HR software biz BambooHR surveyed more than 1,500 employees, a third of whom work in HR. The findings suggest the return to office movement has been a poorly-executed failure, but one particular figure stands out - a quarter of executives and a fifth of HR professionals hoped RTO mandates would result in staff leaving.

According to the report, most employees working remotely and in-person both feel the need to demonstrate productivity, which for more than a third of employees means being seen socializing and moving around the office. That intense need to be visible may actually be harming productivity, study author and BambooHR’s own head of HR Anita Grantham concluded in her findings.

A full 42 percent of employees who responded to the Bamboo survey said they show up solely to be seen by bosses and managers. If bosses think their presence in the office is making any difference to the amount of work getting done, the results indicate that’s not the case.

  • GBU_28
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    19 days ago

    Why’s that? Lots of people DID quit due to this. They knew it was a free way to get reduced headcount without needing to do layoffs, thus avoiding the negative publicity.

    Then they can rehire people for cheaper, with explicit in office / hybrid contract terms

    • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      19 days ago

      They’re referring to the other 3/4 of managers & hr who responded that they didn’t want employees to leave because of return to office policies.

      They, apparently, genuinely believed that rto would have some tangible benefits, or were just trying to make their employees lives harder for a laugh, and didn’t expect it to affect headcount at all.