RTO mandates can only ever be unfair, HR expert says

• RTO mandates are causing employees to quit, with some companies enforcing strict policies.
• Firms often cite company culture and productivity as reasons for RTO mandates.
• One expert says these mandates disproportionately impact certain workers.

There is growing evidence that return-to-office mandates are pushing employees to quit.

Some bosses have scrapped hybrid or remote work policies, telling staff to come back to the workplace a certain amount of days a week.

Many companies even introduced punitive measures for not complying with the RTO mandate or relocating, such as missing out on promotion opportunities or risking termination.

Smartphone maker Nothing is one of the latest companies to inform employees that they must start working fully in person at the firm's headquarters in London.

Nothing's CEO Carl Pei said: "Remote work is not compatible with a high ambition level plus high speed."

Daniela Herrera, a talent and diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant at Kay & Partners, Talent Management, a New York-based staffing and recruiting agency, told Business Insider that these policies can only be unfair.

Impact on company culture is often used an excuse

Herrera said the main reasons often cited for RTO are that it benefits company culture and people work better in the office. But she refuted these claims.

"If you don't have a healthy culture to begin with, that culture will not be healthy or comfortable either working from home or working remotely," Herrera said.

She said this excuse is often used to cover the real factors behind the mandate.

Real estate investments

"One of the things that is very evident is many of the companies pushing for this are trying to save some of the investments they have made and real estate," Herrera said.

She explained that when building an organization, you calculate the cost per person, which includes salary, and also office space, and materials. For larger firms, office space is not cheap, Herrera said.

"Either they bought that building, or they're going through a very long leasing period. From a money and business point of view, it kind of makes sense to push everyone back into the office because you are paying for something that you are not using," she said.

The problem is that such stringent approaches are likely to send employees elsewhere.

"Candidates tend to flock toward companies that are still offering flexibility," Herrera said.

She added that when you have two very similar roles, but one is in the office five days a week and the other is hybrid, the hybrid one will tend to have more applications than the job that requires being at the workplace all the time.

RTO mandates as a way to trim staff

Herrera said some organizations are using RTO policies as an excuse to reduce head count or to encourage workers to leave the company before they have to take action.

In other words, bosses are quiet firing staff by making their positions less appealing.

During the pandemic, when people were working from home, many moved out of the states they were living in.

Now, these staff members are being given the option to move their families back to potentially a smaller apartment in a big city where the office is located, or to leave the company, Herrera said.

Taking back the power from employees

In 2020 and 2021, employees gained a little bit more power. Following a series of lockdowns, millions quit their jobs to reset and take advantage of the job market boom, sparking "The Great Resignation."

But after a brutal year of layoffs in 2023, employers are back on top.

RTO mandates are another way for companies to regain control, Herrera said.

"From the moment that you are intentionally excluding a group of people, that means that the process or the decision is always inequitable," she said.

"One of the main things that we are seeing is the break of trust — employees are no longer trusting their companies," Herrera said.

She used caregivers, women, and anyone else from a historically excluded community at work as examples of groups that are faring particularly badly from RTO.

Herrera said these are often the employees who cannot commute to the office and have to deal with the responsibility of caring for others.

"Doing a five-day, in-office mandate will always be inequitable," she said.