If you haven’t gone back to the office yet, you’ve almost certainly seen the signs: more traffic, bustling office buildings, and fewer people out and about on a workday. But if you have indeed returned to your place of work, you’re not alone; 90 percent of companies plan to implement return-to-office policies by the end of 2024, according to an August report from Resume Builder.

Goldman Sachs, Google, even teleconferencing company Zoom are just a few of the big names supporting this push. With the COVID-19 pandemic no longer considered a global health emergency, organizations are eager to end the three-year work from home experiment.

The reasons are numerous, says Bryant University Assistant Professor of Management Zahra Heydarifard, Ph.D.

In her research, Heydarifard, who teaches International Human Resource Management and Employment Law, explores the connections between individual's experiences at work and their personal lives. Despite a promising beginning, she says, the work from home experiment ultimately ran afoul of a basic human need.

“There’s a desire for relationships and belonging in human beings,” Heydarifard notes. “It doesn't matter how much autonomy they have, or how that suits them, it needs to be supported with relationships and belonging.”

Shifting expectations
Work from home policies didn’t begin with the COVID-19 crisis, notes Heydarifard: The information technology field, for instance, was an early adopter. But the global pandemic forced offices to empty and society to change. “Previous pandemics actually killed the economy because, not only did people die, they couldn’t go to work. When COVID-19 hit, companies had no other options; they could either go with a work from home policy or go bankrupt,” says Heydarifard.

Advances in technology like video conferencing and near-universal internet access eased the sudden transition. Still, as people were confined to their homes, they were forced to navigate a strange new working world.

“If we look at employee's productivity and working from home policies, we can see that it went up at the beginning because employees felt excited that they had more time for themselves and more flexibility,” says Heydarifard. “Organizations were excited as well because their overheads were now much lower, they didn't need big office buildings anymore.

“Everything seemed easier for both sides,” she says.

But over time, Heydarifard notes, problems arose. “If we look at the trend between the connection of productivity and work from home policy, we see that it became a curvilinear relationship. After a period of time, we saw that employees’ productivity dropped.”

Employees began to feel that, although they seemed to have greater flexibility, they were now always on call. “Work from home” had come to mean there was no separation between “work” and “home.”

“Because managers didn't trust their employees, they put more work on them and actually increased their workload,” says Heydarifard.

Loss of identity
The move from work to home also came with a surprise. Employees, says Heydarifard, actually came to find they missed in-person interactions with co-workers. Being able to make those connections, she says, can be an important part of job satisfaction.

In addition, some workers began to miss the sense of identity they had from being part of a team. “When you do not have the chance to actually be in the physical work environment, it can seem that you are all by yourself,” Heydarifard says. “It doesn't matter how many Zoom meetings you attend.”

There’s a term for that sort of marketplace, Heydarifard says: “Red Ocean.” It takes its name from the fierce and cutthroat hiring practices necessary to recruit and retain the right talent.

It’s often worse for incoming employees, she points out. “When you onboard with a new organization, you not only need to learn about your job, but also you need to get adjusted to the new culture and new colleagues and new environment,” explains Heydarifard.

All of these factors can take a toll. “When employers look at the whole trend, yes, at the first there was excitement and productivity and the employers were happy, but over time productivity dropped, satisfaction dropped, and no one seemed as happy as they were at the beginning,” says Heydarifard, noting studies into the phenomenon.

Company culture
Organizations are facing similar issues. While work from home allows employees from all over the world to work anywhere in the world — helping companies recruit previously inaccessible talent — it also impedes creating and maintaining a uniform company culture. “Some organizations felt that they were losing their identity — and if there is no significant difference between one organization and another, it leads to a higher employee attrition rate,” Heydarifard notes.

That shift in traditional loyalty came at a time when it was easier to leave than ever. “With heightened mobility, there's no ‘switching costs’ from moving from this company to that company. If you were to move from a company in Rhode Island to another in California, what is the difference?” asks Heydarifard.

That added up to a troubling trend for organizations. “When turnover goes up, it doesn’t just increase the cost of recruiting and training new employees; it also makes competition in recruiting talent fiercer because now you have to give more to keep or replace talents — and that’s scary for every single organization,” she says.

There’s a term for that sort of marketplace, Heydarifard says: “Red Ocean.” It takes its name from the fierce and cutthroat hiring practices necessary to recruit and retain the right talent.

The future
While some workers welcome the return to stable office culture, others will mourn the flexibility they lose. Either way, the genie is out of the bottle. After leading the trend, the IT profession remains the most open to work from home arrangements, but other industries may follow suit or adopt hybrid policies.

“In the future, it is possible we will see work from home policies become more common because the new generation is less likely to accept an eight-to-five work schedule,” Heydarifard says. “They want flexibility and will prefer to have more time for themselves rather than spending time at work.”

“I want to say the next generation will even go further. They don't necessarily want to buy a house or stay in one place for the rest of their life anymore. How can we force them to come to the office every day?”