Return to office if you can
How the return-to-office mandates are making workplaces less inclusive for everyone, and why it is only going to get worse
Amazon can’t say they didn’t start the fire by mandating their employees to return to office starting January 2025. More companies are now likely to follow suit, claiming higher productivity and connectivity, all while losing top talent and demolishing whatever’s left of the tech dream.
Either way, we are not here to write a eulogy to the industry that turned into the evil it had once promised to save the world from. Instead, we want to discuss how the choice to force the workers back into the cubicles will hurt people with disabilities, inevitably causing more damage not only to the companies themselves, but to the society in general.
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Tell me why
Executives, forcing their employees to return to office, cite higher productivity, connectivity, and camaraderie, but clearly do not care for either. As they plan their holiday in Europe and let senior managers enjoy flexible arrangements, regular employees are herded back into cubicles and open space offices, now devoid of the pre-pandemic perks.
Let’s not trick ourselves: we did not come full circle in 4 years, as the tech leadership wants you to believe. Imagine, if several years after the 1835 Philadelphia strike, where the workers managed to secure their right to a 10-hour working day, factories suddenly mandated the return to “sun to sun” policy, extending the working day to 15 hours as a “return to norm”.
What will the working teams gain from disposing of the hybrid arrangements they took years to establish and adjust to? Lower motivation, satisfaction, and happiness: detached from their homes and families for 5 days, forced to commute, often demanded to move closer to the office, employees will either choose to leave, or swallow the bitter pill and continue grinding.
Office phone booths manufacturers are thrilled to observe the growing demand, real estate moguls are excited to see building vacancy rates recover from the abysmal 80%. Most importantly, executives use RTO to blame their employees for the company’s poor performance and exercise control.
“We aren’t asking or negotiating at this point. We’re informing”, says a CEO of a WebMD parent company in a video, welcoming employees back to office. In the world obsessed with metrics and measurements, there is no evidence the executives could present to justify mandating the RTO. They do not care to hide their true intentions, nor do they seem to mind the impact of the change on performance, retention, or, heaven forbid, inclusivity.
RTO: the ugly, mostly the ugly
This year, Microsoft laid off its entire diversity, equity, and inclusion division, citing that “true systems-change work associated with DEI programmes everywhere are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020”. The 2020 plan to double the number of leaders of colour by 2025 is no longer a priority of the tech giant, nor is clear how far the company had come before shutting the DEI department down.
Not unlike the dismantling of the diversity team, the RTO mandate comes off as a surprise to many: companies, previously committing to honouring flexible working arrangements, show how little they truly care about their employees, especially those who are going to be hit the hardest by the change.
The pandemic lead to enabling high employment rates among people with disabilities. Remote jobs created a wide range of opportunities and normalised flexible arrangements and adjustments, which withstood the hybrid era: beyond distributing teams and enabling cross-border collaboration, it welcomed diversity and inclusivity.
People with limited mobility could pursue careers in the comfort of their homes, not having to worry about transportation or office space accessibility. WFH meant controlled sensory stimuli: reduced noise, light, distractions, critical for people with increased sensitivity and mental impairments. For some, it would mean shorter bathroom breaks and no time required to adjust the environment.
Return to office places people with disabilities in a difficult position, where they either face termination, are required to procure special arrangements, or are forced to deal with additional challenges in the name of “productivity” and “corporate culture”. FastCompany quotes Chelsea Bear, a content creator with cerebral palsy, saying:
Throughout the day I had a lot of meetings that required me to gather my laptop and notebooks and relocate into conference rooms. I was in constant fear that I’d trip or fall.
Designing an accessible office space goes beyond supplying a couple of standing desks and ensuring the lift is operational: there are potential hazards and concerns everywhere, from slippery floors to loud open spaces. Some people’s productivity dips drastically in poorly lit rooms, others need deafening silence to concentrate, but the need for a productive, safe, and healthy environment does not make them bad workers. Poor management, obsessed with retaining their power over employees, does.
On empowerment and the future of inclusive employment
In their 1998 analysis of empowerment and power titled “The Power Behind Empowerment: Implications for Research and Practice”, Cynthia Hardy and Sharon Leiba-O'Sullivan write that “participation without delegation increases control over employees”: the mainstream definition of empowerment, adopted by managers and executives, does not call for the decentralisation of power, thus failing to increase satisfaction and productivity.
This definition of empowerment allows transferring some resources to the employees, granting them some access to decision-making at the lowest level, increasing communication, but never challenges the leadership’s authority to set goals and establish boundaries. “Team members” (note the lingo) are expected to demonstrate a strong ability to act independently and possess leadership skills, but are never given any true autonomy or control.
People are not thrilled about the RTO mandates becoming the “new old norm”, but how many actually have the privilege to act amidst the economic recession and the overall uncertainty, looming over the tech industry? Work visa holders, tied to their employers, junior specialists, fighting against AI, young professionals with student debts and mortgages make the mass tech exodus unlikely, and the industry, having learnt the lessons from the “great resignation”, is eager to take advantage of it.
People with disabilities struggle to find employment, and their position is not only threatened by the RTO, mandated by their companies, but by the return to “norm”, where their applications are neglected and overlooked by both humans and machines.
We cannot say how many people will quit their jobs because of the RTO mandate, but we can be certain that the employment rates of people with disabilities will dip drastically due to it.
Amazon executives likely know that the RTO mandate was a huge mistake, but they are not going to fold. Neither will their competitors, other giants, and smaller fish in the endless tech sea. The temptation to exercise power is too great to resist, even at the expense of the most vulnerable groups.