The Future of Work: 3 Reports Assess In-Office and Telework Effects
While the Trump administration has implemented a return-to-office policy for U.S. federal government employees, private sector organizations are still considering the pros and cons of remote work and hybrid options.
Several larger organizations—including Amazon, Dell, Goldman Sacks, and JPMorgan Chase—have already called on workers to head back to their respective offices in 2025. Others are continuing to embrace hybrid or remote work policies.
Recently, three different studies highlighted some of the benefits and drawbacks when it comes to telework setups. Below are some of the main takeaways.
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
In its Telework: Private Sector Stakeholder and Expert Views report, the private sector and employer stakeholder organizations interviewed indicated that attracting new workers and retaining existing ones was “the greatest benefit of telework.”
In fact, remote and hybrid options not only improved retention, but were also seen as a way to recruit from a broader talent pool because it “can provide employers access to quality workers who would not have been able to take the job otherwise,” according to the report.
Employers generally found that telework could remove not only geographic barriers—allowing access to talent without forcing new workers or the employers to take on the costs of a move—it also offered flexibility to individuals who might otherwise find it difficult to work from a traditional office for the full work week. These types of workers include people with disabilities, caregivers, older workers, and two-career couples, a relationship where each partner has a career.
“For example, one expert said remote work allows military spouses to continue their career despite having to move often for a service member’s assignments,” the report noted.
Other likely benefits identified included cost savings, time savings, increased flexibility, improved mental and physical health, and increased worker productivity.
However, there have been challenges, too. Notably, employers found that telework environments’ greatest challenge was building or maintaining workplace culture.
“Telework can decrease relationship building,” the report said. “…An employer stakeholder agreed telework can make it challenging to ensure workers get to know each other and their managers.”
Other potential challenges included difficulty in tracking work hours and job performance, concerns around data privacy and IT security risks, and an overall struggle with understanding regulatory and tax requirements. The potential pitfalls of hybrid or remote work on workers were also noted, including less time or emphasis on training and mentoring, reduced productivity, and lower promotion rates.
McKinsey
The fourth edition of the American Opportunity Survey looked at Americans’ views on economic opportunity. The survey found that compared to 2022, in 2024 there were slightly fewer U.S. workers operating fully remotely.
“On average, workers go into the office about 30 percent less frequently than they did prior to the pandemic,” according to McKinsey.
The survey found that the majority of workers (54 percent) preferred remote-work scenarios, indicating a potential increase among employers as employee retention comes into play. One top motivation for looking for a new job in 2024 was a flexible-work model, which can include remote work or bringing a child to work.
“Moreover, workers were willing to leave their jobs for more flexible work, with 17 percent of recent quitters leaving in the past year because of changes to their working arrangements,” the survey found. “…Remote work could be used as a tool to attract and retain talent alongside other flexibility offerings (including flexible scheduling or more time off).”
Contrarily, the youngest batch of workers (ages 18 to 25) were the least enthusiastic about remote work.
“Perhaps because they are starting their careers, younger workers may benefit more from the increased support and community building offered by on-site experiences,” the survey added.
Given that workers older than this group indicated a preference for hybrid or remote work experience, this could strain on-site mentorship opportunities unless employers implement a solution.
While remote work is not the answer to all workers’ frustrations, the flexibility and benefits “it offers can make engagement in the labor market more accessible for some people, including caregivers and those with health issues,” McKinsey determined. “…Employers’ successful and customized adoption of flexible work can help them compete in the talent market.”
Harvard Business Review (HBR)
We’re also seeing growing frustrations between employers and workers in scenarios where return to office policies require employees to be back in the office for the entire work week instead of offering a more flexible set up.
HBR looked at Amazon’s return-to-office announcement issued in September 2024, finding that out of more than 2,500 Amazon professionals, 91 percent were dissatisfied with the new policy. This extreme reaction was further emphasized by the 73 percent that said they were thinking about looking for a new job because of being forced to return to the physical workplace.
It might be easy enough to dismiss both sides’ actions and reactions to this scenario as overreactions, but HBR sees a deeper problem possibly at work here (no pun intended).
“The outrage over workplace policies reflects a larger breakdown in the unspoken psychological contract employees thought they had with their organization—and specifically a growing divergence between employers and employees in their understanding of what is fair,” HBR said in its article The Workplace Psychological Contract is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It.
While employers tend to view “fairness” as an abstract concept that is geared toward establishing rules that apply to all employees, employees increasingly see “fairness” as it relates to them personally and in relations, such as the amount of consideration given by an organization in exchange for the work that an employee has contributed.
This means that this break can not only impact employee retention, but also performance.
“Today, if companies want an employee to care, they need to show that the work is worth caring about,” HBR noted. “…Companies must also show that they care about the individual doing the work. The trouble is that different employees and different companies think about caring in very different ways.”
At the end of the day, while there isn’t a right answer to return to office policies or remote work environments that will fit every organization, employers should instead look at their these psychological contracts through a lens of ethics of care.
“Since work arrangements and employee needs vary enormously, a large organization has to form a multitude of very local psychological contracts,” HBR wrote. “This means that many managers will have to engage more closely with their employees than they are used to.”
Organizations will also have to work at creating and supporting these care-based psychological contracts across the board, such as policies and practices that show remote workers that their time and availability is as respected as it would be in-office. The authors also recommend that managers be attentive to personal situations and specific contexts, with organizations increasing transparency around developing policies for the workplace—justifying policies and decisions that impact employees instead of imposing them on the workforce.
