Push for RTO Mandates Heighten within Corporate America

Since the mid-September announcement by Amazon of decisions to reinstate a five-day-per-week return-to-office (RTO) requirement to take effect January 2, 2025, there have been several headlines of employee push back, with some taking legal action. In response, “Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman last week suggested workers who do not wish to return in-person should find other jobs.” The challenge of the daily commute is among one of the top reasons workers favor remote policies. The leaders at some companies that continue to support the flexibility of a hybrid policy believe it increases productivity according to cited statements by Chris Gladwin, the founder of Chicago-based data analytics firm Ocient, who points out that the time the company’s employees save by not having to commute is devoted to work. But that is not always the case, previous reports indicate that while some work additional hours due in part to the loss of boundaries between the office and home, other remote workers use the extra time for non-work-related activities. In contrast, those supporting RTO, such as the cited argument by Michael Gibbs, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, whose extensive research on remote work and how it affects productivity has led to his conclusion that “if companies do not bring workers back to the office, ‘the intangibles are going to suffer over the long run. Your losing corporate culture. You’re losing people’s attachment to their work and colleagues. These kinds of things matter.’”

According to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment report, telecommuting increased over the last year, while the percent of fully remote workers and hybrid work increased 11% and 29% respectively since September 2023. With the understanding that “no metric for tracking office data is perfect,” separate datasets by management Kastle Systems, which tracks badge swipes at its buildings, and the Real Estate Board of New York’s latest office occupancy report based on the analysis of cell phone data from Placer.AI have yet to “suggest any recent seismic shift in the number of workers going into offices.” However, the lack of any significant change “could just be because the latest round of changes to remote work is still in its infancy” and therefore not reflected in the data. Amid the increase of reported opposition by employees to a further limitation of full remote and hybrid policies, or even total elimination by employers, the question arises as to whether or not employers can force workers to return to the office. According to an August 6, 2024 post by Halunen Law, “except in rare cases, return-to-office mandates do not qualify as harassment or discrimination, meaning an employer can require you to work in the office.” The post further points out that those employees refusing to comply with a company’s changed RTO policies risk losing their jobs, since “most employees in the United States work-at-will, which means their employer can terminate them for any legal reason, at any time, without facing liability, unless your employer hired you in a role specifically designated as a remote position, you have a contract in place, or you have a disability that requires accommodation, options are limited.” Looking ahead, time will only tell if the resurgence of the latest RTO push will finally bring an end to work-from-home (WFH) practices as predicted by “some big-name business leaders.”

Source:    https://www.crainsnewyork.com/workplace/how-rto-mandates-will-actually-affect-remote-hybrid-work

Source:    https://www.halunenlaw.com/can-your-employer-force-you-to-return-to-office/