Has the home office had its day? If the heads of global corporations have their way, that could soon be the case. A majority of CEOs of large companies expect a complete return to face-to-face work as in pre-Corona times, as a current survey by the consulting firm KPMG among 1,300 managing directors shows. According to this, almost two thirds of those surveyed are in favor of a complete return to the office within the next three years.
To achieve this, company leaders also want to increase incentives: 87 percent say they would reward employees who come to the office with promotions or salary increases. The survey results showed that “traditional office-centric thinking” remains prevalent among CEOs, KPMG said. According to the study, the companies representing the participants have a minimum annual turnover of $500 million and come from eleven countries and eleven different industries.
The debate about the sense and nonsense of working from home has recently heated up. Trigema boss Wolfgang Grupp and investor Carsten Maschmeyer recently exchanged blows with media attention. “If someone can work at home, they are unimportant,” said Grupp against the home office. “Control demotivates and leads to unproductivity,” countered Maschmeyer. In his opinion, the return of face-to-face culture must urgently be stopped.
Like Maschmeyer, it is primarily the young generation on the job market who sees it. According to studies, she calls for more flexibility in the workplace, such as four-day weeks, workstations and home offices. “If you don’t think about benefits such as home office, work or sabbatical, you won’t even reach part of this generation as an employer,” says labor market expert Julian Stahl in a study by the career portal Xing. Another study shows that employees feel significantly more productive and satisfied when working from home. Nevertheless, this will soon gradually come to an end for many companies.
The call for a return to the office is increasing in many industries. From Wall Street to Silicon Valley – companies are demanding more presence again. Tech giants like Meta, Apple and Google have been requiring their employees to come to the office at least three days a week for several months. Even the video telephony provider Zoom recently followed suit – according to human resources manager Matthew Saxon, primarily to better understand the problems of its own customers.
Meanwhile, KPMG advises in its study to think long-term. Companies should take the values and needs of their own employees into account in order to promote and retain them. In many cases this should mean not forcing a return to the office.
Note: This article first appeared on Capital.de.
