World Cup fever has taken over the U.S. in recent days, prompting some employers—even those with the most hardline approach to in-office work—to lean into flexibility.
According to The Financial Times, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are among the Wall Street giants that told employees they could request to work from home on match days, citing concerns about heavy traffic in host cities. The international soccer tournament plays out across 11 U.S. cities, and several in Canada and Mexico, through the middle of July.
The relaxed policies represent a departure for both firms, which have refused to walk back their RTO mandates, despite significant employee pushback. For instance, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon bluntly told employees who criticized the company’s in-office mandate to quit. Calls for more flexibility were renewed in the wake of the Iran war and its impact on rising gas prices, without any action on the part of the employers.
The temporary flexibility allowed for the World Cup—which isn’t set to conclude for almost another month—could give workers a renewed taste of flexibility; yet, without ongoing flexibility, retention risks may rise.
For instance, a recent survey from TopResume found that nearly 20% of managers say their reports have quit, or threatened to quit, because of a return-to-office requirement. Attracting new talent is also a problem: More than one-third say their organization’s RTO mandate is making hiring top talent more challenging.
“Return-to-office policies are no longer just about where work happens; they’re shaping whether people stay,” says Amanda Augustine, resident career expert at TopResume. “The commute, the cost and the time away from family are real trade-offs for employees, and mandates alone won’t overcome that.”
A new report from ezCater bolsters that idea. The research finds that nearly 60% of workers favor hybrid work, compared to about one-third who want to work fully remote; less than 10% prefer to be entirely on-site. And when a new policy requires employees to get back to the office full-time—without any added benefits or perks—more than one-quarter are likely to get started on a job hunt.
Given that Dimon has been one of remote work’s most outspoken critics, the notion of building flexibility back into the RTO policy, at least at JPMorgan Chase, is likely not one to gain traction after the World Cup winners are crowned. However, the temporary flexibility could inflame the debate about RTO again, especially if employees question whether the policy is built with real business outcomes in mind or around leadership’s personal preferences. That tension—that pits HR right in the middle—was recently the focus of a study published in Science Direct. The research found that leaders deemed to be narcissistic were more resistant to remote work, as they associate in-person work with power and status.
“Our studies show that ego concerns may motivate even leaders with high levels of autonomy—such as CEOs and executives—to restrict freedom for employees to work virtually,” researchers say. “These results underscore that resistance to remote work has social as well as individual roots.”
Following such tendencies to establish rules around where employees work could “come at the expense of performance,” they say, “as return-to-office mandates incite turnover among senior and highly skilled employees.”
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