- The study reveals continuous resistance to RTO mandates
- Many workers say they are looking for a new job, or simply stop, if they were forced to return full -time
- Women more resistant than men, but BME workers have also affected
A new study has revealed that attitudes towards a full -time return (RTO) are always incredibly resistant, because workers are looking for more flexibility and productivity in their roles.
More than a million observations of the active population survey (LFS) and some 50,000 responses from the survey on arrangements and work attitudes (SWAA) United Kingdom between the beginning of 2022 and 2024 were analyzed by researchers from King’s College London (KCL) and the King Trade School to see if workers’ opinions on RTO mandates had changed.
Unsurprisingly, the report revealed that many workers were still opposed to policies, with less than half (42%) saying that they would agree to return to the full -time office – and the overall figures showing that there is “no clear trend of a mass return to the office in the United Kingdom”.
RTO resistance
“Despite the growing announcement of the CEOs and the reports of companies back to the mass office, based on two large -scale representative surveys on the British labor market, we see no evidence of this,” said professor of authors Heejung Chung and researcher Shiya Yuan in their report.
“We see no clear sign that workers return to the office, and we do not see evidence of employers restricting the possibilities of working at home for workers in their policies. In fact, we see an increasing number of workers who can work at home.”
Overall, the figures have shown that home work rates (WFH) have been stable since 2022, with more than a quarter of all workers saying that the house is their main workplace, and around 40% of workers work at least once a week, with more than 25% work three days or more at home.
The report seems to indicate that RTO mandates are a potential device for many workers, because half of the respondents said they prefer to seek a new job to return full time to their current employer – an increase of 40% in the previous survey.
Women were more likely to seek a new job (55%) or to leave entirely (9%) than men (43%and 8%), young mothers much more likely to comply.
However, black and minority ethnic workers proved to be slightly more in line with the return to the office, which the study could be due to “insecurity of work and discrimination in the workplace”.
“For HR managers and decision -makers, the message is clear: well -designed hybrid work models provide significant advantages to employers and employees who support equality, talent retention, collaboration and commercial resilience,” concluded the authors.
“Rigid RTO not only requires risks to overthrow these gains, but can also create serious challenges of recruitment and retention on the labor market where flexibility has become a reference expectation.”
