely getting their own way, but the office attendance levels settling at a level significantly below pre-Covid levels.”
These levels may already have settled.
Around the world, many employees have been mandated to return to the office as corporate giants abandon their Covid-induced work-from-home policies. Some, like Amazon and Apple, require their workers to be back in the office for at least three days a week while others, like Disney and Goldman Sachs, demand a four- or five-day working week in the traditional workplace.
In many cases, employees have pushed back against the new mandates, insisting that the remote working policy is a successful one. Some employees who relocated during the work-from-home boom are now faced with a tough decision of packing up their new lives and moving back to the areas in which their offices are based, or resigning. Workers who have been able to find new jobs that allow them to continue working remotely have had an easier choice.
In South Africa, Loos acknowledges that some companies will require a return to the office – at least for some of the time.
“Some of the far-flung employees will look for other opportunities while others will relocate closer to the office should they wish to hang around their current employers.”
He does not believe, however, that a significant number of people in this country relocated in the hope of permanently working remotely. Those who did will be in the minority.
“My sense is that most of us stayed put through lockdowns, and are still able to commute to the office should we be required to.”
Many employees are not happy returning to the office though, he notes.
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