What can you do when your company reverses on remote work?

Excerpt from /qz.com

If your employer says you have to return to the office, do you have any leverage?

A growing list of companies—including Disney, Apple, Starbucks, Google, and Goldman Sachs—are rolling back their remote work policies or tightening hybrid work options to compel workers to spend more time in the office. In the US, Congress is is trying to end covid-era teleworking options for federal workers. And online, some speculate that even remote-first companies are looking to get people into the office organically.

But despite increasing interest in getting workers through the office doors, their desire for remote work isn’t disappearing. According to Pew Research, among people working from home full-time or most of the time in early 2022, 78% say they’d like to continue doing so.

 

 

Plenty are resisting return-to-office orders. As of last summer, just half of workers who had been called back to the office full-time were actually reporting in as much as required. Some are wondering if they can simply refuse the mandate. And others are leaving their no-longer-remote jobs for new ones that offer more flexibility.

“Getting to work remotely [and] getting to have a hybrid work arrangement gives employees something incredibly important, which is autonomy,” says Melanie Prengler, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business who studies changing work arrangements. “It has a positive effect on our routines, our family relationships, productivity, creativity. And having that taken away is painful. I would not be surprised if people felt a loss of trust and respect in their organization, or if they felt like their organization didn’t have trust and respect in them.”

 

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