Employers and staff are calling a 'truce' on the return-to-office war

financialpost.com:

When video conferencing specialist Zoom Video Communications Inc. called staff back to the office last month, it was widely interpreted as the disintegration of the remote work experiment. The pro-office message, four years after the pandemic triggered a white-collar retreat, was seized on by Elon Musk, who described it as morally wrong for “laptop classes living in la-la-land” to work from home. Amazon.com Inc. is tracking attendance and emails staff who fail to attend three days a week, while Alphabet Inc.’s Google says absence will affect staff performance reviews. In the United Kingdom, banks including Lloyds Banking Group, Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings PLC, have taken the September cue to tighten their in-office mandates.

But even as some employers take a more aggressive approach to forcing staff back to the office, the latest data shows the picture on working patterns is more nuanced. Even after its clampdown, Zoom only requires two days in the office, while most other companies with office staff expect to retain a component of remote working.

“What doesn’t get the headlines is that there’s a bigger percentage of companies moving from full time in the office to much more flexibility,” said Brian Elliott, co-founder of Future Forum, a consortium on the future of work launched in 2020.

As the Northern Hemisphere shifts out of summer holiday season — traditionally the point at which companies have sought to tighten their return-to-office policies — tensions with staff are far from resolved. But the debate over working patterns is entering a new phase, as companies examine how to enhance the productivity and performance of hybrid policies — rather than viewing them simply as a staff perk. New clues are emerging