Another week, another ‘Wave’ ???

5 news items from the world of work and workplace that you can digest in 5 minutes.

This week:

1. Experts say RTO mandates from CEOs ‘won’t stick’
2. 23% of Americans expect to be working remotely by 2025
3. Disney’s RTO shows ‘failure of imagination about how to innovate’

RTO Won’t Stick: Bosses are increasing return to office (RTO) requirements, but experts say it won’t stick, reports CNBC . Throughout 2022 companies like 苹果 , 谷歌 , Twitter and 高盛 sent out memos coaxing people back in-person, but the average office occupancy rate in 10 major U.S. cities remained below 50%. “Onsite work requirements are being reintroduced, but employers are walking them back because employees are increasingly unwilling to comply with those requirements, and organizations are unsure or reluctant about how to enforce them,” said Caitlin Duffy, PhD , Director of Research at Gartner . “Good organizations will capitalize on the benefits of remote work and outstrip their peers to become employers of choice on the talent market. We’re at an inflection point, and organizations that refuse to adapt may struggle to survive long-term.” Read Full Article.

How to Innovate: 华特迪士尼公司 ’s RTO mandate shows failure of imagination about how to innovate in hybrid and remote work, reports CEOWORLD magazine . Whilst some businesses continue to argue that remote work weakens the exchange of new ideas that tend to foster innovation, is that really true? 麦肯锡 research found during the pandemic, there was a record number of new patents across 150 global patent filing authorities. In 2021, global venture capital more than doubled from 2020. McKinsey suggests that it’s because more innovative companies developed new ways of connecting remote workers to build and sustain the cross-functional ties necessary for innovation, thus widening the pools of minds that could generate new ideas. Is the traditionalist perspective from Disney on how to innovate, actually hindering innovation? Read Full Article.??

Fully Remote Future: Over 40 million U.S. workers expect to be working fully remote by 2025. "We've got this kind of interesting tug of war that's happening right now between workers and the employers," said RedBalloon CEO, Andrew Crapuchettes . "Employers want people in the office, and workers, we learned through the pandemic that, hey, you can be productive for a little bit when you work at home." An Upwork report found strong remote work projections, predicting that 23% of American workers will have fully remote positions in the next five years. "That's the trend that we're seeing today, where employers are going to have to compromise and they're going to have to let employers live their values out loud," Crapuchettes said.?Read Full Article.

Sign of the Times: Hush trips, quiet quitting and rage applying are the current buzzwords of 2023. A ‘hush trip’ is when a remote employee secretly takes a personal trip during a work week without telling his employer. ‘Quiet quitting’ (or ‘soft quitting’) is when frustrated employees simply stop trying and put in minimal effort, which a Gallup poll reports nearly half of the U.S. workforce engages in. ‘Rage applying’ is when disgruntled workers send out their resumes en masse as revenge against their employers. What do these terms say about the current state of the workplace and workers relationships with their employer? Read Full Article.

Nothing to see here: New York City's largest office landlord, SL Green Realty Corp. painted a cheery picture of their outlook for the coming year, despite reporting a net loss of $93m for all of 2022. That's compared to a 2021 profit of $434.8m according to Bisnow . CEO Marc Holliday reportedly said the firm were expecting to see a "pivot" year. Read Full Article.