As more companies jump on the bandwagon mandating five days a week in the office, workplace experts and researchers are sounding a warning: Inflexible policies could derail efforts to recruit and retain underrepresented workers and make organizations less diverse over time.
The debate over whether flexible work or strict office mandates are better for productivity and collaboration continues to heat up as more companies roll back pandemic-era flexibility. Amazon became the first Big Tech company to require five days in office in September, joining other major firms such as UPS and Goldman Sachs. JPMorgan Chase, Boeing, Dell and The Washington Post also announced plans to require some employees to return to the office five days a week. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) The number of people who work fully on-site has increased just 4 percent in October this year from the same period last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The reversal in policy is leading to a backlash from workers who have protested or even quit. Some researchers who study remote work and workplace productivity say in-office mandates most negatively impact underrepresented workers such as women and minorities, as well as caregivers and those who are neurodiverse.
“The workforce will become less diverse,” said Prithwiraj Choudhury, a Harvard Business School professor who studies remote work, adding that companies also risk losing top performers. “It will be more White and more male.”
Research from Gartner and McKinsey, released in 2024 and 2022, respectively, said office mandates mostly impact women and people of color, who are more likely to quit over flexibility or office mandates. In a separate 2024 study released by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers who studied the start-up labor market found that changing a job opening to remote work increased female applicants by 15 percent and minorities by 33 percent.
Workers say leaving their organizations over inflexible policies is painful but necessary.
Amazon’s prioritization of in-person work became clear last year after the company mandated three days a week in office. A former senior software engineer at Amazon Web Services, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid endangering her new job, said she received a temporary exception. As her exception neared expiration, the mother of two with more than 20 years of software experience faced a choice: relocate her family across the country, work from an office where she’d be the only one from her team, or join a new team, which she tried unsuccessfully. Already she felt her absence from her team’s office was being held against her by some managers, she said.
“I’m sad it’s over, but there’s nothing I can do at this point,” she said, adding that she wasn’t surprised Amazon’s mandate increased to five days this year. “It’s not something I’m willing to do for any amount of money.”
So she gave up her lofty salary, big projects and restricted stock units before they vested, a six-figure loss, and got a job elsewhere. It took her months to be at peace with her decision, she said.
With her departure, the organization lost not only the rarity of a senior female engineer but also a strong leader with a distinctive voice who had the potential to become a principal engineer, said her manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution.
“This was a big loss for me personally and for my team,” said the manager. “Amazon did all the talk about diversity, but when push comes to shove, [it] doesn’t really do anything to protect it.”
But companies suggest the research hasn’t played out. Amazon did not comment on whether diversity was taken into consideration when issuing its office mandates. But when it shifted from remote to hybrid last year, there was no increase in attrition, a spokesperson said. It also pointed to its workforce demographics report, which shows a slight increase in women and diverse workers from 2022 to 2023. Goldman Sachs’s reports similarly showed marginal increases in 2022 and 2023.
The effects of reversing flexible policies may take some time to reveal themselves, Harvard’s Choudhury said. The drop in diversity is more likely to first appear in the pool of job candidates, whereas employee turnover might take more time to play out, he added.
There are likely several flexible companies benefiting from big firms’ decisions to force people back to offices, said Brian Elliott, CEO of Work Forward, an executive adviser on the future of work. Elliott said he believes the loss of women and minority workers could create financial consequences.
“Diversity is tied to innovation,” he said. “People with diverse perspectives bring in new ideas and show you your monocultural blind spots.”
Pinterest, which allows employees to choose where they work for roles that can be done anywhere, said it experienced a 90 percent surge in job applications the week immediately following Amazon’s in-office mandate. A couple of weeks later, applications returned to normal levels.
“My immediate thought when I saw five days a week back in the office was, ‘That’s an opportunity for us,’” said Sara Phillips-Broadhurst, senior director of people, strategy and innovation at Pinterest. Flexibility is “a differentiator for us. We can really pick the best people for the positions we have, and when they join Pinterest, they tend to stay.”
Pinterest said that since it launched its flexible work model, it’s been able to hire more diverse talent and women, with 68 percent of diverse workers and 63 percent of women based outside of the company’s Bay Area home base.
Even just part-time remote work can provide some workers a respite from microaggressions and having to mask their identities at work, some workers said.
Jaya Mallik, who is of South Asian descent and runs her own diversity, equity and inclusion consulting and coaching firm, previously worked for Big Tech companies. She regularly had to defend herself against doubt of her credentials and decisions, much more than her White or male counterparts, she said. She also often “code switched,” or adjusted her language and behavior to match her environment, and masked her neurodivergence to avoid being the target of jokes.
“I was never working in a psychologically safe environment,” said the 39-year-old, who lives in a Seattle suburb. “It felt like I couldn’t let my guard down.”
But in 2020, after experiencing the benefits of remote work, including being able to care for her daughter with medical complications, she said she’d never again work from an office full time.
Some workers are finding ways to create flexibility for themselves.
Francisca Brown, a 53-year-old Milwaukee resident, launched her own diversity, equity and inclusion consulting firm partially because her former employer didn’t provide the flexibility she needed to care for her mother, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Though she left out of necessity, she gained several unexpected benefits.
“I was missing a whole part of myself,” she said, adding that as a female person of color, she felt like she had to constantly prove herself as worthy of her job. “It opened up my world of curiosity again.”
She said if she ever did join another company full time, she would prioritize hybrid work so that she could have some down time to be herself.
Some caregivers are job-hopping to look after their loved ones.
Barbara Murphy, a licensed clinical social worker in Chicago, took a 10-year hiatus from work to look after her son, who has autism and other health complications. She returned to the workforce later but in 2023 quit her job after not having the flexibility to be near her son when needed.
“I absolutely would’ve stayed there if I could’ve had more flexibility,” said the 50-year-old. “But I just can’t. I was just anxious every day hoping he wouldn't have a seizure.”
She now works for an employer that allows her to work remotely.
Strict office mandates come with a price, said Caitlin Duffy, a senior director of research in the human resources practice at Gartner.
“My biggest concern is that all the benefits we’ve gained from more flexible work will be left on the table,” she said. “It’s important to consider not only the tangible financial costs of requiring on-site work but also the hidden costs of workers feeling included and understood by their organizations.”