Labor Day return to office mandates yearn for 'normal.' But the pre-COVID workplace is gone.

Will this be the September when we finally, really return to the office?

Every year since 2020, scores of employers have insisted that, after Labor Day, it’s time to go back to “normal,” back to working on the premises.

This year, just like Groundhog Day, companies are at it again. Goldman Sachs eliminated summer Fridays and ordered employees back to the office five days a week. Amazon recently told some remote staffers they are required to relocate to corporate hubs, prompting at least some to quit. JP Morgan Chase, Apple, Meta, BlackRock and Disney are among others mandating at least a few days a week in the office. Even some companies that previously offered “work from anywhere” remote options are backtracking, like Salesforce, which in June offered to donate $10 to charities for every day employees showed up in person.

Yet after three years of cajoling, enticing and demanding employees return, more than half of employees still aren’t in the office full time, according to The Flex Report, which tracks employment from 4,000 companies globally. A third are hybrid remote, the report found.

Office vacancy rates hit an all-time high this year, topping 20% in some major cities. And a new Bankrate survey found that 81% of employees want a permanent four-day workweek.

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There's no going back to a five-day work week in office

So let’s face reality. It’s time to acknowledge that there is no going back to the pre-pandemic era work schedule. If you were to invent our workplace from scratch today, there is no way it would look anything like five days a week in the office full time – a cadence that was outdated even before the pandemic began.

As someone who has managed teams for decades, I empathize with employers who want people back on the premises. Being together is essential to mentoring, collaboration, sharing a common culture and the serendipitous hallway conversations that spark new ideas. What’s more, research has shown that Zoom is a creativity killer, a terrible substitute for brainstorming new ideas in person.

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But employees are pushing back for good reason. It isn’t just the undeniable appeal of working in sweatpants, walking the dog or doing laundry between Zoom calls. Research has found that employees are more productive at home, that eliminating the commute adds hours to their days and that back-to-office mandates seem arbitrary, suggesting employers don’t trust them.

What’s more, the four-day workweek has been a proven success. Multiple studies – including one in Iceland, another in the United Kingdom and another globally – found productivity was the same or even better. Meanwhile, employees reported reduced stress and improvements in sleep, mental health and work/life balance.

Contrast that with the recent performance at Goldman, with its rigid insistence on in-person attendance: Earnings were down 58% in the most recent quarter, and it has faced multiple setbacks, including advising the now-collapsed Silicon Valley Bank.  

Remote jobs mean more diverse workforces

Flexibility also leads to a more diverse workforce, giving employers a larger pool of potential hires. Women, especially those with kids at home, along with people of color, are more likely to prefer remote work.

A LinkedIn analysis found that job listings for remote positions attract proportionately more diverse candidates.

Indeed, women are participating in the workforce at unprecedented levels right now, with new records set in April, May and June. A major reason: the flexible or remote work options that started during the pandemic, combined with the end of COVID-19 restrictions, which means kids are back at school, camp or day care.

There’s also an additional, less understood, reason for the disconnect between employers and employees when it comes to returning to work, one that explains why the gulf is so stubborn. All of us have experienced a profound life change over the past few years of pandemic and other stresses. Employers are asking workers to bounce back to “normal” – but as psychologists have found, that simply isn’t possible after an extreme trauma.

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To understand why, look to the relatively new field of post-traumatic growth. We’ve all heard of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. PTG holds that people can also grow from traumatic experiences.

Psychologists assess this growth by evaluating responses to 21 statements. Many involve a new outlook, including “I changed my priorities about what is important in life,” “I am more likely to try to change things that need changing,” and “new opportunities are available that wouldn’t have been otherwise.”

Employers should lean into lessons from post-traumatic growth

Considering the workplace through the lens of post-traumatic growth suggests that employees may well be primed to apply that growth mindset – the openness to change and to new opportunities – to the workplace. In other words, employees can’t simply bounce back to the pre-pandemic schedule, but perhaps they can bounce forward. It suggests employees can help reimagine what a new workplace should look like and to “change things that need changing.”

Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun pioneered the concept of post-traumatic growth in the 1990s. Tedeschi is hesitant to suggest that there could be societywide post-traumatic growth, given how differently the pandemic impacted different people.  

Trauma “is something that changes your core beliefs and understanding of yourself and your life and your world,” which not everyone has experienced, he noted.

That said, remote work “changed some peoples’ expectations about what work could be like and could do. It just educated some people about themselves and work/life and what they prefer,” Tedeschi told me. “Those are changes that you can’t unlearn.”

One of the key tenets of post-traumatic growth is that, to achieve it, individuals need what psychologists call an “expert companion” who can point out strengths and opportunities you may not be aware of yourself. For companies, the “expert companion” they need may just be their employees.

Along those lines, Tedeschi suggests employers treat employees as partners rather than subordinates, and supercharge communication: “Get the employees involved in that discussion, hear from them, what do they think works best? ... Can the employer put themselves in the employee position? Empathy is really important.”

There are signs that approach can work. Allstate insurance, for example, sold its massive Chicago headquarters last year. Tom Wilson, CEO, said the company identified positions that could potentially be done remotely, then polled employees on their preferences.

“And of the people we gave a choice, 95% said they wanted to work remote permanently,“ Wilson said recently, "and we’re finding a way to make it work.”

Allstate has about 57,000 employees, and 82% of those in the United States work remotely. Since instituting its remote policy, Wilson said, diverse hires have increased by 30%.

The bottom line is: Let’s use this moment to build a new way of working, rather than trying the impossible task of “bouncing back.” This doesn’t necessarily mean doing away with the office altogether. But it does mean letting go of obsolete ideas and rethinking the structure of the workplace.

Only then can we figure out a workplace that truly works – for all of us.

Joanne Lipman, a journalism lecturer at Yale University, is author of "NEXT! The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work“ and "That’s What She Said.” A member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors, she is a former editor-in-chief of USA TODAY. Learn more at www.joannelipman.com