Slack’s Future Forum survey shows that in-office white-collar workers are more dissatisfied than their remote counterparts.
According to the survey of nearly 11,000 knowledge workers from around the world, over one-third stated they have returned to the office full-time and were twice as unhappy as remote workers.
Rates of anxiety and stress were higher among those that are back in the office, with the survey showing that these professionals were 2.6 times more likely to search for a new job this year compared to those with flexible schedules.
“In the U.S., what we’re seeing is that close to 95 percent of people want flexibility in when they work,” said Sheela Subramanian, a vice president at Slack and cofounder of Future Forum. “They want to be able to not just choose the hours every single day but have flexibility in a framework.”
To make matters worse, the survey showed that leaders and executives are not spending as much time in the office. Nonexecutives were twice as likely to be in the office full-time and reported that their work-life balance was 40% lower than leaders.
“It’s very much a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do mentality, where executives are saying that people need to be back in the office but not going back in themselves,” said Subramanian.
This distaste for current work policies is impacting even the biggest proponents for in-person work, who have come to terms that continuing to ignore the desires of their workers will lead to employee turnover. For instance, JPMorgan Chase recently announced that it would allow some of its workers to abide by a hybrid policy.
