The data is in: RTO policies don't improve employee performance or company value, but controlling bosses don't care
www.businessinsider.com
Researchers studying RTO policies of S&P 500 companies found no improvement in the value of the businesses that brought workers back to the office.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10481867

Billionaire CEOs were quick to sing the praises of working from home at the start of the pandemic, calling it the way of the future — but over the last three years, they’ve slowly changed their tune.

Late last year, Forbes reported that 90% of companies will return to the office in 2024, with 28% threatening to fire workers who don’t comply.

But it turns out that the motivations for calling workers back to the office may have less to do with employee productivity or profit margins and everything to do with catering to the egos of controlling managers who want their workers back, according to a recent study published by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh.

Mark Ma, an associate professor of business administration from Pitt’s Katz Graduate School of Business, who led the study, told BI he started the research hoping to understand why some S&P 500 firms want employees to return to the office while other firms avoid calling them back.

…

“One of the most common arguments management suggests is that they want to return to office because employee productivity is low at home, and they believe returns to office would help firms improve performance and ultimately improve the firm’s value,” Ma told BI. “That’s the reason they give — but our results actually do not support these arguments.”

    • Moira_Mayhem@lemmy.world
      3·
      6 months ago

      A lot of money is being spent propagandizing this point, and guess which side is doing it?

      There’s a lot of value tied up in commercial real estate and some of the largest real estate firms will get soaked if those offices aren’t occupied and paid for.

      The thing is, capitalism almost always makes the wrong short term decisions to result in long term results, so instead of adapting to the problem we are at the stage that the value holders will burn themselves quite a lot to cling to forcing everyone back to the office.

      And a LOT of people are susceptible to propaganda.