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It’s hard not to notice the new wave of RTO mandates that took over corporate America this autumn.
In September, Amazon’s Andy Jassy demanded that workers return to the office five days a week beginning in January, and has stood firm despite a major backlash. The same month, Dell announced that staff would have to come in five days a week. And in November, the Washington Post announced that all employees are expected to go in five days a week by June of next year.
CEOs have cited all kinds of reasons for the return, including better collaboration, connectivity, and an easier environment for employees to grow their skills. But a different explanation for the WFH rollback has been bumping around management circles for some time: executive nostalgia.
It’s unclear exactly where the term came from, but Taryn Brymn, a former head of executive programs at Slack’s Future Forum (a remote work think tank that was shut down in 2023), is often credited with coming up with the phrase after hearing business leaders describe how challenging it was to lead distributed teams.
“They kept going back to this idea of what used to be,” Brymn, who currently works as an advisor for consultancy firm McChrystal Group, tells Fortune. “And I was just like, yeah, this is nostalgia.”
The crux of the idea is that business leaders miss the corporate environment in which they came to power. They’ve also thrived in their management careers in part because of how good they are at building networks and reputations based on in-person interactions—something that’s a lot harder to do in person. And in fact, some experts say that executives who are struggling with leading remote teams would rather just force everyone back into the office rather than improve their own skillset.
“Unless you've been exposed to different modes of working in your previous work life, it is very hard to see the benefits of the current new order,” Denise M. Rousseau, professor of organizational behavior and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, tells Fortune. “Running a successful remote or hybrid company requires training and a level of skills these executives may not yet have.”
Some business experts say that the invocation of “culture” in the rush to get back to the office five days a week also skips over the pitfalls those original cultures had to begin with. Organic watercooler moments RTO hardliners are pining may not have been happening as often as they thought, and can be intentionally redesigned to better fit a hybrid or remote working environment.
“There are benefits to collaborating and talking to each other in person, but it doesn’t need to happen 40 hours per week,” says Stephan Meier, professor of business and chair of the management division at Columbia Business School. “People need time to do focus work.”
The data about remote vs. in-person work is mixed. While some studies support claims that remote work saps productivity, holds back younger professionals, and hinders company culture, others suggest that converting saved commute time into work hours helps employees get more done, and that flexibility can improve overall wellbeing. But one thing is clear: Employees love the option to work remotely by a wide margin. A Gallup survey of 21,543 employees conducted earlier this year found that a majority (61%) of on-site workers working a full-time job with remote capability would prefer a hybrid work arrangement and an additional 28% would prefer to be fully remote.
“Those things that we're hearing senior leaders say about being in person raises a bit of a warning flag,” Leena Rinne, global head of coaching at Skillsoft, a leadership development software company, tells Fortune. “Forcing people back to the office doesn't get the results that senior leaders say they want to get.”
Brit Morse
brit.morse@fortune.com
Today's edition was curated by Emma Burleigh.
