‘It Can Be a Bit Polarizing’—Finance Chiefs Weigh Return-to-Office

livemint.com:

The return-to-office discussion has upended the workplace. Sparsely populated workplaces are affecting corporate cultures and workers’ ambitions, bosses say, leading some to step up their return-to-office mandates. Rank-and-file workers, meanwhile, are reluctant to give up the flexibility gained during the pandemic, with long commutes, caregiving duties and high costs among the motivators keeping them at home, at least some of the time, they say.

“It can be a bit polarizing, because you get those opposite ends of the spectrum of 100% time in office or not," said J.M. Smucker Chief Financial Officer Tucker Marshall, adding that the maker of Jif peanut butter and Folgers coffee has so far opted for a hybrid back-to-office approach. “I think what’s important is, how is your company performing, how is your culture evolving, and where is the development of your teams and your people.

And that should be a bit of the guiding post." So far, most U.S. companies—51%—are opting for some kind of hybrid-work arrangement, according to a report covering more than 4,000 companies conducted by hybrid-workplace software company Scoop. The share of people in the office under a so-called structured-hybrid work arrangement, which requires workers in the office a set number of days, increased to 30% in the second quarter of this year, up from 20% in the first quarter, according to Scoop.

Fully flexible work arrangements, which are defined as remote working all of the time or letting employees decide if and when they are in, dropped 3 percentage points, to 28%, in the second quarter. The hybrid model at Orrville, Ohio-based Smucker differentiates between core and noncore weeks, Marshall said. “Our core weeks are a little more defined," he