Dr. Wen Fan: Employees returning to the office
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While the number of people working remotely continues to grow, many workplaces are implementing full-time, return-to-office mandates—including Amazon, whose employees must return to the office five days a week in January.
On November 19, 2024, SciLine interviewed: Dr. Wen Fan, an associate professor of sociology at Boston College. See the footage and transcript from the interview below, or select ‘Contents’ on the left to skip to specific questions.
Declared interests:
Dr. Fan is a founding member of the Work Time Reduction Research Network and previously served as an executive board member for the Work and Family Researchers Network. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation and Russell Sage Foundation.
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Introduction
[0:00:19]
WEN FAN: My name is Wen Fan. I am associate professor of sociology at Boston College. My research has focused on the future of work, including remote and hybrid work, as well as some 4-day work weeks. So, I study how these new ways of working affect workers work experiences, subjective well-being, and family or personal lives.
Interview with SciLine
More people are working remotely than ever before. Why do you think that is?
[0:00:47]
WEN FAN: So, the COVID-19 pandemic opened the doors for many organizations and employees to, for the first time, experiment with our remote options. And through this process, many organizations discovered that remote work maintains and in some cases even improves productivity, and at the same time, it offers a significant cost savings in the forms of real estate and operational expenses. On the side of our workers, the homeworking experience during the pandemic has led many—and also, after the pandemic, has led many on to value the flexibility, work-life balance, and autonomy that comes with reducing, or in many cases eliminating commute times. And additionally, I think it’s almost like human nature that is also very difficult to revoke a benefit, especially if workers have enjoyed only some benefits for such an extended period of time.
Why do you think some companies are getting rid of remote work, rather than implementing a hybrid model?
[0:01:57]
WEN FAN: So, many senior leaders and executives genuinely believe that in-person work is essential to organizational and career success, and as such, they really want their workers to be in the office, and they prefer direct oversight and face-to-face supervision. As for why companies are not even considering a hybrid model, I believe part of the reason is because hybrid models require more coordination and therefore more difficult to implement compared with just having everyone in person or everyone working remotely. And it can also be challenging to think about or to design a hybrid work model in a fair way, such that workers from all backgrounds, regardless of their roles, regardless of their positions or social demographic factors, can all benefit from hybrid work.
What do full-time, return-to-office mandates indicate about the future of remote work?
[0:03:08]
WEN FAN: So, on the surface, the prospect of remote work seems to be at risk when major corporations such as Amazon, Google, Disney, begin requiring their workers to return to their desks, and this might lead to some domino effects, because many of these companies are the leaders in the field, so other companies might just follow suit, fearing a competitive disadvantage if they do not. But on the other hand, I think on this these mandates also create a scenario in which we can see a clear clash between our workers preferences and employers and plans as to where work should be done. So, survey after survey reveals workers strongly prefer remote or hybrid work arrangements. So, using our data, for example, which is based on a nationally representative sample of workers who worked remotely during the pandemic, about 38% preferred fully remote, and 41% preferred a hybrid work arrangement. So, if significant numbers of workers decided to fight back, for example, quit in the face of these return-to-office mandates, then many companies might need to reconsider given the potential risk of losing talent to their more competitive—to their more flexible competitors. And if that’s the case, we actually might have more hope for the sustainability of remote work in the future.
How do these mandates affect employee retention?
[0:04:55]
WEN FAN: We have collected panel data from like 3000 randomly selected workers in the United States from 2020 to 2022, over 18 months, and using the data, we find that a misalignment between preferred and actual work location. So, for instance, if I want to work remotely, but I’m required to go back to the office, it’s associated with significantly increased intentions to quit that I want to leave my current job within the next three months, half a year. So, and this effect is particularly pronounced among those whose jobs could be done very effectively from home. So, for many of these highly educated, high-skilled workers, it’s not that difficult to find a different job that would allow them to work remotely. So, in the long term, return-to-office mandates might have negative impacts as to attracting and also retaining talented workers.
How do these mandates affect workplace equity?
[0:06:12]
WEN FAN: In terms of workplace equity. So, we find that workers of color benefit most from remote and hybrid work arrangements. So, for instance, when we look at subjective well-being, men of color experience the greatest increase in subjective well-being while working from home, as opposed to returning to the office. So, their satisfaction increases, and their burnout and stress reduces when they work from home instead of having to go back to the office. And part of these well-being findings is due to the fact that many workers of color do not feel supported while working in the office. So, while white workers return to the office, they actually report an increase in coworker on support. But the opposite happens for Black workers or Hispanic workers. They sense that their support gained from coworkers actually declines following a return to the office, suggesting that many minoritized workers might still need to deal with situations like microaggressions, explicit or implicit bias, or this sense of isolation at the workplace or in traditional office settings.
How can employees manage stress associated with returning to the office?
[0:07:49]
WEN FAN: So, first is that I think it might be beneficial for employees to consider whether your organization offers any flexibility options other than hybrid or remote work, such as flexibility work hours, and if so, it might be useful to think about whether it’s possible to try to make the most of these policies, for example, by negotiating with your managers or supervisors to arrange a customer-customized schedule. So, this way, even if you can work remotely, you can still get some of the benefits associated with some remote work. But second, or more generally, I think it might be useful to have a deep reflection on what is specifically about remote or hybrid work you value. So, is it the time saved on commuting, the ability to balance our work and family responsibilities, or perhaps the reduced exposure to office politics? So, identifying the most essential factors that make remote work appealing can help employees to begin to explore whether there are other ways to replicate these benefits without working from home or working partially from home.
What does your research during the pandemic say about the psychological impacts of returning to the office for parents?
[0:09:24]
WEN FAN: So, in one paper, we found that remote-working parents—especially remote-working mothers—reported notably on lower psychological well-being while living in states with strict school closure policies. However, a different pattern emerges in states where there is no such policy. So, when schools remain open, remote work actually improved a mother’s well-being. So, this finding seems to suggest that childcare responsibilities—which is still largely assumed to be the job that has to be performed by moms—so these responsibilities diminished the potential emotional benefits parents, especially our mothers, can benefit from remote or hybrid work. So as societies are returned to normal, I believe our parents are now in a much better position to realize some greater psychological impacts of remote work.
Do you have any advice for reporters covering this topic?
[Posted November 19, 2024 | Download video]
