The final fight in the Return To Office war

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings Do you by any chance know somebody who has returned to their office over the past couple of weeks? Or are you perhaps listening to this podcast on a. Commute? If you do, or you are, well, you or your friend are not alone. A number of companies are using September as a chance to kickstart their efforts to return their employees to the office. Now, will it work? That is a whole other question. One thing, though, is becoming clear after several false starts. And now, two and a half years after millions of Canadians began working remotely, the battle over where whitecollar workers spend their days is coming to a head. So how hard are bosses prepared to fight to bring people back? Or maybe after a lot of long, lonely time working from home, our workers finally ready for a nice, long, relaxing podcast listening. Commute. Okay, the last one was a dumb question, but seriously, if companies cannot enforce in person office policies now, will they ever be able to do it again?

I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is the big story. Vanmala Subramaniam is the future of work reporter at the Globe and Mail. That is a relatively new beat. Vanmala.

Vanmala Subramaniam It is a brand new beat this year, in fact.

Jordan I don’t know if it’s possible to quantify this, but if it is, the Future of Work Reporter would be the person to ask, do we actually know what percentage of Canadian workers who were in an office have gone back?

Vanmala Subramaniam That is a very good question, and the answer is we don’t know. So we have a smattering of data here and there from various sources. For example, there’s a foot traffic calculator that’s run by a real estate company called Avison Young. And when you look at that foot traffic calculator, it tells you that when you measure foot traffic in office buildings in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver this July, it was still 54.7% below what it was in early March. Pre-pandemic. So you’re kind of just seeing perhaps 50% or less fewer people kind of commute go in and out of offices. But this data relies on cell phone GPS tracking. It’s not super accurate. I had one response from a company, a big insurer, that told me they’re seeing about 30% of the office stop come back into work. So to answer your question really simply, we don’t know.

Jordan And that data you mentioned is from July, so it won’t even take into account what’s happening this September, which is what I want to talk about. But maybe first, from the workers point of view, do we know what they want to do? I think you wrote last week in the Globe about a new report. What does it tell us?

Vanmala Subramaniam Yeah, so this is a very interesting trend that has happened over the last two and a half years that we will talk about and the trend I speak about is the fact that more and more people who started the Pandemic working from home are becoming increasingly comfortable with working from home and want that to be the indefinite work arrangement. So this report, very detailed report prepared by Toronto Metropolitan University Future Skill Center and a bunch of think tanks, they basically found that the proportion of workers who like working from home a lot better than working in the office increased from 64% in the end of December 2020. So we’re really in the midst of the Pandemic to 78% in March and April of 2022. These don’t seem like big increases, but they are quite significant, especially when you think about who are the people who have changed their minds about working from home. So the report basically shows us that Canadian men are more likely to have become more accustomed to working from home over the Pandemic. And in the beginning of the Pandemic, they were quite reluctant to work from home indefinitely. It was an uncomfortable thing. Women said they preferred it. But remember, schools were closed at that time, so that had given responsibilities. But now it seems that in fact, men prefer, by a small margin, men prefer working from home and want it to continue indefinitely more than women. So it’s a very interesting shift in thinking that has taken place where overall, more people who can work from home just want this to be the status quo.

Jordan That’s really interesting. And I got to admit, to me, it’s a little bit counterintuitive. I would have counted myself in that bucket a long time ago of never wanting to go back. And I’m still I’ll be honest with everybody, I am recording this in a little studio in my basement, so I’ve not gone back. But now that my daughter is vaccinated and I feel a little safer going out in public and crowded spaces, I have enjoyed the times that I’ve gone back to the office and I’m doing it more frequently, it really surprises me to hear the trend line is going in the other direction.

Vanmala Subramaniam Yeah, I mean, it is really interesting. And I think this was the thing about trying to make predictions in the phase of the Pandemic where public health restrictions were still very present and they kept changing and people tried to determine, employers tried to determine when they should bring workers back into the office. And then you would have another wave of covet. Workers wouldn’t come back in. Things kept changing, so no one could kind of figure out who wants what. Right now we’re in a situation where in all parts of the country, actually, and in probably all parts of America, most parts of Western Europe, there are no health restrictions or even masking mandates and just gathering restrictions. Right. And so employers are now able to make very clear decisions on what they want their employees to do in terms of working from the office. And I think because the risk of the virus is reduced, because we have things like vaccinations and the number of infections are not that high, we have some sort of immunity from it, people are more comfortable also thinking very clearly about what they want their life to look like right now. There’s less uncertainty here. So you’re seeing sort of a settling in of, hey, yeah, I think I prefer flexibility. I think I prefer staying at home more days. And I hope my employer will kind of go along with this in a moment.

Jordan I want to get into that dynamic of like, having settled into it versus another big lifestyle change in terms of going back to the office. But first, I know there’s some mental health data that is in that report, and there’s been a lot of concern, and I will say here concern that I’ve mostly seen expressed by employers about isolation at home and not seeing people for a few days or longer being really bad for workers mental health. What do the workers say about that?

Vanmala Subramaniam So I found the data from this report very interesting and even surprising when it comes to mental health. So basically, they pulled people of different age groups and asked them how they feel working from home. Are they anxious? Are they depressed? Are they lonely compared to working at their regular place of work? And what they found was that remote workers were no more likely to feel anxious or lonely compared to those who have been working at the irregular place of work. In fact, overall, the office kind of concluded that employees who continued coming into the irregular place of work tended to report poor mental health. When you break down that data, Jordan, it’s even more interesting because in the subset of those aged between 18 and 29, there was a massive difference between the mental health of those who worked from home and those who didn’t. And those who worked in the office reported a higher likelihood of feeling anxious, lonely and depressed. So all this to say that we had this understanding, I think it was a prevailing notion, that working from home made us lonely and made us and it felt very isolating during the pandemic. But it appears that that has also changed and people are now reporting that their mental health is in poorer shape when they commute in and they go to the office. It’s not a huge percentage difference, but there has been a change, and it’s worth noting.

Jordan That’s really interesting data. And I mean, the question it obviously leads me to ask if employees are getting more comfortable working from home and their mental health working from home is improving and this is becoming more pronounced. How much time is there left for employers who want their employees back in the office to change that mindset? We wanted to chat with you right now because it kind of feels like this September schools back to normal. As you pointed out, restrictions everywhere, basically gone. This kind of feels like the crapper, get off the pot moment for the return to office. Is that accurate?

Vanmala Subramaniam I think that’s absolutely accurate. And I have seen that and heard that because I’ve been in conversations with many chief human resource offices of major companies, and there is definitely a consensus, I mean, just look at the banks that they want more employees to be back in the office. They are still figuring out what that ratio is going to look like between the number of days you work from home and the number of days you’re in the office. Some offices, remember, have actually made major physical changes to the office space, so they cannot actually accommodate 100% of people in the office. So the five days a week thing is not going to work. But there is a push and also silent pressure from managers. This is according to workers that I have spoken to, to be back in the office a few times a week, at least two times a week. A lot of these companies, the banks, the insurers, it’s two to three times a week seems to be where they’ve kind of settled on. And it is something that has changed because I don’t think when we were still in the midst of the pandemic and there were still waves, I mean, there’s still waves now, they’re just not as severe and we’re not doing much about them. Exactly. That’s more of the point. But when there were still public health restrictions, there was almost a justification for employees to be, hey, look, I can’t come back in. It’s a risk for me. But now there really isn’t in a way. And if your employer mandates, and I’ve seen a lot of mandates, which is kind of we want you back, not we are giving you a choice, it’s not voluntary. That happened with RBC recently. Most of the big banks have adopted that and it is kind of the pendulum has swung in a certain direction. How far that will go remains to be seen. But for sure you’re seeing more people returning to the office right now.

Jordan And if you can’t get them back in right now as an employer, you’re probably never getting them back. Right?

Vanmala Subramaniam Absolutely. I think, and we talked about this the last time, I think, Jordan. But the tight labor market, the fact that unemployment rate, the unemployment rate in Canada is still pretty low and job vacancies are still pretty high, meaning that people are able to get jobs, switch jobs. There are jobs available. That factor is almost a problem for employers who really want employees back in the office a lot because they have to balance that want with the fact that what if they lose talent? Right? And I think that’s what a lot of these human resources officers are discussing amongst themselves, like, how far are they willing to go. Some of them are just pushing it. They’re testing it out. I read a story in the Wall Street Journal about a company in the US. That was happy getting rid of hundreds of workers or having them quit because they wanted workers back into the office all the time. So in that case, that was a very clear calculation made. But in a lot of industries, especially when you have talent that has a very specific skill set that is hard to find, you have to maybe give that employee flexibility, but then you also want to make sure your workplace is equitable. So that all these issues kind of being discussed right now.

Jordan How do employers and you mention you’re talking to HR professionals, how do they balance that sort of carrot and the stick approach, right? I’ve seen a number of stories and these seem more months ago than recently. Maybe now it’s more of the stick, but we’re adding new lunch options or we’ve got free coffee or lord knows what else, but like things that are trying to entice people to come back and be communal at the office. And then there’s the like, listen, you’re coming back or you’re leaving. How do you make sure you can keep workers who are going to stay engaged and not turn this into like an adversarial push and pull?

Vanmala Subramaniam I actually think it’s very tough and it depends on industry. So what I’ve seen amongst big white collar employers over the course of the pandemic and this fits into it enticing employees back into the office of staying in their jobs if they’re offering better benefits. So benefit packages, by that I mean just a bigger amount of money for mental health treatment or fertility benefits that they never used to introduce. And these are little things employers are doing because when they force people back into the office, they want their workers to think about, hey, if I leave this place, what am I really leaving? I’m leaving a better pension plan. I’m leaving fertility benefits, just a better benefits package in general. So that’s one thing. I’ve seen the lunch thing. It is something that is pretty common and I’ve seen a couple of workplaces do that. Coffee in the morning. We’ll cover it. You know what’s interesting? The New York Times started doing that to their employees. They have now provided branded lunch boxes, so fancy food for lunch for employees in an attempt to entice them back. But I think one of the things that employers might want to think about is that the benefit of being able to take breaks on your own pace, in your own way, where you can go for a walk, you can pick up your child from class. You can just do something in the middle of the day which you’re entitled to during your lunch break that they cannot replace that. So you can’t do that in an office. You’re sitting there and your options are limited in terms of what you do on your break. And I think that is a big reason. And I’m speaking now anecdotally when I see comments about this, when I get reader feedback on my articles, I always see this being the thing that is holding employees back to full return to the office. They want to be able to just plan out the day the way they want and also get their work done.

Jordan You touched on this a little bit, but maybe let’s talk a little bit more about that pendulum swinging. How much more empowered our workers after two years of this, after to the point that the report raises, after getting so much more comfortable working from home, they’ve probably set up their offices and they’ve got a routine that works for them. And I know that internet trend pieces are dangerous to make conclusions from, but when everybody’s talking about quiet quitting and I know that’s a dumb term, but just disengaging from your job, that must be unnerving. Some managers who are used to having a lot more control over the people who work for them.

Vanmala Subramaniam I think it’s a very interesting situation we’re in right now with the labor movement. And I would say that workers are much more empowered right now than they were two years ago. I think it depends how you want to measure being empowered. But just the notion that employers are still trying to get employees back into the office when they could really just say, hey, come back in as a mandate or you risk losing your job and they’re not doing that just that very fact makes you think that workers are more empowered. Having said that, there is a silent pressure. I mean, workers are feeling some sort of guilt when they work from home and when their colleagues at work. That is kind of creeping back into how you think about work and it remains to be seen how that will play out. But one of the other interesting trends that’s taking place that speaks to how empowered workers are is amongst unionized workers in Canada, and that’s about 30% of the labor force. So not big, but much bigger than it is in the states. Unions are weighing into this debate and they’re almost taking a side on it where they’re saying, we want to entrench remote working clauses into collective agreements. And if that happens widely, if that happens to many kinds of workers who can work from home, that will completely change the game because that will mean that this debate for unionized workers over whether to come into the office or not is now entrenched. They have a choice. Unions are pushing for them, for workers to be able to have that choice and not employers. So I think the very fact that unions are doing this, the fact that workers are still reluctant and some of them are saying to me that yes, I was asked to come back twice a week. I’m trying to do it once a week, and then I’m going to see if someone notices. If someone notices, swear I’ll come back. All of these things make me think that workers are much more empowered than they were two years ago and all of this stuff taken altogether.

Jordan Is there a way that you can look at all of this and determine that management will never get employees back to the office unless they simply make them want to come, whether that’s perks or bonuses or just not pressuring them until they get bored at home and they feel like they’re missing out? It really feels that the mandates, unless we’re talking about really big money jobs that people can’t afford to lose, will just force people to look elsewhere.

Vanmala Subramaniam I do agree with you, Jordan. I think that this is a big struggle for employers and HR executives, even people who research human resources management about how to get employees back into the office, because it is a struggle. And one of the best examples of that was that the test that many of the large banks, insurers white collar employers in Canada gave employees this summer, where they said a lot of them said it’s voluntary for you to come back into the office because they wanted to gauge who wants to come back into the office. And a lot of them found that just very few people want to do it. So the fact that they didn’t respond to the voluntary asked and then the mandates come in makes you think that this is just going to be a bit of tug of war between employers and employees for a while. I think obviously, if we enter a recession and that recession affects white collar workers, which is what some economists are predicting, then the pendulum will shift, the calculation shifts, and employers possibly have more leverage at that time to say, hey, you got to come back, and this is what we want. But employers have perhaps some of them have realized that they can actually get a lot of cost savings out of this in terms of real estate space. I know we’ve talked about this before, and they might want to make that permanent. So I think it depends. It’s still something in flux.

Jordan What will you be watching for in the next few months to determine which way, again that pendulum is swinging? And do you think that by the new year we’ll kind of have a conclusion on where we’re going to end up on this?

Vanmala Subramaniam Yeah, so I’m watching for a couple of things, Jordan. One of the big things I’m watching for is when flu season starts, what our work is going to do, because Corvette has not gone away, people will still get sick. There’s going to be waves of this, and that’s going to take place in the fall and the winter. And I wonder if that is going to set employers back again in getting a mass or core number of people back into the office. The other thing I’m watching for, as I mentioned earlier, is the recession or the potential of a recession. If we see the economy slow down, if the unemployment rate starts going up, if there’s anxiety amongst workers, because sometimes just the talk of a recession, it’s almost a self fulfilling prophecy, people get anxious about it. If that takes place, I think workers are going to do what they’re being asked for by the employees more than they are right now. So those two things I’m kind of keeping an eye on. The virus will be interesting. I mean, if there’s some kind of flare up all of this, we go back to square one.

Jordan I really do hope that that’s not the case, but, yeah, it’s going to be interesting venuea. Thank you so much for this. As always, a fascinating conversation.

Vanmala Subramaniam Thank you for having me. Jordan Vanmala Subramaniam the Future of work reporter at the Globe and Mail. A good time to be on an important beat.

That was The Big Story. For more, head to thebestorypodcast CA. You can find our previous conversation with Van Mala right there. You can also follow us on Twitter at thebigstoryfpn. You can email us your feedback at helloathebigstorypodcast CA. Or you can scream it to us on a voicemail by calling 416-935-5935. I want to send a huge thank you out to all of you who participated in our listener survey. We had about 500 responses, which is amazing. We are going through the data right now and we will give you guys a look at some of it too. Once we’re done, you can find The Big Story and your favourite podcast player. You can like, you can rate, you can review, you can subscribe, you can follow, you can do whatever do with the podcasts that you value most. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.