Articles

TASA ID: 22108

They say remote and hybrid work is bad for employee mental well-being and leads to a sense of social isolation, meaninglessness, and lack of work/life boundaries. We should just all go back to office-centric work - or so claim many traditionalist business leaders and gurus. For example, Malcolm Gladwell said that there is a “core psychological truth, which is we want you to have a feeling of belonging and to feel necessary… I know it’s a hassle to come into the office, but if you’re just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live?”

TASA ID: 22108

Given the extensive headlines about Amazon, Disney, and Starbucks ordering employees back to the office, you might think that the back-to-office return is inevitable. Yet do such headlines represent the reality of a new wave, or are they just clickbait for anxious workers who want to avoid the threat of a forced office return?

TASA ID: 22108

Angry and dismayed Amazon employees are pushing back against the recently-announced return to office policy by the Amazon leadership. Amazon's policy joins other high-profile companies such as Disney, Starbucks, Tesla, Google, and others that are forcing employees back to the office.

Some are claiming they need to do so for the sake of productivity. For example, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, claimed that those working remotely only "pretend to work" and are "phoning it in." Others say you need to be in the office to innovate: Disney's CEO Bob Iger demanded the return to the office because "nothing can replace the ability to connect, observe, and create with peers that comes from being physically together."

TASA ID: 22108

One of the biggest challenges for companies in transitioning to remote work is how to handle layoffs. Having helped 21 companies transition to hybrid and remote work, I can attest that planning for the whole workers lifecycle, from onboarding to offboarding, is critical as part of effective remote and hybrid work strategies. 

TASA ID: 22108

If you give any leader the opportunity to increase their talent pool of potential employees by 15% - with all these new hires belonging to an underrepresented minority - they’d jump at the chance, especially given tight labor markets and CEO desires to increase headcount. Yet too few leaders realize that, according to the US government, people with disabilities are the largest minority group in this country, with 50 million - 15% of the population - living with disabilities.

Sure, many executives feel concerned by the extra investments involved in providing accommodations for people with disabilities. Yet these accommodations might not involve anything besides full-time remote work, according to a new study by the Economic Innovation Group think tank. The study found that the employment rate for people with disabilities did not simply reach the pre-pandemic level by mid-2022, but rose far past it, to the highest rate in over a decade. Remote work, combined with a tight labor market, explain this high rate, according to the researcher’s analysis.