They Refused to Go Back to the Office, Now They’re Out of a Job
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Here's your Money Briefing for Tuesday, December 17th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. After several years of lax enforcement, companies are getting strict about employees returning to the office.
What we're seeing more often right now is companies saying this is the required number of days. And if you are not willing to meet that, either because you've relocated or you just don't feel like you can meet the requirement, even if you're local, we'll offer you some kind of buyout severance package.
We'll talk to WSJ On The Clock columnist Callum Borshers after the break.
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More companies are telling workers the days of work from home and hybrid work schedules are over.
What’s driving the shift from lax remote policies to strict return-to-office mandates?
Wall Street Journal columnist Callum Borchers joins me. Callum, does this mean the pendulum of power is now firmly on the side of companies?
Well, bosses seem to think so. It's funny, I had a conversation with Dan Kaplan, who's a senior client partner at the consulting firm Korn Ferry, and he said, yeah, I mean, behind closed doors, what he hears from CEOs is, I'm tired of the whining about having to go back to the office. You know, we've compromised enough for years. And look, we think that we have the ability to go out and replace talent that we lose. So if you're not willing to come in the minimum number of days, then we're just going to move on without you.
How are companies telling workers they have to be in the office in order to keep their jobs?
So there's a few different approaches. There don't seem to be a lot of instances of companies just outright firing workers for not coming in the required number of days, although it may come to that. the new year. In fact, Dan Kaplan at Korn Ferry predicts a bloodbath in 2025. So we'll see if that comes to fruition. But what we're seeing more often right now is companies saying this is the required number of days. And if you're not willing to meet that, either because you've relocated and so you're not in commuting distance anymore, or you just don't feel like you can meet the requirement, even if you're local, we'll offer you some kind of buyout severance package.
Do employees have any legal rights if this is the reason they lose their job?
On a surface level, the answer is no, because a remote worker is not a protected class in the same way that being a person of color or a woman or somebody of a certain age or a person with a disability. It's not that kind of category. But I've talked about this with labor attorneys who say there is overlap, though. between remote workers and some of those protected classes. In other words, you couldn't have a grievance because you were a remote worker, but they're possible. This hasn't been tested yet, but they forecast there could be some kind of legal test. It would have to be a lawsuit that said a mass layoff of remote workers was targeting people of color or targeting women or targeting people with disabilities, who we do know from survey data disproportionately favor remote and hybrid work arrangements.
So this is a question that hasn't totally been settled yet.
You spoke to several people who lost their jobs over return to office rules, and they told you that wasn't even the worst part of it. What do they say about that?
Jobs come and go. So, I mean, a layoff is always lousy. But what they say the worst part is looking to the future.
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