Tech CEOs have spent the last two years forcing workers back into the office—but now, research shows they've given up in the tug-of-war battle on working from home.
  • Tech CEOs have been trying to force workers back into the office for the past two years, often threatening layoffs.
  • However, a new study shows that tech bosses are now backing down from their demands.
  • Only 3% of tech companies now require workers to be in the office full-time, down from 8% last year.
  • The study, conducted by Flex Index, analyzed the flexible work policies of 2,670 tech companies employing over 11 million people.
  • The number of fully flexible tech firms has increased from 75% in 2023 to 79% this year.
  • The most popular policy among tech firms is now the “employee’s choice” model, where employees can choose when and where they work.
  • This model is now used by 56% of tech firms, up from 38% in 2023.
  • Only 18% of firms now dictate which days their workers need to work from the office.
  • Despite tech companies being well-positioned to work from home, many CEOs have flip-flopped on their remote work policies.
  • In 2020, companies like Meta, Twitter, and Shopify announced they would leverage remote work, but many have since backtracked on those promises.
  • A survey of US CEOs by KPMG found that only one-third expect a full return to the office in the next three years, down from 62% last year.
  • Resistance from workers has been cited as a reason for the change in CEO attitudes towards remote work.
  • Amazon is an example of how contentious the RTO battle can be, with around 30,000 employees signing a petition against the company’s in-office mandate.
  • Dropbox co-founder and CEO Drew Houston summed up the situation, saying that CEOs keep hitting the “go-back-to-2019” button, but it’s not working.
  • @[email protected]English
    20•5 months ago

    It’s wild that Amazon wants RTO so bad when they’re famous for a philosophy of not letting teams talk to each other directly, and instead forcing every team to publish APIs for their services that other teams can consume.

    I mean, sure you could still be collaborating internally with your team but they seem ideally suited to take advantage of remote work.

    My guess is that for a lot of big tech companies, half the RTO push was just because they didn’t want to have to look like they overspent so much on super fancy lavish offices now that everyone was suddenly happier at home.