Return To Office For Thee, But Not For Me: C-Suite Stays Home As Employees Expected Back

Demand for employees to return to the office continues to rise as companies push for an end to remote work policies, but policies aren't uniform across the ranks, a report from the Future Forum found.

Non-executive employees are twice as likely as their C-suite counterparts to be working from the office five days a week, Future Forum said.

They are also experiencing harsher work-life balances than their bosses: The report said non-executive positions rate their work-life balance as 40% worse than executives and say they have twice the level of work-related anxiety.

Mandating full-time in-person work, compounded with the inequality among the ranks, may decrease workforce retention. Knowledge workers reported being 2.6 times more likely to seek new employment when presented with workplace inflexibility. Additionally, Future Forum said this impact could be most felt from employees in underrepresented groups such as women and people of color, and particularly working mothers, all of which reported a greater demand for flexible locations and scheduling.

While workplace flexibility looks to be a continuing demand from recent college graduates, according to an article from The Wall Street Journal, incoming graduates are reportedly eager to embrace in-office positions, in part due to the networking possibilities those positions represent. A LaSalle Network survey of more than 2,500 pending college graduates found 60% want a hybrid position, compared to only 11% who expressed interest in working remote full time.

The return to office is in many cases driven by the type of work being done. Lawyers in particular are increasingly returning to the office.

As employers continually look at ways to bring workers back to the office, architectural firms are experiencing a bit of a boom in office renovations and growing amenitization efforts.

Eighty-eight percent of companies polled are employing incentives in order to lure people to the office, according to a survey from Envoy, reported on by Work Design Magazine. These incentives include food and beverage programs, social events, company events, furniture and amenities, and overall improvements to the office environment, such as implementing games or offering social spaces in the office. Forty percent of survey respondents said they were upgrading the physical office with features like standing desks that employees may not have at home.