Q&A: The End of Work From Home: What’s Fueling the Return-to-Office Mandates

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One year ago, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon mandated that employees return to the office, sparking similar announcements across the country. The latest company to climb on the bandwagon is Microsoft, where workers now must show up at the office at least three days a week.

This trend comes despite recent research showing that remote and hybrid work do not undermine productivity. Sharon Hill, a professor of management at the George Washington University School of Business, has spent more than two decades researching virtual work. She explains what is driving the push to return to the office, how managers have been placed in a difficult position, and what employees are willing to give up to work remotely.

Q: Since the 1990s, organizations have been incorporating remote workers. The pandemic accelerated that momentum. But now many businesses have gone into reverse. More than half of Fortune 100 companies require full-time in-person work-a staggering shift from 2023 when only 5% of employees were in the office every day. Why are we in this office-versus-remote tug-of-war?

A: A lot of it stems from old leadership practices. Organizations have trouble with the remote or hybrid workplace because they don't understand you need to change your leadership approach to make it work. You can't keep leading the way you used to. And then you get prominent voices, like Jamie Dimon, and immediately it's follow-the-leader rather than taking an informed and strategic perspective.

Q: Do remote and hybrid workplaces really work?

A: Research studies show that organizations that have embraced virtual and hybrid work are benefiting from it with higher productivity. To make this happen, however, you must have the right workplace configuration. You cannot take a blanket approach.

Q: Can you explain what that means?

A: There are actually a handful of research-based approaches to configuring a productive workforce. It should be on a team basis, not an organization-wide basis. Instead of policies such as "everyone needs to be here two days a week," managers need to ask, "how much face-to-face interaction do we need and when?" Some things really do require in-person collaboration. Even with the advent of sophisticated technologies, there are times when we may need to meet in person. At the same time, when you're in the office, there are distractions that get in the way of work getting done. The goal is to make good use of everybody's time. A virtual workplace has to be organized in an intentional way.

Q: Why is it so hard for managers to embed remote and hybrid workers?

A: None of this is intuitive. A recent Gallup survey shows that only 25% of organizations provide training for leaders and managers to adapt to remote working. Every spring for the past seven years, I have taught an online graduate course called "Leading the Virtual Workforce" to give our students a chance to build these skills.

Virtual work has implications for who we hire, how we manage employees and how we evaluate performance. A lot of leaders, quite frankly, are reluctant to abandon old leadership approaches that rely on walking around to see if people are working. They cannot do that with remote work. They need to adapt their leadership approach-but many are unable or unwilling to do so.

Also, with the pandemic everyone was thrust into remote working, and now we have mismatches. Not everyone is a great virtual worker or virtual leader. I think it will take time to find the right match in organizations, although it will sort itself out.

Q: Do managers view onsite workers more favorably than remote workers?

A: Yes, proximity bias is real. That is where we tend to evaluate people we can see more positively. Employees who are in the office when and where the bosses are may be evaluated higher. Rather than 'I need to see you,' these managers need to grant more autonomy to their workers. They also need to put clear guardrails in place and clear goals for each employee that link to collective goals. I'm talking about really clear metrics and tracking whether workers are accomplishing those goals. To some managers this feels like giving up control, but it doesn't have to.

Managers also fail to build an environment of trust with remote workers. They tend to trust the employees less who work from home. They think of building trust as "I like you, I'm familiar with you," but there are ways to build trust that are more about the types of work interactions we foster. Without a foundation of trust, no one will be willing to grant more autonomy to employees.

Q: Are middle managers today in a difficult position?

A: The middle managers-the line manager layer-are getting squeezed from the top to implement a particular approach. They're getting pushback from employees. And they haven't been given the training or voice to advocate for what is best for their team. These managers are pivotal to making all of this work, but they are really getting squeezed and burnt out.

Q: What about employees? Many prefer remote or hybrid work.

A: Yes, the data suggests that employees value the flexibility remote or hybrid work offers-and that flexibility increases their commitment to their employer. We see studies indicating that employees are willing to accept a lower salary to work virtually. Anecdotally, you hear about organizations that are imposing strict five-day-a-week in-office mandates, and the result is employees leaving or planning to leave. I do think remote and hybrid work may be a way to retain and attract the best talent.

That said, research on virtual work and wellbeing shows it is a double-edged sword. We see an increased need to focus on employee wellbeing. Remote work can blur the lines between work demands, family demands and life demands. It can lead to loneliness. Remote workers don't have those everyday hallway discussions that in-office workers do but, to be honest, those discussions can also be distractions.

I think hybrid work is exciting. It lets you separate when employees need heads-down focused days-when they work best at home-or when an anchor day in the office is more beneficial. Hybrid work gives employees the best of both worlds.