(CNN Business) — Before the pandemic, many corporate leaders believed that allowing their employees to work from home would hurt productivity. But, in many cases, the pandemic proved otherwise.
“Productivity [did not suffer] despite many companies going fully remote. Many thrived through that process and continue to hire at record pace,” said Ben Wigert, director of research and strategy for workplace management at Gallup.
Corporate profits, for instance, steadily rose from the second quarter of 2020 through the end of 2021, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The BEA metric takes into account both revenue growth, reflecting productivity, and cost management, reflecting worker efficiency, Wigert noted.
What’s more, when managers were surveyed during the pandemic, “on average, [they] gave a higher performance review score to their remote employees compared to their in-office employees,” said Brian Kropp, chief of research in consulting firm Gartner’s Human Resources Practice.
Still, many employers now want workers to return to the office for at least three days a week. Their rationale? The need to strengthen workplace culture, and foster greater collaboration and innovation.
While those goals are critical, issuing a mandate that employees work more days in the office than they would like doesn’t ensure success in either arena and could cause some workers to leave, according to workplace experts.
The state of play
Several surveys show that both corporate leaders and workers see true value in returning to the workplace. Humans are social, visceral beings, who often glean more about a situation and build more trust with colleagues in face-to-face exchanges than in virtual ones. And being available in person is essential to mentoring the youngest and newest employees.
At the same time, there is also a new acceptance that workers now want flexibility and the option to continue working remotely. In this regard, the question for workers and leaders now is, “When is that extra level of connection [from in-person work] worth the commute, the time, the cost and the angst?,” said Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics.
This story was first published on CNN.com, “Why requiring workers to spend more days in the office could backfire“
