These employees were told to leave behind remote work and return to the office. Instead, they pushed back.

• As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, more companies are returning to the office from remote work.
• But not everyone wants to go back to their old routine — particularly those with chronic pain and illness.

After over a year of working remotely because of the pandemic, an employee at a healthcare public relations firm was given one week's notice that she and her colleagues would be expected to return to the office.

There was no survey, flexibility, or choice — they were just expected to be back in the office in one week's time, with no time to reconfigure their work, personal lives, and childcare schedules.

Many companies have been working remotely on and off since March 2020, and despite the rise of the Delta and Omicron variants, many companies have recently expected employees to return to the office.

But throughout the pandemic, office employees have found benefits of remote work that they don't want to give up: There's no commute, you can exercise during breaks and eat healthier when there's not an office lunch involved, and your schedule is more yours to make time for what's important to you, like picking your child up from school or starting and finishing work earlier. They're joining a movement called the Great Resignation — a wave of workers quitting their jobs after realizing they want better.

The employee who works in healthcare public relations, who asked not to be named in order to protect her career, reached out to her company's human relations department about the possibility of continuing to work remotely.

"[The conversation] was a lot of corporate speak and didn't seem very genuine," she said. "There wasn't an explanation as to what the rush or what the value was going back to the office."

Her company agreed that she only had to come into the office one day per week for the time being, but she ultimately quit and found a fully remote job. A big factor was her endometriosis, which spikes her anxiety about a possible pain flare when she's in the office.

"At home, I feel at peace," she said. "The energy I spend commuting and just being in an uncomfortable open-concept office space drains me from the ability to really take care of myself."

Another employee who works in pharmaceutical sales told Insider her mental and physical health improved when she started working remotely — plus, she was exceeding her sales goals by an average of 15%.

So when her boss said it was time to return to the office, she pushed back. If she was successful at home, why should she have to go back?

The pushback didn't work. She left the company.

Now, she looks back and sees she was at the forefront of the Great Resignation. She was among the first of her colleagues to question the return to the office, she said, because there was an attitude of: "This is the way it's always been."

"I didn't want to be at a company where leadership was so unwilling to listen to their employees and control was more important than keeping your people happy," she said.

After she quit, there was a bigger push for remote work. The company put a remote work police in place, but she'd already moved to a different job — one that was completely remote anyway.

"Health and wellness-wise, I'm happier, I'm more productive and I'm able to have a better work-life balance," she said.

Another employee who spoke to Insider, a developer for a video game company, has been working from home since March 2020, but his bosses are preparing the company for a return to the office. He said that he and his colleagues are open to coming to the office two to three days a week, but five days would leave many looking for more flexible work options.

"Those who can work from home in a comfortable environment with little distractions are often more productive than when working from the office," he said. "Mandating that everyone come in[to the office] seems outdated and draconian after our repeated successes."

Across employee experiences is the same thread: what is an actual, concrete reason they need to return to the office if they've proved they're capable of working from home through the pandemic? When faced with a mandated return to the office, the employee who works in pharmaceutical sales said she quickly saw her mental and physical health decline.

"[The pandemic] forced me to examine my life and see what was important to me," she said.

Part of that reevaluation is a new, entirely remote job.