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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Amid the deluge of

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Speaker 1: executive orders that President Trump signed during his first week

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Speaker 1: in office, is a mandate headlined return to in person work.

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Speaker 1: The order applies to the executive branch and it calls

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Speaker 1: for an end to remote work arrangements for government employees.

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Speaker 1: But Trump isn't alone. From Washington to Wall Street, bosses

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Speaker 1: are pushing for their workers to come back to the

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Speaker 1: office full time, and everyone feels differently about it.

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Speaker 2: I have no problem with it whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: I definitely don't think that would work for me. Just

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Speaker 1: two days a week is more than enough. On a

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Speaker 1: weekday afternoon, we asked people around Midtown Manhattan about the

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Speaker 1: work from home policies that many Americans got used to

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Speaker 1: during the pandemic.

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Speaker 2: I love to cook at home and actually take a

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Speaker 2: lunch break.

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Speaker 1: I'm a new dad, so it's a little challenging for

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Speaker 1: me to spend that much time I'm away from my daughter.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to wake up earlier. You got a

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Speaker 1: wake up shower to the whole thing on somebody else's timeline.

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Speaker 2: That's not for me.

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Speaker 1: But with COVID era restrictions becoming a thing of the past.

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Speaker 1: The terrain is starting to shift again.

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Speaker 2: I would have thought that the story would have died

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Speaker 2: out by now, but it keeps coming out to grab people.

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Speaker 1: Heather Landy overseas Bloomberg's coverage of work and management.

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of people were hoping to come

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Speaker 2: out of the pandemic with an answer, what is the

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Speaker 2: right way to do this? And there was no one

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Speaker 2: right answer.

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Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four, offices in the biggest US cities

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Speaker 1: were still half empty compared to pre pandemic levels. According

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Speaker 1: to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, three

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Speaker 1: quarters of employed adults with jobs that can be done

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Speaker 1: remotely are working from home at least some of the time.

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Speaker 1: But by the end of the year, many major companies

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Speaker 1: had instituted return to office policies, and it's raised some questions.

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Speaker 1: Is work from home slowly dying? What's behind the push

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Speaker 1: to get people back to the office, and what does

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Speaker 1: it mean for workers? I'm David Gera, and this is

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Speaker 1: the big take from Bloomberg News today on the show.

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Speaker 1: Are you listening to this episode on an office commute? Well,

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, more people maybe joining you. Heather

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Speaker 1: Landy says, when you look at the numbers, it's clear

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Speaker 1: why there's so much uncertainty around where we've landed on

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Speaker 1: remote work. Companies are still pretty solidly split.

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Speaker 2: Based on an index that we follow here at Bloomberg Flexinc.

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Speaker 2: They're Flex Jobs Index, about thirty two percent of companies

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Speaker 2: are back in the office full time, so right, so

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Speaker 2: that's about a third a little bit more than that,

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Speaker 2: something like forty three percent or doing what we would

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Speaker 2: call structured hybrid, and that might be back in the

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Speaker 2: office two days a week, or three days a week,

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Speaker 2: or four days a week, maybe it's on specific days

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Speaker 2: that everybody agrees to gather, maybe not. And then twenty

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Speaker 2: five percent or so are fully flexible, where people really

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Speaker 2: have a choice of where they want to be, and

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Speaker 2: in that grouping, only like five percent is full time remote.

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Speaker 1: In the past year or so, many companies have made

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Speaker 1: news with their return to office mandates, including some on

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Speaker 1: Wall Street. In early January, the largest US bank, JP

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Speaker 1: Morgan announced plans to bring its workforce more than three

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand employees back to the office five days a week.

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Speaker 2: The JP Morgan announcement was funny for me because I

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Speaker 2: had almost forgotten that they weren't back in that policy already.

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Speaker 2: I think, given Jamie Diamond's long standing critique of remote work,

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Speaker 2: it actually took rather long for the company itself to

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Speaker 2: catch up policy wise to what he's been out saying publicly.

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Speaker 1: What did JP Morgan say was the rationale for making

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Speaker 1: that decision pretty much.

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Speaker 2: Just that they think they're better together. It was not

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Speaker 2: set in hard data, Nor was the big sort of

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Speaker 2: watershed decision a few months ago by Amazon dot Com

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Speaker 2: just a feeling amongst executives that this is the way

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Speaker 2: we want things to work out.

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Speaker 1: But not all of JP Morgan's employees agree. The company

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Speaker 1: disabled comments on its internal message board after backlash. In

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Speaker 1: office mandates in corporate America have sometimes been clunky. Back

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, when COVID vaccines became widespread, safety

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Speaker 1: and corporate mandates collided in people.

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Speaker 2: Were talking about needing to have better air filtration systems

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Speaker 2: and plexiglass dividers between desks, having people come back to

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Speaker 2: the office in stages or in small chunks so that

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Speaker 2: we didn't overlap with one another and be too close

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Speaker 2: for comfort. And then that quickly gave way to a

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Speaker 2: more normalized take on return to office. But by that

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Speaker 2: point people were so ensconced in their homes and at

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Speaker 2: their dining room tables and in their living rooms it

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Speaker 2: was difficult for a lot of people to imagine coming back.

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Speaker 2: And in that time, too, the technology got so much

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Speaker 2: better and our comfort with the technology got so much

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Speaker 2: better that the purpose of coming back was lost on

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Speaker 2: a lot of people. Teams got more dispersed, global time

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Speaker 2: zones became of a factor, and all of these different

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Speaker 2: ways to work collaboratively but asynchronously is cropped up. The

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Speaker 2: idea of coming into an office to sit on a

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Speaker 2: zoom all day or to leave comments on a shared

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Speaker 2: doc somewhere seemed problematic to a lot of people.

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Speaker 1: Today, companies are still trying to figure out if work

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Speaker 1: from home works for them long term.

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Speaker 2: The issue is, you know, our companies actually using this

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Speaker 2: freedom wisely and making considered choices about what works best

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Speaker 2: for them, And it's not actually clear to me that

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Speaker 2: that's the case. And I say that based on both

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Speaker 2: personal experience and what the research is showing us.

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Speaker 1: Heather has experienced this firsthand. At a past job. The

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Speaker 1: rule was you.

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Speaker 2: Could work from home six days per month. What a

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Speaker 2: strange system, right, and when I was asked about why

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Speaker 2: that was the policy, the answer was, well, it used

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Speaker 2: to be four days a month, and people thought that

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Speaker 2: was too little, so we made it six days a month.

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Speaker 2: I mean, that doesn't really feel like a research backed

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Speaker 2: reason for the way that things were, and yet that's

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Speaker 2: the way that a lot of companies have approached This

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Speaker 2: is like sort of gut feel what feels right and

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Speaker 2: basically how much can we push before our employees reject

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Speaker 2: the situation altogether.

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Speaker 1: Since the pandemic, Heather has interviewed CEOs from many different

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Speaker 1: sectors about what they've gained and lost switching to remote

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Speaker 1: or hybrid work setups and almost across the board. She

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Speaker 1: says work from home for business leaders has become kind

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Speaker 1: of a boogeyman when it comes to how they think

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Speaker 1: about productivity.

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Speaker 2: In a lot of cases, the recall of workers back

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Speaker 2: to the office is happening right after a slump in

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Speaker 2: the share price. CEOs seem to share this sort of

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Speaker 2: nagging feeling in the back of their minds that they're

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Speaker 2: just not getting what they should be getting out of

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Speaker 2: the people who work for them, that we've somehow become

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Speaker 2: too soft as a society, Our workplaces. We've become more

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Speaker 2: generous with things like parental leave, and we're not sure

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Speaker 2: at the end of the day how to measure performance

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Speaker 2: for many jobs, and so remote work where flexible work

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Speaker 2: arrangements becomes an easy scapegoat for that.

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Speaker 1: What do we know about the difference between a worker's

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Speaker 1: productivity working four days in the office versus five, Say.

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Speaker 2: So, the case studies that we have seen thus far,

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Speaker 2: both sort of anecdotally and in terms of the academic literature,

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Speaker 2: suggests that working from home makes people no less productive

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Speaker 2: than they've been overall at the office.

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Speaker 1: And it's not so easy to demand all your employees

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Speaker 1: report back to the office overnight after the break. We

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Speaker 1: look at the way different industries are handling this and

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Speaker 1: what that could mean for the US economy. An announcement

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Speaker 1: from a bank like JP Morgan calling its employees back

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Speaker 1: to the office full time isn't just an internal message,

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Heather Landy tells me, it's also a sort of

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Speaker 1: broadcast to the rest of the corporate world.

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Speaker 2: I think everybody still looking for Bellweathers and sort of influencers, and.

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Speaker 1: We're to see what others are doing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for both competitive reasons, and also because a lot

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Speaker 2: of companies just haven't figured out the answer to that

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Speaker 2: central question, which is what is the right arrangement for

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Speaker 2: my workforce?

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Speaker 1: Because it's hard to measure the benefits of in person work,

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Speaker 1: and it's even harder to measure the benefits a remote

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Speaker 1: setup can offer employees, Heather says business leaders often point

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Speaker 1: to the value of collaboration, learning, and mentorship when touting

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Speaker 1: in person work, and the importance of policies that impact

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Speaker 1: everyone equally. When some workers have to be in person

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Speaker 1: and others have the luxury of staying home, it can

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Speaker 1: create a sense of haves and have nots. But many

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Speaker 1: workers with computer jobs say they want autonomy, the ability

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Speaker 1: to save time and money by eliminating a commute or

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Speaker 1: multitasking chores during the day, perks like what Heather calls

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Speaker 1: the roast chicken benefit.

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Speaker 2: Working from home. As a busy working parent, we're able

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Speaker 2: to take a break from the laptop for ten minutes,

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Speaker 2: prep a roast chicken, throw it in the oven, and

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Speaker 2: while it was cooking, get right back to their laptops

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Speaker 2: and finish off whatever projects they needed to finish off

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Speaker 2: before they signed off for the day.

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Speaker 1: Heather what are these decisions tell us about the health

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Speaker 1: of the economy. More broadly, I'm thinking of the labor market.

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Speaker 1: There has to be a degree of confidence that a

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Speaker 1: Jamie Diamond has that if he imposes a rule like

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Speaker 1: this on the company, there's a tightness to the labor

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Speaker 1: market that's going to keep people who don't want to

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Speaker 1: work five days a week of the office are going

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Speaker 1: to keep doing it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think all along we've seen this

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Speaker 2: sort of flip flopping in the power balance between workers andmployers.

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Speaker 2: You know, we've had sort of mixed signals from our

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Speaker 2: labor market here in the US. So unemployment is not

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Speaker 2: terribly high, but job searches among job seekers are lengthening

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Speaker 2: and lengthening. And because of that, I think employers do feel,

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Speaker 2: you know, if I issue at a blanket five day

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Speaker 2: a week back in the office rule on the margins,

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Speaker 2: if there are people who can't do that or refuse

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Speaker 2: to comply with that, I will be able to replace them.

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Speaker 1: Returning to the office full time isn't just an adjustment

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Speaker 1: for employees. Companies themselves have to adapt their infrastructure and

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Speaker 1: their procedures so that they can once again have people

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Speaker 1: in the office that's not always seamless. In December of

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, Amazon delayed its return to office mandate

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Speaker 1: and told personnel in at least seven cities that there

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Speaker 1: wasn't enough physical space for everyone.

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Speaker 2: And a lot of the edicts that we've seen, if

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Speaker 2: you read the memos that are going out to their staffers,

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Speaker 2: which often become public in part because employees are making

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Speaker 2: them public because of their dissatisfaction with the rules, a

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Speaker 2: lot of them read a little bit like Swiss cheese.

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Speaker 2: They're always sort of leaving the door open to exceptions,

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Speaker 2: in part because the Americans with Disabilities Act requiring companies

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Speaker 2: to make accommodations.

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Speaker 1: You're hinting at a level of dialogue. I mentioned some

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Speaker 1: companies that can go from kind of dialogue to protestation.

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Speaker 1: Have we seen anything like that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. There was a sort of infamous zoom call

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Speaker 2: last summer summer of twenty twenty four amongst corporate employees

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Speaker 2: at Walmart after they were recalled to the office, and

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Speaker 2: actually we saw one of their executives stepping down announcing

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Speaker 2: her departure relatively recently, tied in part to that policy.

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Speaker 1: We've focused on companies that have brought workers back five

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Speaker 1: days a week. Are there any marquee examples of a

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Speaker 1: company that's gone in a different direction.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So all State, the big insurance company. They have

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Speaker 2: massively reduced their square footage and brought down their annual

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Speaker 2: spend on corporate offices by over two hundred million dollars

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Speaker 2: a year. So they have moved lots of people to

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Speaker 2: flexible arrangements. They've sold their headquarters campus in the Chicago area,

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Speaker 2: and they are allowing people to work from home and

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Speaker 2: encouraging it, but also giving them ultimate flexibility by working

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Speaker 2: with a company that's helping them arrange for flex spaces

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Speaker 2: in various cities all over the country. But they have

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Speaker 2: said that they're committed to this flexible environment for a

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Speaker 2: really sizable workforce.

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Speaker 1: Where do you think we are in this kind of

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Speaker 1: indefinite evolution of what we're from home and return to

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Speaker 1: office is like? And then picking up off of that,

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Speaker 1: where do you think we're going to be in a

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Speaker 1: year's time.

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Speaker 2: I think we are where we're going to be, which

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Speaker 2: is to say, I think we're going to be sort

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Speaker 2: of evenly split amongst companies that are fully flexible have

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Speaker 2: structured hybrid and are in the office five days a week.

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Speaker 2: By and large, there doesn't seem to me to be

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Speaker 2: a compelling reason yet in terms of the research to

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Speaker 2: say more companies should be doing.

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Speaker 1: It this way or that way.

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Speaker 2: So my guess is that they'll continue to sort of

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Speaker 2: cast around a bit for what feels right, and that

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Speaker 2: they'll end up in very different places.

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Speaker 1: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura.

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Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Julia Press. It was edited

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Speaker 1: by Tracy Samuelson and Aaron Edwards. It was mixed and

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Speaker 1: sound designed by Alex Sekura and fact checked by Audreana Tapia.

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Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is Nicole Beemster Boor. Sage

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Speaker 1: Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. If you liked this episode,

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.