It’s not just that you complain as you make your way to the workplace in the first week of the new year. Your boss probably isn’t too happy with taking a walk after the holidays either.
Managers are as excited about returning to the workplace as they come. Despite being higher up the ladder, many are more supportive of remote and hybrid work than their employees, a survey of 3,000 U. S. employees and managers from software company Checkr reveals. of managers (68%) said they would like to see remote paintings continue in the new year. Fewer employees (48%) feel the same way. This indicates that our RTO war narrative may simply have either side wrong.
In the long-running conflict between those in favor of the workplace and new work tactics, senior managers are increasingly demanding return-to-the-workplace mandates, hoping to get back to normal or at least be able to better monitor their staff. They were met with some resistance from many staff members looking for their flexibility, with young staff being the face of resistance. Meanwhile, middle managers in the pace of implementing mandates were stuck navigating the tension and were even more exhausted.
But Checkr’s knowledge shows that those roles seem to be misinterpreted. New surveys have also shown that the pro-workplace cohort is younger than it seems; a large portion of Gen Z feels that running as a user is more productive or provides more opportunities for professional development, such as netrunning. Other surveys also show that bosses don’t appreciate the loss of remote jobs; According to the Future Forum’s April 2022 Pulse survey, only 21% of executives and non-executives need to return to the workplace. The big shots are also looking for paintings from home; A McKinsey study shows that one-third of painters earning more than $150,000 would give up if they had to go back to work full-time.
It turns out that control needs as much or more flexibility than workers in general: Checkr shows that 52% of executives would prefer a four-day workweek to a pay raise in 2024, compared to 38% of workers (this hole would possibly be in part because control is already paid higher than other workers).
If managers don’t need to go to the workplace any more than their staff, what explains the discrepancy between how they feel and the mandates imposed on them?It may simply be that middle managers simply execute the preferences of their bosses, or that CEOs submit to the will of their boards. But staff vigilance outweighs their preference for working from home. When Checkr asked if managers would like to return to the workplace because supervising staff is less difficult in person, the maximum number of managers (70%) agreed, while 63% of all staff agreed.
Even if they agree with employees, bosses seem to be skeptical of those who are staunchly anti-office. More than half (56%) of managers find passionately anti-RTO sentiments to be a “red flag,” per Checkr. That’s compared to just 38% of employees who feel similarly.
Anyway, it turns out that bosses and workers are more aligned than they imagined heading into the new year. It remains to be seen whether this will be a game-changer.