By Erica Stephens, executive director, Nana Grants
The post-COVID, remote-work narrative has largely focused on why employees want to work from home without looking at systemic inequities and issues driving the desire for remote work: childcare, transportation, financial pressure and undesirable work environments.
Several major companies including Dell, Boeing and UPS have announced return-to-work mandates in recent weeks. Dell’s RTO announcement, in particular, has not been well received.
A memo obtained by Business Insider said if remote Dell employees want to advance their careers, or apply to new internal roles, they have to “reclassify as hybrid onsite.”
A senior source at Dell said the employees affected “are overwhelmingly women.” Dell’s RTO program has been described by employees as a “stealth layoff for women.”
The fundamental structure of how we work in the U.S. has not sufficiently evolved since the Mad Men days when mostly men went to work, and they were either single or had wives at home taking care of their day-to-day needs. Employers still expect employees to leave their personal lives at the front door, and that goes double for working parents.
Most employers offer scant accommodation for inherently human experiences such as illness, childbearing and raising, eldercare, and the pursuit of mental health and physical wellbeing. This failure disproportionately affects women — especially women of color — because they’re still paid less on the job and do more unpaid labor than their white and male counterparts.
Business leaders can either hear this as an indictment or see it as an opportunity. Metro Atlanta is one the largest regions in the nation and the economic engine of the Southeast. Atlanta is home to more than 330 global and North American headquarters, with more relocating every year. Why do these companies love Atlanta? We have one of the most diverse and educated workforces in the country. But that workforce is starting to demand more in exchange for their labor.
A recent survey by ResumeBuilder.com indicates that remote work is more about employees wanting greater control over their personal, family and economic lives and less about working from home. Workers gave a variety of reasons why they want more remote work options, including better work-life balance (85%); to avoid a commute (71%); to save money (64%); being more productive (56%); and to make it easier to care for a child (40%).
During COVID, many employees got a taste of what it’s like to have more control over their schedules and how they get their work done. For those with children, it was a real opportunity to show up in ways you simply can’t while working an eight-hour day with a 30-minute commute on each end. Furthermore, generational trends indicate that younger workers are less willing than their parents or grandparents to sacrifice quality of life for the sake of their jobs.
The issue of childcare is a particular concern to me as the executive director of Nana Grants, a nonprofit that pays for childcare for low-income single mothers in college and job training. We cover student mothers until they graduate or complete job training. It’s a bittersweet day when our student mothers leave our program and must figure out how to pay for child care while they work jobs that often don’t pay enough to cover the obscenely high cost of child care in Atlanta (average $1,670 month).
A recent survey by leadership coaching firm BetterUp found employees who were mandated to return to the office are spending on average $561.06 per month on work-related expenses such as transportation costs and additional childcare expenses, among others. The same survey found workers were willing to take a 13.2% pay cut in exchange for a more flexible work arrangement. This should be a wake-up call for employers: Workers are willing to be paid less for more flexibility because the cost of inflexible work is too high.
Rather than wondering why employees don’t want to come back to the office, let’s ask them what’s behind their reluctance to return. I’m willing to bet employees would gladly come to the office if jobs provided human-centered schedules, sick leave, parental leave, mental health support, and other basic quality of life benefits. Most employees simply want to enjoy balanced lives, including rewarding work that supports personal wellbeing, relationships, health and financial sustainability. Companies that meet those needs will earn their loyalty and productivity.
Learn more about Nana Grants, a 2023 Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta grant recipient, here.
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