Are The Return-To-Office Mandates Generating More Unity In Offices?

In the ongoing discussions around Return-To-Office Mandates, there have been several perspectives that have been coming out which I've been writing extensively on.

As I've been researching this topic, and getting data, I have been finding there are a few reasons that Executives are beginning to make demands to return.

• Productivity
• Serendipity of Ideas
• Well-being

Now, I recently wrote an article about how these reasons are all based on Idealism as opposed to Reality.

Now, Gallup has produced some interesting new data that we should look at.

What We Should See In The Data

For the highest levels of Productivity, the highest levels of "Serendipity", and the greatest levels of Well-being, there are some factors that play heavily into making these work.

For instance, one major factor is how Unified your employees are.

The more Unified they are, the more likely you will be to get these types of results.

However, the less Unified they are, it quickly becomes less and less likely.

So, how do you measure Unity in an organization?

The classic measurement of this has been how connected employees are to the Mission and Purpose of the company.

When people feel like their job is important, they become more Productive.

When they feel connected to the Mission and Purpose, they are more likely to truly interact and have "Serendipitous" ideas.

When they are united with something larger than themselves, their Well-Being will increase.

So, if Executives' ideas about being in the office are correct, and that returning will improve all of these things, there should be a specific trend we see in the data.

First, as the Pandemic began, people should have felt less connected due to being forced to stay at home away from the office.

Then, as things began to fully reopen, sometime in 2021, we should have seen an increase in feeling connected to Mission and Purpose as employees were able to come back.

But is this what the data shows?

Not at all.

The Reality The Data Reveals

The data has shown almost the exact opposite!

Between 2019 and 2021, employees almost had no changes in how they felt connected to the Mission and Purpose.

However, that changed between 2021 and 2022.

Hybrid and On-Site employees both dropped 7% as they returned to their offices, and exclusively remote employees only dropped 4%.

Now, that may not "seem" like a lot, but Hybrid workers were only at 43% connected in 2021, while On-Site were only at 39%.

This means that after the drop from returning to offices, only 1/3 of employees today feel engaged at all while at the office.

This also hasn't improved since 2022 as more people are being demanded to come back to the office.

This is bad for Leaders.

What It Further Means

For employees who are in the office, it means 2/3 are disengaged or WORSE (meaning they are actively working against the efforts of the company).

When you look at this from a scientific perspective, there is this concept of Coherence.

The more people who are disengaged, the more likely that they will pull others into that disengagement with them (which is a property of Neurocardiology).

This means that the return to offices is making people feel LESS connected than they did when they WEREN'T in office!

This will negatively impact all of the things that Executives hope to attain.

All because REALITY doesn't match the Idealism they have.

What is worse is that Leaders have failed to find ways to increase engagement with Hybrid and Remote employees.

To me, looking at this data, this is what is revealed:

• Being In Offices (Currently) Only Decreases Unity
• Return-To-Office Mandates ONLY Hurt Remote Employees
• Leaders Have Failed To Adapt Or Improve

None of this is surprising though.

The demands to Return-To-Office, despite the increasing and obvious data that it is negatively impacting organizations, all point to Leadership failure.

Instead of becoming better, most Leaders have shown that they are incompetent.

Employees now see this more clearly, and their confidence in Leaders has not been restored.

When Leaders SHOULD be working to improve their ability to Lead, instead they are opting to move back to a comfort zone.