The dust has settled in the return-to-office (RTO) skirmish…or has it? As companies mandate workers back into offices, those workers (who are also consumers) are emphatic: They dislike RTO.
Consumers don’t just view RTO mandates as a matter of working from home vs. working in an office: They also think RTO negatively affects their expendable income, their work-life balance, and even societal and environmental well-being. Leveraging our expertise in cultural studies and digital ethnography, Lux finds that consumers view RTO mandates as misbegotten attempts by companies to exert undue control over workers, especially since study after study after study links work from home (WFH) to better productivity and wellness.
What are anthropological consumer insights?
Applying anthropological methods to the study of consumer culture reveals how people’s beliefs, personal identities, and closely held values shape their buying habits. Our powerful virtual anthropologist tool unpacks vast amounts of online consumer chatter, which our Ph.D. Consumer Insights team interprets to reveal the hidden cultures and meanings that really drive consumers’ behavior. In this case, it’s about understanding that workers are consumers, and these consumers are basing their sense of loyalty to employers and their engagement as potential customers on how open companies are to WFH and hybrid work, rather than pushing RTO.
Consumer Anxieties around RTO Mandates
The pandemic fundamentally altered the nature of white-collar work by forcing people to WFH instead of in germ-spreading offices — and people liked it. WFH quickly became part of the social fabric, giving employees an enhanced sense of freedom that the office simply couldn’t provide. Then came RTO mandates, which are unpopular with consumers, who believe RTO is evidence that corporations often don’t have the best interests of people and the environment in mind.
Addressing economic uncertainty
Consumers think RTO mandates are designed to initiate “soft layoffs,” in which companies reduce head count by forcing unpopular mandates on workers to spur them to quit, sparing those companies from paying severance as the economy cools. Beyond layoffs, consumers see RTO as indicative of a bigger problem: Companies view workforces as expendable. Consumers especially chafe at companies’ threatening to replace non-RTO-compliant workers with AI, since AI doesn’t need to be in an office to work.
Preventing work-life balance
Consumers believe RTO mandates reveal corporate indifference to employees’ work-life balance. They note how RTO forces them back into grinding commutes that deprive them of leisure time, while also impeding their abilities to manage daily responsibilities (like school pickup). Moreover, consumers think RTO forces them to spend more on gas and childcare, while putting them back under the office thumbs of bad bosses who fuel work-related depression. At a higher level, consumers think corporations see employee work-life balance as problematic, fearing it’ll spur requests for other perks (raises, health coverage, etc.) that companies don’t want to pay out.
Demanding control
Consumers believe RTO mandates are about controlling workers. They question how top-down RTO mandates can improve “productivity,” “collaboration,” and “company culture” when they involve no employee input and put people back into distracting offices that impede performance-enhancing concentration. Consumers talk about reasserting control for themselves via coffee-badging and quiet quitting but ultimately see RTO as a guarantee of brain drain and disloyalty toward employers. More significantly, consumers believe RTO mandates betray the social contract, in which employers are supposed to reward productive employees, not foist unpopular policies on them.
Harming society
Consumers think RTO mandates harm society by ignoring the social and environmental benefits of WFH. They discuss how RTO mandates deprive people of better remote jobs and disproportionately harm vulnerable employees (like long-COVID sufferers and workers with disabilities). They also see RTO as injurious to people’s mental health and the health of the environment, calling out hypocritical companies that tout their commitments to fighting climate change while forcing employees into emission-spewing commutes in stress-spiking traffic.
Reimagining the future of work & infrastructure
Finally, consumers see RTO mandates as roadblocks to society’s ability to envision the future of work and urban infrastructure. They believe the “drive to the office every day” model is outdated, because it favors offices over affordable housing, keeps people in pricy cities (instead of promoting WFH in cheaper areas), inhibits investment in public transit in favor of cars, and forces workers to spend more on those cars. Thus, consumers believe RTO mandates are backward looking, rather than forward thinking.
Lux Take
When considering the cultural factors that drive consumer loyalty and engagement, both B2C and B2B brands alike should remember that consumers are also employees, regulators, and investors who watch how companies impact society. Lux Research has been following consumer sentiments on the future of work, and that future is anything but confined to an office. For B2B brands, attracting and retaining top talent and maintaining a positive public image will hinge on understanding why workers/consumers view RTO as a regressive policy. As the future of work remains an unsettled discussion, B2B brands that consider how RTO impacts the worker-consumer can chart a profitable path out of the office wilderness.
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