Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Businesses

Companies Issuing RTO Mandates 'Lose Their Best Talent': Study (arstechnica.com) 59

Posted by BeauHD from the actions-have-consequences dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Return-to-office (RTO) mandates have caused companies to lose some of their best workers, a study tracking over 3 million workers at 54 "high-tech and financial" firms at the S&P 500 index has found. These companies also have greater challenges finding new talent, the report concluded. The paper, Return-to-Office Mandates and Brain Drain [PDF], comes from researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Baylor University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. The study, which was published in November, spotted this month by human resources (HR) publication HR Dive, and cites Ars Technica reporting, was conducted by collecting information on RTO announcements and sourcing data from LinkedIn.

The researchers said they only examined companies with data available for at least two quarters before and after they issued RTO mandates. The researchers explained: "To collect employee turnover data, we follow prior literature ... and obtain the employment history information of over 3 million employees of the 54 RTO firms from Revelio Labs, a leading data provider that extracts information from employee LinkedIn profiles. We manually identify employees who left a firm during each period, then calculate the firm's turnover rate by dividing the number of departing employees by the total employee headcount at the beginning of the period. We also obtain information about employees' gender, seniority, and the number of skills listed on their individual LinkedIn profiles, which serves as a proxy for employees' skill level."

There are limits to the study, however. The researchers noted that the study "cannot draw causal inferences based on our setting." Further, smaller firms and firms outside of the high-tech and financial industries may show different results. Although not mentioned in the report, relying on data from a social media platform could also yield inaccuracies, and the number of skills listed on a LinkedIn profile may not accurately depict a worker's skill level. [...] The researchers concluded that the average turnover rates for firms increased by 14 percent after issuing return-to-office policies. "We expect the effect of RTO mandates on employee turnover to be even higher for other firms" the paper says.

Companies Issuing RTO Mandates 'Lose Their Best Talent': Study More | Reply

Companies Issuing RTO Mandates 'Lose Their Best Talent': Study

Comments Filter:

  • The hype cycle is a flat circle (Score:4, Insightful)

    by locater16 ( 2326718 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @05:04PM (#65020601)
    Need talent to make money, jack up salaries and perks and anything else you can to compete for talent. Make money off talent, but need higher stock price. Cut perks, salaries, fire people, make work insufferable, stock price goes up. Don't have any talent now, revenue goes down, stock price goes down. Need talent to make money...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dan667 ( 564390 )
      but then you have trashed your rep and nobody with talent will come work for you. I get constant interview requests by amazon who even before the RTO mandate is known to be a meat grinder. And also facebook who very publicly screw over their employees among others. I laugh every time I get them.

  • ...the only people who will come to work are the impostor syndrome ones.

    The knowledgeable ones, those who share, those who work, those you can count on, those who DO instead of WATCH... they're applying elsewhere.

    Go for it, Musk, Bezos, Trump, and other obscenely rich idiots. MAKE US COME BACK TO THE OFFICE and watch what losers you end up with.

    In school we're judged based on our exam grades.
    In work we're judged based on our work product.

    It takes a REALLY STUPID IDIOT to suggest that we must be in the same

    • How do you know that?
        • Except the government is different in some aspect. Their best are working on classified systems and it is unlikely they have been working from home; the other is the government still has a pension and like that report mentions the best are more older people and they are more likely to stick around for the pension and other retirement benefits.
          On the otherside if DOGE does push for and get cutting of slots they are going to be the first to leave.

          • Their best are working on classified systems and it is unlikely they have been working from home

            Some take a pile of classified material home then and leave the folders lying around where anyone can see them. Having said that I don't think they'd qualify as "the best".

          • "Government" really depends on what, specifically, you are actually talking about.

            Do you mean government employees, or contractors? Do you mean with, or without a security clearance? All of these things substantially affect what you get paid, and how onerous the terms of employment are. And in the larger picture of "government" employees, do you mean federal, state, county, or local positions? I think it's clear we're talking about federal here, but I just wanted to throw some more complexity which exists i

        • Pray tell which study that is and do explain how the statistics prove that those working from home work nonstop.
            • From the source âoeThere are limits to the study, however. The researchers noted that the study "cannot draw causal inferences based on our setting." Further, smaller firms and firms outside of the high-tech and financial industries may show different results. Although not mentioned in the report, relying on data from a social media platform could also yield inaccuracies, and the number of skills listed on a LinkedIn profile may not accurately depict a worker's skill level.â Thatâ(TM)s my po

              • One study doesn't itself prove anything. But it's also the conventional wisdom. Also, there are lots of reasons why an employee might consider moving on, but unless they are a low performer you definitely want to dissuade them from doing it for any reason really since you inevitably lose institutional knowledge that way. Only when you have the most interchangeable cogs do you not care if you have turnover.

        • Perhaps he read the study

          No. If he had read the study he would have known that "best talent" means some one who has a linked in profile and creates a long list of skills, ie everything they ever touched however briefly and shallowly. That latter is for recent grads desperate to differentiate from other recent grads. Hoping their elective class choices better fit the job than the other candidates.

          Actual highly skilled workers severely prune that list, listing as only things they'd consider using again. Dropping crap they never wa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )
      Seen it first hand where a company wanted to make major employment condition changes so they disestablished all dev jobs and made people apply for their own job with poorer conditions. Those who did not apply got a decent severance package. The people who were confident in their skills and marketability took the money. The less skilled workers agreed to the new conditions. A great way to lose your best talent. I took the money and used to move to a city with better employment opportunities.

      This RTO

    • Or rather, the only people who will come to the office are those who want to and those who could not find another, remote-only job.

  • Like we told them. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @05:22PM (#65020655)
    By making me go back to the office I lose 2 hours a day from my life. They are not paying me for those 2 hours. So effectively it is a pay cut. Fortunately my employer realized saving $30K a month on rent gives us a significant competitive edge.
  • My MSlinkedIn profile is at least a couple years out of date, so the skills won't be accurate.

  • Losing Best Talent = Losing Largest Salaries (Score:3)

    by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @06:01PM (#65020789)

    And we all know that losing the largest salaries is the bast way to show the investors that you're focusing on the near-term profits. This is what is known in modern business as a win. There can be no negative consequences for a win. Who cares if you've damaged the company for the future. The future doesn't exist on the spreadsheets that show next quarter's profits. WOO HOO! CAPITALISM!

    For the best talent though? It really is a win. They get to move on to a company that will value them today. Sure, that new place will cease to value them in a few years when they're looking to cut costs for near-term profits, but the talent can move on again. Let short-term focused companies flounder as they will. They deserve what's coming to them.

    • A law requiring Directors to always maximize shareholder value over all other concerns is not a function of capitalism, that's socialism.

      Shareholder lawsuits should be abolished. Selling the shares or ballot questions should be your only recourse short of fraud.

      That's what you're looking for and it's much less government control of the economy.

      • I fail to see how maximizing shareholder value in any way shape or form has anything to do with the workers owning or controlling the means of production.

        Sounds like you're using the "Government doing anything I dislike" definition of socialism, which is fucking stupid given socialism didn't exist until the mid-19th Century..

        It's all the more dumb because you're literally using it to describe capitalism - the means of production being in service only to serve the owner class, which is what shareholders are.

  • the workers still gotta work, and there's been so much market consolidation odds are they're gonna go walk right over and work for another company owned by them and their 0.1% buddies.

    My kid ran into this in their field. 80% of the market is owned by 1 company and the remaining 20% are tiny businesses that pay even worse, so there's no way to get ahead.

    Meanwhile RTO keeps property values for commercial real estate up, which is what really matters.

    This is a "House Always Wins" situation.

  • RTO mandates are stealth layoffs (Score:3)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @06:18PM (#65020835)
    And the good employees know it, and they know they’re employable elsewhere. It doesn’t take a genius to predict what happens next.

    When the executives do an RTO, they’re betting that enough poor-performers will leave to offset the loss in productive ones. Very few employees are actually mission-critical, and those will be quietly approached by management and offered a retention bonus, or maybe just permission to keep workong from home, if that’s what it takes to keep them. There’s no law stating that company policy must be uniformly-enforced.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )
      Yes, I would bet there is some of that "quietly approached by management" happening, as that happened to me in a similar situation. I left anyway.

  • Employers are less interested in top talent than in brown-nosers. If RTO makes top talent quit, the employers will be even happier.

  • At least in some cases. I had to relocate due to a family emergency. My management chain had no problem with me going remote, they knew I was effective either way. But they weren't allowed to approve it. Fortunately, I was able to transfer to another part of the same company.....but in my old position, I was the one who knew how everything worked, the force multiplier who kept everyone else from wasting time figuring out what I already knew. In my new role I don't have that yet. So, I'm definitely less valu

  • No Substance - Ars Technica Clickbait (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The "study" seems to be mostly data mining within a very limited universe. Its dressed up to provide some interesting conclusions, but I wouldn't make much of them. If I were a manager considering RTO I wouldn't pay much attention to it. Managers know exactly who they are losing, they don't need a study to tell them. And they probably have a pretty good idea of the value of those people to the company compared to a replacement, however they choose to assess that value.

    I think often the motive for getting

  • "The Best Talent" have never been bound by the rules that the rest live by. No one told "the best talent" that they had to return to the office and work in an open floorplan hot-desk environment with the plebs. Truly talented people are given whatever it takes to keep them happy and productive. You do not kill the golden goose.

    These companies may have lost access to a wide variety of moderately talented employees who were willing to prioritize comfort over career advancement -but that is not the same thi

  • Lame methodology (Score:3)

    by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @07:06PM (#65020925)

    I was very much ready to raise my hand and say, "See, I told you so. " But this is not the study for that. I mean this part, give me a break.

    "...employees' gender, seniority, and the number of skills listed on their individual LinkedIn profiles, which serves as a proxy for employees' skill level."

    There are so many issues with that being a 'proxy for skill level'. Not even worth a RTFA mention.

    It would be nicer if the academic community spent more time, on more thorough research, versus the churning out of mediocre work. And more time on validating others research results. Big believer in academic pursuits, but as we all know the incentives are now so messed up, the results are often of little value.

    • I haven't looked at my LinkedIn page for several years... but, last time I did, it appeared other people had declared that I possess quite a few skills that aren't really part of my job or anything I'd done in the past.

  • Pre-pandemic, there were already RTO mandates, or rather traditional come to the office expectations. However, the more important and hard to replace workers could always negotiate exceptions. That has always been the case. My guess is the current blanket RTO mandates only apply to not so important and not so hard to replace workers. And this is exactly the same it has always been. For the important workers, they will always gets the same exceptions that they always received.

Slashdot Top Deals

"A car is just a big purse on wheels." -- Johanna Reynolds

Close