"A lot can change over the course of five years - especially if they happen to follow a norm-shattering, once-in-several-generations pandemic. In the white-collar workplace, the pandemic meant a sudden shift to remote work. And just as the world started to return to normal with the arrival of COVID vaccines, companies and their employees entered a cold war over return-to-office mandates."
"Now, five years out, the work-from-where debate is reaching a fever pitch. Earlier this year, corporate giants such as Amazon and JPMorgan Chase - as well as much of the US federal government - ordered employees to return to the office a full five days a week. More recently, Paramount and Novo Nordisk have declared an end to remote work, while Microsoft and NBCUniversal beefed up their hybrid work requirements."
"The return-to-office (RTO) orders have taken on new weight amid a softening labor market and broader economic anxiety. Meanwhile, the corporate world's multi-year work-from-home (WFH) experiment has left the relative merits of remote work solely in the eye of the beholder (though it's seldom difficult to guess which people on your company's org chart hold which opinions). Basically, depending on whom you ask, remote work has officially become the cause of - or solution to - all of the corporate world's problems."
Remote work surged during the pandemic, producing a sudden shift to remote work across white-collar workplaces. After COVID vaccines, many firms and employees clashed over return-to-office mandates. Major corporations and parts of the US federal government issued full-time in-office orders, while others ended remote work or tightened hybrid policies. Despite these mandates, WFH prevalence remained roughly stable since 2023: about 62% of salaried employees worked full-time in an office in August, and around 25% of full work days were remote. Economic anxiety and a softer labor market have intensified disputes over whether remote work harms or helps corporate performance.
Read at The Daily Upside
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