Change Management, Employee Experience, Future of Work, and Org Effectiveness Leader | ex. McKinsey, WeWork, JLL, Credit Suisse | Keynote Speaker | Guide of The Workline | LinkedIn Top Voice
New report out from Great Places to Work. And it's got some news for companies with office mandates. GPTW surved 4,000 workers in the U.S. and found that mandates lead to higher turnover and disengagement...which I don't think is so new. But some of the detailed stats really jumped out at me: Employees with choice in where they worked are: 🤯 14x less likely to “quit and stay” 🚨 - 3x more likely to want to stay with their organization - More likely to report giving extra effort on the job - More likely to have a good relationship with their manager And yet, 7 in 10 workers say their company mandates where they work. And 64% of employees without mandates report having a psychologically and emotionally healthy work environment, compared to just 51% of employees with mandates. I know it's not a *massive* survey, and only limited to the U.S., but I see a lot of posts touting company performance or inclusion on Great Places to Work surveys and lists...so I think this one might make some news. What do you think? Link in the comments. #futureofwork #remotework #hybridwork #engagement #wellbeing #returntowork #attrition #quietquitting
Example empiric research here from the University of Pittsburgh. From the abstract of the paper:"Also, our findings do not support the argument that managers impose mandate because they believe RTO increases firm values. Further, our difference in differences tests report significant declines in employees’ job satisfactions mandates but no significant changes in financial performance or firm values after RTO mandates." https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401
🤔 If an employer requires a certain # of days per month in office, the employer considers that as providing flexibility while the employee considers that requirement as a mandate. I wonder how that type of scenario was characterized in this study.
Interesting stuff, Phil! I'd be curious to know how often the employees with a choice come to the office on average. If it's the difference between 1-2 days, it seems like more companies should start asking themselves if it's really worth the additional recruitment work that a mandate seems to entail.
Anthropologist / Culture Consultant / Writer
1yThanks Phil Kirschner. As always, you find the juicy data nuggets. This is such a no-brainer. That humans (at least those in the sample) respond positively to basic respect for their agency and autonomy is no surprise. The 70% of firms that continue to mandate locations/schedules is just a continuation of generations of a Taylorist/Fordist managerial cosmology that is what it is. Worldview, and having a sense of order and structure, can so easily eclipse all of those pragmatic considerations about employee energy, balance, discretionary effort, engagement, retention, etc. Continuing to highlight the financial success of firms like Atlassian (and their Team Anywhere philosophy/practice) and GitLab is sometimes all we can do. One really interesting knock-on effect of all this is the elevation of workplace strategy as a central contributor to these larger managerial discussions. For that we should at least be grateful.