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Calling workers back to the office after a bad quarter doesn't fix anything

Leaders tend to justify return-to-office mandates by promising stronger collaboration, but workers don't see much of a difference

Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star via Getty Images

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After a bad quarter, a CEO often reaches for a visible response. Calling workers back to the office is one of them. It's something leaders can say they did and present as evidence to the board. But recent analysis of S&P 500 firms by University of Pittsburgh business professor Mark Ma shows that return-to-office mandates don't lift revenue or reverse an earnings miss. The only number that tends to move is employee satisfaction, and it goes down.

Most of the CEOs who reach for this particular lever do so after their stock prices have already fallen, according to Ma's findings. These companies decide the workforce is part of the problem. But the financial slide can keep on going, and the policy change only makes people unhappier.

Leaders tend to justify RTO mandates by promising stronger collaboration, better mentorship, and more spontaneous innovation, but workers don't see much of a difference, whether they're in-office, at home, or split between the two, according to a separate McKinsey survey of more than 8,000........

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