RTO or WFH? 6 leaders weigh in on what works best

January 18, 2024 5:30 AM

After years of successfully and productively working from home, employees now live in fear of return-to-office mandates. Will the battle between RTO and WFH ever end?

In 2023, only 22% of employees wanted to work full-time from the office, according to a recent report from tech company Owl Labs. And yet, 66% of professionals are now required to do so. Which begs the question: How are leaders actually making their policies?

"[Return-to-work mandates] are still being debated pretty extensively — both in workplaces and in the media," says Scott Cawood, CEO of WorldatWork. "The debate has settled into two camps: one that favors RTO at any cost, and one that has been attempting to permanently integrate hybrid and remote work into its model."

Some of the biggest arguments in favor of a return-to-work policy are controlling the direct and indirect absenteeism costs and reducing lost productivity. For employees, it comes down to collaboration or loneliness, with more than a third of employees who work remotely saying the setup makes them feel isolated and lonely. However, flexibility remains a top priority for employees: 51% of working professionals favor a fully remote job and 46% prefer a hybrid job, according to FlexJobs data.

Concerns about remote work and productivity may be unfounded. A study by Standford University found that working from home actually increased productivity by 13%. Still, 90% of companies plan to implement return-to-office policies by the end of 2024, according to Resume Builder, and if employees don't comply, nearly 30% say their company is prepared to threaten termination.

"Immediately after the pandemic, leaders were cautious to enforce mandates too quickly for a few different reasons," says Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Owl Labs. "However, this quickly turned into forced RTO rules from bigger companies such as Amazon and Disney. But what supervisors then quickly found out, was that people weren't as willing to work at a company that required them go into the office full-time [and] many employees would still make sacrifices to achieve flexibility in where they work."

Weishaupt, Cawood and other business leaders share their organization's approach to work — as well as their personal pros and cons of how their set-up is affecting their workforce.

Owl Labs: Hybrid work

Pros: A happy, productive workforce in response to the flexibility provided to their workloads, their schedules, working styles and comfort levels.
Cons: None.

Even before the pandemic, Owl Labs prided itself on having a hybrid set-up that prioritized flexibility, with at least 40% of the company working remotely at any given time.

"This wasn't new territory for us," says Weishaupt. "I sign every offer letter and many new hires have not been located near our Boston HQ. It was a no-brainer to allow our employees to continue working in a hybrid model post-pandemic. My priority is that Owl Labs employees feel supported and respected so that we can be as efficient as possible."

Owl Labs has maintained their in-person headquarters in Boston, but still allows local employees to choose which days they would like to be in the office or if they would like to come in at all, according to Weishaupt. To accommodate for both remote and in-person employees, the office has fully outfitted conference rooms and open spaces with hybrid technology, including their Meeting Owl and Owl Bar — cameras and sound systems specifically designed for hybrid settings — as well as solo telephone booths when people want to take calls privately or do deep work without interruptions.

Giftpack: Remote work

Pros: Increased flexibility and work-life balance for employees.
Cons: A sense of detachment and disconnect among workers.

Software company Giftpack has been a remote-only company since before the pandemic, with no immediate plans to switch to an in-person or even a hybrid setting any time soon.

"Our employees love working remotely," says Archer Chiang, CEO and founder of Giftpack. "They appreciate the impact remote work has on balancing their professional and personal lives. We've found they're able to get the work done working from home, so it makes sense for our business to remain remote."

Because Giftpack doesn't have a physical office, the company offers a global relocation program on a case-by-case basis. If an employee wishes to relocate, Giftpack provides visa assistance and handles all arrangements, contingent upon a valid reason for the desired location. And while remote employees can fell disconnected from one another, Giftpack uses technologies like AI to complement, not replace, human involvement.

Krepling: Remote work

Pros: Access to global talent.
Cons: Virtual collaboration (across time zones) creates obstacles.

Software company Krepling has been completely remote since its inception in 2020. And while its co-founder and CEO, Liam Gerada, certainly understands the perks of a return-to-work mandate, they don't outweigh the benefits of staying remote.

"Startups like Krepling are never going to beat the perks that bigger businesses are offering in exchange for a return to in-office," he says. "We use remote work as a way to attract those employees who don't want to go to the office and use our remote culture as more of a positive spin on the workforce."

Krepling does have a physical headquarter office space in Tennessee, but they treat it as a completely optional space for the occasional gathering or for their international employees who may be looking for a change of scenery.

WorldatWork: Remote work

Pros: The opportunity to collaborate across regions.
Cons: Finding an appropriate meeting cadence took some extra effort.

Unlike other companies currently choosing a remote working style, WorldatWork has an extensive in-person history. In 2019, 81% of the team worked in the company's headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, with work-from-home options available, while only 19% of the staff being fully remote.

During the pandemic, the company moved to a remote-first approach,closing an office in Washington, D.C., keeping the Scottsdale location and opening an office for their team based in India. Teams in both locations are welcome to work from the physical office, but WorldatWork continues to identify as a fully remote company.

"The biggest thing to weigh was management's general preference for — or familiarity with — a fully in-person workplace," says CEO Cawood. "There was obviously going to be a learning curve in terms of how to negotiate this brave new world, and we had to take the adjustment into account."

ZipRecruiter: Hybrid work

Pros: Increased productivity.
Cons: None.

The team over at job search platform ZipRecruiter weighed their options post-pandemic and evaluated both what they were hearing internally and from the employees and employers they work with. From that feedback, they decided to keep a hybrid approach.

"We have the best of all worlds," says Julia Pollak ZipRecruiter's chief economist. "We were early to send people home at the beginning of the pandemic and we confronted the remote work challenge head on. We decided to use technology immediately to make collaboration better than before and it accelerated our work. Since then, we've kind of been extremely flexible and allowed people to work from wherever."

ZipRecruiter still has open offices that employees are welcome to use for collaborative purposes. ZipRecruiter incentivizes those in-person interactions with fun things such as catered lunches in the office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but there are no plans of making employee presence mandatory.

Flex HR: Remote work

Pros: Heightened happiness.
Cons: Occasional loneliness.

Currently, Flex HR is 100% remote, according to their director of Marketing, Jamie Sieja. However, the company has a team in placeto make any transition back to office seamless and engaging, both for those who currently wish to use the office space and for future gatherings and meetings.

Various teams throughout the organization meet over Teams or Zoom at least once a week to discuss relevant topics or activities they're working on. Bi-weekly, every team has a required office wide "coffee break meeting" over Zoom to celebrate personal and team wins, recognizing one another, and reviewing how the company is doing overall.

The leaders helping transitioning employees plan an activity each quarter which have included trivia, fitness challenges, bingo and desk yoga to engage employees.

"Our employees really adapted to work-from-home conditions well," Sieja says. "Now, when we ever do return to the office or get together offsite, the company morale is so much more enhanced and valued."