More than 79% of employees now use performative tactics to show they’re working
BambooHR, the leading cloud-based human resource platform, released a new study on the state of Return To Office (RTO) sentiment, showing that nearly one in three (32%) managers admit the main goal for RTO policies was to track employees. One in four (25%) VP and C-suite executives and one in five (18%) HR pros admit they hoped for some voluntary turnover during an RTO. Now, both remote (88%) and in-office (79%) employees feel the need to prove they are online and working.
“The conversation around work modes is one of the most important things to address and get clear on as a business. It often gets reduced to just RTO, but it’s actually a much bigger conversation around how teams best work together and is a leader-led initiative,” said Anita Grantham, Head of HR at BambooHR. “RTO is one of many different work modes, and if a change in work modes is needed, it’s important to handle the transition thoughtfully. Any hasty change to an employee’s work mode can leave your company culture in a precarious situation where employees are not unified, management teams are seen as overlords, and employee satisfaction will continue to nose dive.”
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Performative Cultures and The Green Status Effect
Hybrid work and RTO mandates have unexpected consequences that have office culture shifting to performative tactics where just under half (42%) of all employees feel they’re showing up solely for the purpose of being seen by their bosses and managers. Employees are adopting various strategies to put on a show, whether working remotely or on-site. Here’s how they ensure their efforts are visible:
- In-office
- 37% walk around the office so coworkers see them.
- 35% plan meetings with other coworkers who are also in the office.
- 33% show up earlier or leave later than their manager.
- Remote
- 39% participate in social conversations in work messaging apps.
- 31% schedule-send emails.
- 64% of remote workers admit to keeping work messaging apps perpetually open, displaying a green “active” status to imply they’re online and actively engaged in work, even when they may not be actively working.
- While all workers are taking steps to demonstrate productivity, it’s among remote employees that the “Green Status Effect” has emerged.
Management’s Not-So-Noble Efforts
Many leaders are using RTO as a tactic to increase productivity in employees or even prod employees to quit, leaving HR teams (22%) without clear metrics to measure a successful RTO. It’s clear these efforts are not producing the desired results.
- Efforts:
- Nearly two in five (37%) managers, directors, and executives believe their organization enacted layoffs in the last year because fewer employees quit than they expected during their RTO.
- Nearly a third (32%) of managers admit the desire to track employee work was a main goal for their company’s RTO.
- Nearly half of managers say that the main goal of their company’s RTO was improving company culture (46%).
- Results:
- Workers (both in-office and remote) only work for around three-quarters (76%) of a 9-to-5 shift; the other quarter is spent socializing, procrastinating, or doing non-work-related tasks. Put simply, all workers typically spend 2 hours out of every 8-hour shift not working.
- When it comes to who’s more productive overall, in-office workers spend around one hour more socializing than their remote counterparts, while remote workers spend that time on work-related tasks and responsibilities.
- Since having an RTO mandate, more than a fourth (26%) say a greater divide has developed between remote and non-remote workers.
“The distrusting and performative cultures some companies are cultivating are harmful to bottom-line growth and it’s becoming more clear that leaders should take each employee’s experience into account,” Grantham said. “It’s okay to have broad RTO policies but when 61% of parents and caretakers who prefer remote work say it’s because it allows them to fulfill their family responsibilities (vs. 38% non-caretakers) and 63% of workers with disabilities prefer remote work (vs. 51% of non-disabled workers), individual exceptions make sense. We’re striving for a balance between the needs of the organization and the needs of the humans we work with.”
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