For many Americans, it is starting to feel like the work from home era is over, with big companies including Amazon, Salesforce, Disney, and JPMorgan issuing return to the office (RTO) mandates to staff.

Amazon's RTO policy came into effect in May. "We should go back to being in the office together the majority of the time (at least three days per week)," wrote CEO Andy Jassy in a blog post to staff in February.

At Disney, CEO Bob Iger told workers that starting from March, any staff member working "in a hybrid fashion" will have to be back in the office for four days a week.

Iger's rationale is that, "In a creative business like ours, nothing can replace the ability to connect, observe, and create with peers that comes from being physically together, nor the opportunity to grow professionally by learning from leaders and mentors".

Google is treading more carefully. "Our hybrid model balances the best of being together in person and being anywhere-where teams can intentionally come together to collaborate and connect in the office, and spend the other days working from wherever best suits their needs," a company memo reported.

And at Meta, reports indicate that hiring managers are no longer allowed to label jobs as "remote". Additionally, internal applications for remote work or office relocations have also been put on hold.

Surface level

On the surface, remote working figures still look pretty good: 35% of US workers with jobs that can be done remotely are working from home all of the time, according to new data from Pew Research Center. 

However, when you drill into the figures, it turns out that this is just 7% higher than it was pre-pandemic, and in January 2022, 43% of workers were doing their jobs from home, with the figure even higher at 55% in October 2020. 

Returning for Good, a Unispace Global Workplace Insights report, adds to the trend.

Combining the results of a survey of 9,500 employees and 6,650 employers, the report discovered that 72% of companies worldwide have mandated office returns for their staff.

While the study found that employees are less reluctant to return to the office (51%) than they were in 2021 (64%), one in two workers are still showing reluctance to return. 

This is having an impact on job retention, with 42% of firms which have mandated a return to the workplace saying they have experienced higher than normal employee attrition, and 29% are now struggling to recruit.

Many workers simply don't want to go back to the office for a whole host of reasons: long commutes, additional expenses and productivity are just three. 

Unispace's survey identified that "employers have not recognized the challenges that employees have with their current workplace set up," with 58% of workers saying that they struggle to carry out their core job in the office due to distractions. 

Workers also enjoy the privacy they have at home (31%), the ability to be more effective in a quiet environment (27%), and the fact they get more done (23%).

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