COMP NEWS – A new survey reveals a surprising segment of employees who want to work from home the most – executives and managers.

In the years-long debate over remote work, upper-level executives have often been the loudest — and staunchest — advocates for returning to the office. 

But many bosses want to work from home as much as, if not more than, their employees do, according to a new survey of 3,000 American workers and managers from software firm Checkr.

The survey found that 68% of bosses, a group that includes middle managers, executives and business owners, would like remote work to continue in 2024, while less than half (48%) of employees feel the same. 

But it’s still hard to draw any definitive conclusions about employees’ and managers’ remote work preferences.

Although some CEOS — including Amazon’s Andy Jassy and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon — have increasingly pushed for return-to-office mandates, other research has indicated that bosses aren’t thrilled with the loss of remote work.

More than 80% of executives and non-executives want flexibility in where they work, including a majority (56%) of those in the office full-time, per Future Forum’s February 2023 pulse survey. This is true of high-earners, too: A July 2023 report from McKinsey found that one-third of employees earning over $150,000 would quit their jobs if they had to return to the office full-time.

A large motivation for bosses to push for a return-to-office structure is due to real estate. Large working spaces have been left empty since the COVID-19 pandemic, and many organizations see utilizing these spaces as a necessity to avoid a loss of investment.

The sunk cost of unused office space has been a major factor in executives’ decisions to introduce stricter RTO requirements even if they prefer to work from home, says Kathy Kacher, a consultant who advises corporate executives on their RTO plans.

Even nine months ago, companies were willing to eat these costs to recruit and retain talent in a tight labor market.

But now, “Some companies are getting impatient, and want to recoup these large investments,” Kacher explains. “So many of my clients have large real estate footprints, and seeing these empty, expensive office buildings is giving executives a lot of anxiety.“

In New York City, office space costs, on average, about $16,000 a year per employee, the New York Times reports.

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