- Some companies are requiring employees to come back to the office.
- For those who don't want to follow these office policies, the labor market is still hot with jobs.
Some people would rather quit or look for a new job instead of working in person.
Take one worker who previously told Insider she decided to leave a job because her employer told her to come in five days a week.
"I just got to the point where it just wasn't working for me," she told Insider's Juliana Kaplan. "And I walked away from over a $100,000-per-year salary to seek positions that have hybrid options so that I can have that work-life balance."
She's not the only one prioritizing flexibility.
Bonnie Chiurazzi, Glassdoor's director of market insights, noted to Insider results from a survey by the employer-review site where people "ranked the option to work remotely ahead of company culture, reiterating that flexibility is top of mind for many workers."
According to November 2021 results from ADP Research Institute, 68% of respondents from almost 4,000 workers surveyed in North America said that they would think about looking for a job elsewhere if they had been told to return to the office every day.
Chiurazzi told Insider in a statement that "employers mandating a return to the office risk losing top talent to competitors that are listening to their employees and leading with flexibility."
Is it still safe to quit your job simply because you don't want to return to the office? Data points from different sources suggest yes.
The job market is still strong and offers a higher share of remote job postings than pre-pandemic
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, shows the labor market is still robust. While monthly US job openings had been coming down at the beginning of this year, April stopped this trend with an increase to 10.1 million openings. That's according to preliminary data for April from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, the most recent month available.
While this job openings data isn't broken down by work model, job site Indeed recently looked at its job postings data, which shows companies are still posting about remote or hybrid positions. While Indeed found that the share of postings noting remote or hybrid work has generally been dropping, it is still higher than it was before the pandemic or even the same time two years ago.
Indeed Hiring Lab's Daniel Culbertson wrote in a post that this drop from the peak back in February 2022, "may not be a clear indication that employers have changed their minds on remote work, as the types of jobs where hiring has slowed the most are likely a factor." That would include software development jobs for instance, per Culbertson.
Cory Stahle, an Indeed economist, noted at a press event last week that "remote work is something that is here to stay."
"There are many advantages for employers and for employees as a part of that," Stahle added.
But fully remote jobs may be difficult to land. According to Dawn Fay, an operational president for employment company Robert Half, it seems people and employers alike think hybrid is "a pretty good balance" of the different benefits of being in person and being remote. That includes "having the benefits and flexibility of those days where they don't have to commute, can be home, or can be elsewhere," according to Fay.
Even Indeed renamed its Remote Job Tracker given the demand for hybrid employees, noting as hybrid "work arrangements emerge as a primary modality of flexible work — which itself is a topic of growing interest to job seekers, employers and policymakers alike — we are updating and renaming the Remote Tracker to the Remote & Hybrid Job Tracker."
'The way people work isn't a one-size-fits-all solution'
For employers with in-person policies worried about losing talent to remote work roles elsewhere, they should talk to workers or think about allowing multiple ways to get work done.
"The key here is for employers to understand that the way people work isn't a one-size-fits-all solution," Chiurazzi said. "Everyone works differently — some work better in the office and others work better at home. And for some employees, where they work best is non-negotiable."
According to Fay, one reason employers may want workers to be working in person is because it can be helpful to train new employees. It may also be helpful to collaborate in person or "a speed factor that happens when people are together that sometimes does not happen when you're remote."
"We're seeing that there's certainly different cycles of times that it makes more sense for people to maybe spend more time in an office and more time kind of remote," Fay said.
Fay advised companies to have discussions about what's best for workers, the company, and their clients.
"I think as people really think through the whys behind things, I'm finding that companies, as well as their employees, are really getting themselves to strike that right balance and really strike the balance of productivity as well as flexibility," Fay said. "And that really in the end helps retention and productivity."
Did you quit your job after being told to return to the office? Do you plan to never return to an in-person job? Reach out to this reporter at mhoff@insider.com.