1 in 3 people even criticize the requirement for personal attendance at school Photo: Getty Images via BBC People even criticize the requirement for personal attendance at school Photo: Getty Images via BBC
Companies are offering a variety of benefits — free food, concerts and yoga — to lure employees back to the office, with varying degrees of success. Some are now taking a more drastic approach: They are tying employees’ office attendance to performance reviews.
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Google and JPMorgan have told employees that office attendance will be taken into account in performance reviews.
The U.S. attorney’s office of Davis Polk told employees that fewer days in the office would result in lower bonuses.
Meta and Amazon have told their employees that they are now monitoring ID sharing, which could have consequences for workers who don’t follow attendance policies, including losing their jobs.
In many companies and industries, employees increasingly seem to be striving for the same goal.
In some ways, it’s not surprising that bosses are returning to standard onsite work. After all, we have long been conditioned to believe that showing up is essential to success.
In school, full attendance is still often viewed as a badge of honor.
Attendance madness has also been an integral part of workplace culture for decades.
Before the pandemic, remote work was virtually unheard of and employees were expected to be physically present at their desk throughout the workday.
However, after the success of hybrid arrangements during the pandemic, inperson work is still a key benchmark. But what is your goal?
“The question arises: What is work? “Is it an employee’s job to do something?” asks Bruce Daisley, a UKbased workplace consultant and author of The Joy of Work.
“Control is a powerful aphrodisiac”
Many companies justify the requirement for inperson work on the value of inperson teamwork, relying on research that suggests remote work can hinder this collaboration.
“There is evidence that people are more innovative and collaborative when they are together,” says Robert Sutton, an organizational psychologist at Stanford University and coauthor of the upcoming book “The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong.” Things Are Harder (The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder “It’s reasonable for employers to say that there’s something good about everyone being physically in the same place.”
Maintaining corporate structure and identity is another concern, notes Anna Tavis, clinical professor at NYU’s School of Professional Studies. “Companies pride themselves on having a certain way of doing business,” she says. “And even when remote workers are productive at a transactional level, management looks at cultural cohesion holistically. They ask: What is our culture and who do we want to be?”
2 of 3 Many workers don’t want to go to the office five days a week, but some have no choice Photo: Getty Images via BBC Many workers don’t want to go to the office five days a week. but some have no choice Photo: Getty Images via BBC
These may be valid concerns, but Daisley argues that this is also the case reveal a crack in the management façade. “This shows the state of corporate anxiety,” he says. “Employers feel a lack of control and are trying to reassert themselves.”
Jay Sterling Silver, a professor at St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami who has written about attendance policies in higher education, agrees. He says that while it’s true that inperson teamwork can stimulate creativity and build relationships, tying workers’ performance to office presence shows employers’ desire to maintain control.
“O Control is a powerful aphrodisiac,” he says. “And requiring people to take strenuous steps to appear for you, to show respect whether sincere or not when they pass you in the hallway, and that you Being available to you at all times helps satisfy this desire for control.” ”
The requirement to work in person can apply to all employees, but in addition to the preference for working from home, some groups also fear that these policies could actively work against them in the workplace.
For Employees with small children, disabilities or long commutes (Studies show that minority groups have suffered significant declines due to proximity to the workplace) as workloads can be heavier in the office. These include the time and cost of traveling to and from the office, as well as the additional challenges that arise from balancing work and parenthood or caring for a disability.
“Flexibility may not seem like a diversity and inclusion issue, but it is,” says Daisley. “Employers don’t just require people to sit at their desks. They require them to face logistical and emotional obstacles that can add a cascade of struggles to their already complex lives.”
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The resurgence of inperson attendance policies is a bitter pill to swallow for many workers in these groups, who have found a better way to make work work in the more than three years since companies were forced to rely on flexibility during the pandemic.
For the countryRemote and hybrid work contributed to happier and more productive employees. A small survey of 1,000 active workers and 500 Csuite executives conducted by childcare website Care.com and worklife benefits platform Mother Honestly found that the overwhelming majority of respondents agreed that hybrid work Improved your quality of life, both at home and with others at home and professionally.
Participation in the labor market Women with small children it is also higher than before the pandemic. An August 2023 report from the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project showed that 70.4% of U.S. women with children under five were in the workforce, compared to a prepandemic peak of 69%. The researchers found that remote work was a key driver of change.
For the People with disabilitiesResearchers suggest that remote work can remove barriers and remove the stigma often associated with special needs. Additionally, February 2023 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that labor force participation among people with disabilities increased in 2022, reaching the highest level since the data was first released in 2008. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities has also fallen.
“Powerful levers”
Despite growing evidence that remote work is not only effective but can also lead to greater diversity, inclusion and happiness, the emphasis on facetoface work is still deeply rooted in many companies.
On the one hand, employees feel pressure to follow orders to protect their job security and career prospects. Tavis says the threat of a bad review can be enough to make many employees conform.
“Performance management has always been one of the most powerful levers companies have to influence employee behavior,” she says. “When restrictions are tightened, employees pay more attention to issues of compensation, incentives and professional mobility.”
3 out of 3 Busy offices may become more common, particularly as a way for managers to exercise power over their employees Photo: Getty Images via BBC Busy offices may become more common, particularly as a way for managers to exercise power over their employees Photo : Getty Images via BBC
Additionally, it can be difficult to remove the ongoing problem of proximity bias from managers’ minds, says Sutton. The phenomenon—an innate tendency to favor those in our direct line of sight, regardless of talent or merit—leads bosses to believe that employees they can physically see are more productive or engaged than others.
However, some employees appear to be less willing to accept these instructions as has been the case in the past. Although American workers are spending more time in offices, workplaces are still sparsely populated as some employees have simply decided not to come to the office. And the data suggests that many of them would rather quit their jobs than return to their desk fulltime.
Supervisors may also realize that calls for forced inperson returns backfire. Instead of cultivating a thriving company culture, experts say the requests can lead to a culture of surveillance and distrust. Instead of encouraging collaboration, it can undermine morale. Bosses may have to learn this the hard way.
It could also weigh on the fact that other groups, in addition to employees, are questioning attendance policies right now. In US and British elementary schools, for example, parents are demanding that attendance play a smaller role in the final assessment and that the “perfect attendance” requirement be eliminated.
Law professor Silver agrees that compulsory attendance should be abolished because it “distorts grades as if they were a measure of achievement.”
Stubborn adherence to office attendance requirements can lead to missed opportunities, decreased productivity, and reduced employee satisfaction. “Bosses send the message that physical presence is more important than actual performance,” says Daisley. “But this is a trap. And it’s a misconception of what work is.”
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