'My employer required me to RTO. I want to barf.'

What do we do now that 48% of employees say their company’s mandates prioritize what leaders want versus what employees need to do good work?

Mar 03, 2024

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Are return-to-office mandates sexist?

By LL

This past week, my full-time day job required my team to return to the office three days a week. The young mom with the newborn cried. Others grumbled under their teeth. I wanted to barf.

I realize that this reaction may sound very diva-like. I’ve had jobs in retail, service, and academia, where working from home (WFH) was never an option — I get it. Likewise, I’ve also worked creative jobs where being in-person was beneficial to the work itself and made absolute sense. My current day job is not one of those jobs.

Beyond the inconveniences of reworking parenting schedules, the time and money it takes to commute, housework, relationships, and personal wellness time lost, many women — not just moms (very important to recognize this) — feel like going back to work means we’re going back in time.

“Flexible work is inherently aligned with the push for women’s rights and greater gender equality. Study after study proves it.”

— Michaela Jeffery-Morrison, CEO and cofounder of Ascend Global Media, the company behind Women in Tech World Series. (Forbes)

Stats and studies on RTO policies

The pandemic urged us to revisit our ways of working — which for the first time in history, allowed women to balance both paid and unpaid work (at home). Now return-to-office (RTO) for many jobs seems as archaic as the 1950s housewife, and experts and studies agree:

In June 2023, the number of employed women ages 25–54 hit 75.3% — the highest recorded since the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey started reporting the numbers in 1948. (Governing)
Women experience an “entitlement gap” at work, suffering a career penalty for having flexibility around their work schedules to accommodate additional responsibilities. (The Female Lead)
The case for flexible work has a social and moral imperative. It helps retain women, reduces burnout, and makes it easier to have children and deliver on caregiving responsibilities. (Fortune)
Surveys have found that women are more likely than men to prefer a predominantly remote schedule — as do people of color, who prefer to avoid the daily microaggressions they experience in the office. (Business Insider)
Open racism and sexism are astonishingly omnipresent in today’s workplaces: 81% of women of color in tech said they experienced at least some racism, while 90% said the same for sexism. (Harvard Business Review)
For employees with disabilities, issues like transportation, workplace accessibility, and the potential for microaggressions are amplified by RTO policies. (Women in Tech)

48% of employees say their company’s mandates prioritize what leaders want versus what employees need to do good work. (Gartner)
Flexible work is inherently aligned with the push for women’s rights and greater gender equality. Study after study proves it. (Forbes)

Of course, some folks enjoy the opportunity to get out of their homes, connect with coworkers, and create physical boundaries between work and home. Since the pandemic, researchers have studied the potential hazards to mental health by exclusively working from home (think loneliness, depression, and anxiety), and suggest that hybrid work models may be beneficial.

But what work models will continue to exist? Nearly 90% of companies plan to enforce RTO mandates by the end of this year. And what impact will this have on us women? On the companies making the rules?

RTO mandates and corporate financials

Some experts claim that companies may enforce RTO policies as a way to discretely cut staff. Since employees may choose (or need) to resign due to RTO challenges, this will easily cut expenses to (get this!) pay for expensive office spaces.

Still, a recent study of 457 firms and 4,455 quarterly observations from 2019 to 2023 proved that RTO mandates made no difference to their bottom lines: Companies with mandates did not experience financial boosts compared to those without.

“The message is clear,” reports Fortune. “In the modern business landscape, WFH policies are not just employee perks. Instead, they should be viewed as crucial determinants of a company’s growth trajectory and, consequently, its attractiveness to investors.”

The bottom line

When I casually brought up my company’s RTO policy to its head of HR and DEI in the lunchroom, her response surprised me: If people don’t like it, they can find another job.

Companies, grumpy old patriarchs, and folks under their thumbs will hold on tight to whatever power they still have left to keep us women in our spot. The thing they don’t realize is, we no longer have a spot. We have many spots. And as the working world continues to evolve, my hope is that we claim them all.

Hey, you!

We would love to hear your opinion about WFH and RTO mandates in the comments below so we can learn from the experiences of our Midst community!

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