Surprising no one but the mgmt teams…
Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. In other words, employers knew the mandates would cause some attrition, but they weren’t ready for the serious problems that would result.
Meanwhile, a staggering 76% of employees stand ready to jump ship if their companies decide to pull the plug on flexible work schedules, according to the Greenhouse report. Moreover, employees from historically underrepresented groups are 22% more likely to consider other options if flexibility comes to an end.
In the SHED survey, the gravity of this situation becomes more evident. The survey equates the displeasure of shifting from a flexible work model to a traditional one to that of experiencing a 2% to 3% pay cut.
I know millions of parents have figured this out but I literally cannot wrap my head around how we would be raising 2 small kids if my wife and I both had to be in the office full time. I take them to and from school most days and take care of other business during working hours. Then I work late at night to catch up on busy work. Or sometimes the weekend. If I lost that flexibility I would be looking immediately.
When my kids were young we reached a point where we did the budget of paying for childcare versus one of us staying home.
We figured out that having my wife get a masters degree and make 1/4 of the money she made in the office doing contract work from home was better than paying for childcare.
We’ve done similar! We just moved away from family (primary childcare), and my wife had to quit work until we get settled and school starts up.
We chose not to have children, but our friends are spending upwards of $2k/mo on daycare because both parents work full time in the office. It’s outrageous.
Most parents take their kids to school. Ours started going to daycare at age 2 and he is now in preschool. We started taking him during covid because it was not possible to work. He wakes up at 6am and goes to bed at like 9pm… when the hell would I get any work done lol. And I have to be able to schedule meetings and phone calls during work hours. City employees don’t work at 9pm either. Business owners don’t do site visits at odd hours.