It’s no secret that many middle managers recognize the existential risk that working from home represents to their jobs. It’s no surprise, therefore, that they are doing everything they can to put an end to it.
According to an article in Fortune, managers are fed up with work from home and 77% say they will fire or reduce the pay of those who refuse to return to work. That’s a tough position but it may be those managers are whistling past the graveyard. According to a second Fortune article, offices are obsolete and so are the managers who insist employees must return.
Keith Ferrazi and Kian Gohar say that just as companies have come to realize that they can’t dictate how, where, or when then their customers choose to interact with them, they must also realize that the same is true with their employees. They dismiss the notion that work from home is an aberration due to COVID-19 and say that managers are in denial if they believe it will go away once the pandemic ends.
The authors say companies that have had less than satisfactory results from work from home are due to their trying to overlay the digital way of working on the old, analog protocols. Worker, as evidenced by the Great Resignation, are not willing to put up with the old ways of doing things any longer.
Right now, employees are in a position to insist on their demands but as the first article points out, that won’t be the case forever. Sooner or later it will be an employers’ market and job seekers won’t have as much leverage. One hopes that by that time, companies will have adapted to the new realities.