The gloves are coming off between employers and workers.
The worst of the Covid pandemic may be over but its ramifications still reverberate, especially in the employment sector of society. The number of workers still operating remotely has remained stubbornly high even as their employers use every argument at their disposal to get them to return to the office.
And the employers’ patience now seems to be running thin.
Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, recently stated what many employers have been quietly contemplating for months now when he stated that workers who refuse point-blank to resume their responsibilities back in the office likely will not have a future in the tech giant.
Even Zoom, the very bastion of remote work, has issued an ultimatum literally ordering all workers within a 50-mile radius to get back to the office at least twice a week. Goldman Sachs has also laid down the law by mandating employees back to the office for a regular five-day week, while JP Morgan has declared a minimum three-day office attendance per week.
With most workers emphatic about working remotely at least some of the time and employers increasingly laying down the law with regards returning to the cubicles, the battle lines are clearly being drawn.
Employment consultant Jason Greer has said the situation has become heightened with both sides reluctant to back down, stating that “fundamentally we’re going to have to critically analyze what the world of work looks like now. If you’re pushing your employees to come back to the office, you’ve got to make sure they’re coming back to the office for something other than meetings.”
This seems to reflect what many other experts are saying in the same situation, that the pandemic shifted the dial on traditional working practices and a more nuanced compromise would be the best outcome for both parties.
Whatever happens, this is an ongoing situation that hasn’t played its last chord as yet and will have many more turns before it gets resolved.
