The chance of your boss demanding you back into the office full-time appears to be dwindling, with new research from Flex Index revealing that only 3% of tech CEOs support strict return-to-office mandates in 2024 – a 5% decrease from last year.
The report also found that the tech industry is leading the way when it comes to flexibility, with the majority of tech CEOs letting workers work wherever they like, challenging the notion that employees need to collaborate in-person to be productive.
However, with companies like Dell and Meta remaining steadfast when it comes to scrapping remote work – much to the disdain of their employees – there are still a number of exceptions to prove the rule.
Only 3% of Tech CEO Want Employees In the Office Full-Time
For much of 2023 and 2024, the media landscape has been brimming with stories of tech CEOs, sometimes aggressively, demanding workers back into the office. These notices haven’t been taken kindly by a lot of workers, many of whom had been allowed to work from anywhere since the pandemic.
However, much to the delight of remote workers, new research from the global insight platform Flex Index reveals that many CEOs have given up on RTO policies.
This just in! View
the top business tech deals for 2024 👨💻
Specifically, out of the 2,670 companies surveyed, only 3% of CEOs want workers back into the office full-time, compared to 8% in 2024. Instead, 56% of leaders are now opting for a more liberal ’employee’s choice’ model, which gives workers agency over where they decide to work. This is compared to only 36% of CEOs that embraced this policy in 2023.
Not only does the employee’s choice model make the company more attractive to new recruits, but it’s also more likely to appease the desires of current employees. What’s more, while the assumption may be that most workers faced with this choice would choose to work from home more, avoiding the cost and effort associated with the morning commute, the results from Flex Index found that most workers choose to work from the office at least a couple of days a week if the option is available.
These result chimes with findings from Tech.co’s own workplace report, which found that 38% of employees at hybrid working organizations choose to come into the office more than they are required, and questions the notion that employers have to crack down on remote work to get staffers back into physical offices.
Small Tech Companies Are More Likely to be Flexible
Despite a handful of larger tech firms offering fully-remote jobs, Flex Index’s research revealed that small companies are spearheading the flexible work movement. Specifically, while 97% of companies with under 500 employees consider themselves as ‘fully flexible’ this figure drops to 60% for companies with 500 – 5k employees, and to 23% for companies with over 25k.
Large companies are still open to some form of flexible work, however. Flex Index found that the majority of companies with over 5k employees have mandated a ‘structured hybrid’ policy, that calls workers into the office at least a couple of days a week, while less than 4% want workers in full time.
With large tech firms being responsible for higher office overheads, and generally being less capable of adopting flexible HR policies, these results are hardly supprising. Yet, while the pendulum appears to be swinging on stringent return to office mandates, this isn’t the case for all companies.
Many Big Tech Firms Are Still Cracking the Whip
At the start of 2024, US tech company Dell rolled out a controversial RTO mandate that called workers back into the office or risk not advancing their career as a result. Unsurprisingly, this ultimatum wasn’t embraced warmly by employees, with 50% of Dell’s workforce deciding to forgo career opportunities by continuing to work from home.
A number of other major companies have also followed in Dell’s footsteps, with IBM, Bank of America, and WebMB also rolling out strict return-to-office policies this year. In an ironic twist, even Zoom – a company that has been instrumental in supporting the remote work revolution – flip-flopped on the policy last August, sending a signal that no employee is exempt from the crackdown.
CEOs backing the policy will argue that in-office working is crucial for a convivial company culture, successful collaboration, and as a result, enhanced productivity. Yet, for many workers, forcing their hard with mandatory RTO policies will never be the secret sauce for company success, and may result in them seeking more flexible policies elsewhere.
If this resonates with you, check out some exciting fully-remote jobs to apply for this August.
