We have been hearing justifications from rigid employers on why they insist that eventually, even after over 18-months of the Great Work from Home Experiment, employees must return to the office.  For over a year, employers have pointed to a loss of culture, opportunity cost for the exchange of ideas, and the importance of facetime with supervisors for career advancement.  These stated reasons have felt weak and have fallen flat to the audience of knowledge workers around the globe because, as has been heavily reported, work-from home flexibility is conducive to productivity and keeping women in the labor force—not to mention the environmental benefits of decreasing the number of people commuting.  Instead, countless workers, like my clients, have expressed that employers’ insistence on return to office work feels primarily driven by a desire to exert control.  But now there is a new justification, one that smacks of paternalism and toxicity and reveals just how out of touch some employers are with the realities of the new worker’s market.

The refrain goes something like this: “We at [insert company’s name here] care deeply about preparing our employees for their next employer, who may not be as understanding and progressive as we are here.”

Yes, you read that right.  Employers are actually saying this, and publicly.

I first came across this justification about a month and a half ago when the founders of “theSkimm”—a media company with a large millennial female readership—released a statement on their plans for return to the office.  The statement began admirably, acknowledging the unknowns with the then emerging surge in Delta variant cases and criticizing employers for trying to announce hard and fast return to office plans.  It’s a criticism I’ve articulated, and I was initially impressed with their patience to wait for more data before determining and announcing a plan.  The statement went on to note many of the benefits of work from home flexibility, including the desire of workers, especially people of color and LGBTQ employees to avoid microaggressions and have some comfort in their daily work experience—likewise something I have also posted extensively about on social media.  I was ready to share their statement widely and applaud them for their forward-thinking.

Then, in the second to last paragraph, I saw two sentences that caused my jaw to drop.  After declaring that they would, in fact, be requiring their employees to return into an office, in person, they explained,  “[w]e want [our employees] to feel included and supported in the here and now, but also remain competitive for wherever their career path takes them. We feel a responsibility to prepare them for a life beyond theSkimm that may not be as flexible.”

I was floored.  I’m not even one of their employees and I felt betrayed and gaslit. 

I thought it was an isolated incident.  Then, in my private one-on-one sessions, client after client began sharing similar stories about their employers.  And they were having the same emotional reaction as I had.  They’ve expressed how this excuse landed as at best, out of touch, and at worst, paternalistic and emotionally manipulative.

And they’re right.  Whether your employer is articulating this because they are simply out of touch or because they are making a conscious effort to gas light their employees, my advice is simple: it’s time to make a plan and move on. 

If employers are continuing to ignore the reality that work from home actually supports productivity, access to talent, and keeping women and people of color both in the workforce and feeling comfortable at work, then there is no point in staying and continuing to argue these points.  That simply will not bring about the revolution knowledge workers so desperately need.

So if you hear this justification, let’s talk.