Most bosses regret how they mandated workers return to the office

Portrait of male CEO in big corner office, looking out of window (Credit: Klaus Vedfelt—Getty Images)

Why aren’t workers particularly appreciating—much less adhering to—return-to-office mandates? Probably because adults don’t like being ordered around.

“People do want structure, and people like boundaries,” former Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield told Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell last year. “But they don’t like to be told what to do, so I think the secret is to not make them feel like their autonomy is being denied or that their ideas aren’t important, while still giving some structure.”