The Hypocrisy of Return-to-Office Mandates

It’s bacckkkkk. Despite numerous studies showing return-to-office mandates don’t work — and often backfire — the federal government is the latest of way too many organizational bosses to spew management double talk. The Ottawa Citizen reports that Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council Christiane Fox argues “in-person work is necessary for team building.” She claims having people together in the office “strengthens collaboration within, and across teams and, increases opportunities for learning and sharing.”

How is that for leadership? If you don’t work as a team, we’ll unilaterally force you into our offices to collaborate and work as a team. And you’d better like it or else….

The Public Service Alliance of Canada is fighting these mandates in court. They’re very rightly asking for proof that forcing people back to the office increases anyone’s effectiveness. The Treasury Board argues that it has the “management right to choose employees’ location of work and to require them to report to their designated workplaces.” Very true. They do have the right to command, control, and boss.

Return to Office Mandates are Dead Right

Employees also have the right to quit and leave, quit and stay, or retire on the job. Managers asserting their right to be the boss are like the driver who insists on staying on their side of the road as a huge truck barrels toward them in their lane. They’re within their legal right to refuse to yield. They’ll be dead right.

In another one of way too many other hypocritical examples, PWC is using location data to police it’s new back-to-office rule. That’s because “our business thrives on relationships.” This is part of creating “the positive learning and coaching environment that is key to our success.” Huh?

From just the last few months, here’s a tiny sample of blowback on this heavy-handed, autocratic, and misguided management:

Some return-to-office mandates purposely tried to make workers quit. Now those companies are facing a bigger loss than expected

• Nearly half (42 percent) of companies with enforced RTO mandates experienced higher employee attrition than expected — especially with women and under-represented employees
• Losses include productivity drops, operational disruptions, recruitment challenges, less workplace diversity, and retention of the highest performers.

How Return to Office Policies Are Impacting Employees in 2024

• 8 in 10 employers lost talent to return-to-office mandates
• Reduced office dynamics and employee satisfaction
• Raised concerns about employee trust and culture
• Over 40% of employees put in face time to trick their bosses
• Workers feel micromanaged
• In-office workers tend to spend an hour more socializing than their remote counterparts

The Data Is In: Return-to-Office Mandates Aren’t Worth the Talent Risks

• A major source of leadership conflict
• Lack of work-life balance and a top reason many employees quit
• High performers especially resent mandates and are most likely to leave
• Women and millennials are most negatively impacted
• Nearly 2/3 of employees work best in a remote environment and report higher feelings of inclusion

This is a Leadership Test: Command or Collaborate?

I’ve written articles and blogs about RTO mandates and remote/hybrid work. Here are links to, and excerpts from, a few:

X or Y: Are You Patronizing or Partnering?

Theory Y leaders believe people are self-motivated and self-controlled, want to take pride in their work, be on a winning team, and are trusted adults. Theory X leaders believe employees will take advantage, need to be “snoopervised,” and managed like kindergarten kids with rules, policies, and punishments.

Theory X bosses don’t see a disconnect between spouting warmed over platitudes about collaboration and teamwork while mandating return to office facetime. Rather than partnering with employees to find the right hybrid solutions for individual needs, they assert their management right to dictate RTO policies and track compliance. You will work together as a team, dammit!

Countless organizational studies show that autonomy, participation, “having some say,” and a modicum of control in the workplace is vital to employee engagement and boosting discretionary effort. Highly effective leaders see people as partners. Partnerships flourish with trust, mutual respect, two-way communication (talking with, not at each other), and adult-to-adult collaboration. These leaders do it with their partners, rather than doing it to or for them .

Return to Office Mandates: Destroy Trust, Engagement, and Performance

Hybrid, Work-From Home, and Return to Work mandates are new variations of a very old issue — bossing versus leading . Bosses push, manipulate, and mandate. Leaders pull, serve, and partner.

Decisions about remote, in-office, or hybrid policies expose underlying values about trust, partnering, and treating team members as adults or children. Effective leaders believe people should be given a choice to do what works best for them.

We’re-in-charge managers feel it’s about “the golden rule” — whoever’s paying the gold makes the rules. The boss decides what the home/office/hybrid policies should be. These managers often blab, blab, blab…about the value of people. “Our people are our most important assets,” “We’re a people-first organization,” “Our core values are teamwork/trust/collaboration/respect/____” …yadda, yadda, yadda…

Numerous analyses, such as the study by Microsoft , find that people working in hybrid or remote arrangements are more productive than people working in the office full-time. And countless studies show the links between employee engagement, trust, being treated as partners, and team or organization performance.

Bosses puppeteer, leaders partner.

Virtually Engaged Shows Leaders How to Lead Remote Teams

Tyler Hayden’s book Virtually Engaged is a rich resource for project managers, team leaders, and training and development professionals helping teams thrive in today’s online world. It’s a practical and timely how-to book chock full of useful advice, activities, and links.

Tyler provides over 101 remote team-building activities sandwiched between pragmatic team leadership tips and techniques.

Why Teams Often Don’t Work and How to Build Them

What a tone-deaf boss calls “teamwork” is often about exhorting everyone to pull together to meet the management’s goals and follow their direction. These autocratic bosses see lack of compliance as not being a team player.

The same bosses who mandate Return-to-Office policies try pulling the right strings to manipulate project teams, departmental groups, task forces, or direct reports into teamwork. Good luck with that.

Teamwork is voluntary. It can’t be pushed, bullied, or cajoled. It can only be fostered, coached, and supported. That takes leadership skill.

Avoid Being Swamped by the Quitting Tsunami

Many leaders keep searching for programs and systems to increase productivity and reduce turnover. Some of them are helpful. But leaders can find the biggest factor by looking in the mirror.

How the leadership team functions — or dysfunctions — ripples out to shape organizational culture. Leadership team dynamics are central to the organization’s positive or negative magnetic field.

Return-to-Office Mandates and hybrid/remote policies and practices cut through all the teamwork and collaboration values and mission statements to show how leaders truly feel about people and the type of command-and-control culture they really want to enforce.