Having just been appointed head of the mysterious Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk fully intends to cut the number of civil servants. Among the strategies he intends to employ, we find the forced return to the office of teleworking employees with a view to pushing them to resign. However, it is one of the worst ideas ever if we rely on a study conducted by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh.
A talent drain
To see more clearly, scientists gathered data from 57 American companies belonging to the S&P 500 (the 500 largest companies listed on the stock exchange). They then scrutinized 3 million LinkedIn profiles to see who left these companies following the measures forcing a return to site.
In detail, we note a 14% increase in the starting rate, which should not displease Elon Musk. In contrast, the people leaving these companies the most are much more likely to be middle to senior managers and people who have listed the most skills on their profiles.
The authors rightly explain that the latter have many more opportunities than other employees and that they will therefore not hesitate to look elsewhere if a choice put in place by their hierarchy displeases them.
This results in a loss of talent for these organizations and a huge waste of time recruiting new profiles. In some cases, they are not even able to replace these positions, which can clearly hamper activity.
Additional figures
This is not the first time that the limits of these forced returns to the office have been demonstrated. Thus, analysts from the startup Scoop analyzed data from the Flex Index, an analysis which compiles information such as a company’s remote work policies and its turnover between 2020 and 2022.
And precisely, companies that allow their employees to freely choose their workplace or which are entirely remote have achieved a growth in their turnover of 21%. Conversely, those that require their teams to come to the office on certain days of the week achieve growth of only 5%. Tolerance and a spirit of trust towards employees therefore seem to encourage them. To find out more about this research, click here.
Are you surprised by the results of these two studies? Tell us in the comments.
