In brief: If managers and CEOs need more reasons why implementing return to office (RTO) mandates is a bad idea, here they are: a new report found that companies with aggressive RTO policies lose more senior and skilled employees. Furthermore, these firms take longer to fill their job vacancies and their hire rates decrease.
Universities from the US and China collaborated on a paper titled Return to Office Mandates and Brain Drain, which tracked over 3 million tech and finance workers’ employment histories reported on LinkedIn.
The study compared the effect of 54 S&P 500 firms’ RTO mandates on their employee turnover and hiring.
The bottom line is that firms experience abnormally high employee turnover of around 14% following the implementation of RTO mandates. It’s noted that the figure might be even higher in other industries given the better pay rates offered by tech and finance firms.
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Companies with strict return-to-office policies are losing top talent and face hiring delays
