In light of the increasing number of influential CEOs getting more strident about imposing return-to-office requirements, remote and hybrid work is destined to decline, while fully-in-person work picks up. But U.S. executives expect the opposite to happen, according to a survey released by the Institute for Economic Intelligence.
Nick Bloom, a researcher involved in the survey and a remote work guru at Stanford University, posted on X this week, referring to work from home.
Executives expect 72.6% of full-time employees will be fully in-person or on-site in 2028, down from 75.7% today and far below the 91.6% in 2018, according to the survey of Business Uncertainty, co-founded by the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, the University of Chicago, and Stanford.
They expect 16.3% of full-time employees to be in hybrids in five years, up from 14.1% today and 4.1% in 2018. Respondents expect 11.2% of full-time employees to fit that description in 2028, up from 10.2% today and 4.3% in 2018.
U.S. officials are not expecting a return to pre-pandemic office life, he said. Despite resistance from workers who refuse to give up flexibility, many high-profile firms are cracking down on remote work and insisting on a return to the office.
Goldman Sachs recently started a fresh push to enforce its principle of working from office five days a week, with management frustrated over a significant part of the workforce not coming in as much as directed. David Solomon, CEO of IBM, has long criticized remote work.
JPMorgan Chase is asking its senior bankers to work from the office five days a week, with CEO Jamie Dimon warning about the risks of long-term remote work.
Even among the leading companies leaders, some are bucking the RTO trend or betting that full-in-office work will continue to decrease.
Since its founding in 2012, Zapier's software helps users work across apps in an integrated way, well before the pandemic. Wade Foster, the CEO of venture funded company, believes startups that should be focused on product-market fit instead end up dealing with needless distractions, with office leases among them. In addition, heargues, remote work allows companies to tap into a larger talent pool.
Pano Christou, CEO of Pret A Manger, is skeptical about return-to-office mandates and confident the trend of remote work will continue. His coffee-and-sandwich chain is now targeting remote workers with its expansion into suburban areas.
A billionaire software developer and project manager at Atlassian, Scott Farquhar, said that he only comes in the office about once a quarter. In 2020, his firm, with a market value of around $49 billion, instituted a Team Anywhere policy and has stayed with it. The flexible work allows employees to manage increasing expenses by choosing to live in a cheaper location without worry about the impact on their work, he contends.
This month, New York City Mayor Eric Adams conceded defeat to remote work when he announced a plan to convert empty office buildings into housing.