UK CEOs expect full return to the office by 2027, study shows

The majority of UK CEOs expect employees to return to office full time within the next three years according to new research by KPMG. The findings are in stark contrast to data from a separate study showing that is precisely the opposite of what employees want. We’ll ask a D&I specialist about some of the problems that creates for the business and what the answer might be.  

The survey of CEOs appears in KPMG’s Outlook report covering 1,325 global business leaders, including 150 from the UK. When questioned, 83% of them said they expected to see a full return to the office within three years. Commenting on the finding, the report concludes that CEOS in the UK have doubled down on returning to the workplace and become ‘further entrenched in their view’ that employees should be gradually returning to the office and should be back full-time within three years. Last year 63% expressed that view. This year, it’s 83%. On that finding KPMG says: ‘But today’s employees expect a more flexible working environment and better work-life balance. So, it will be interesting to see how CEOs’ views on the return-to-office debate play out against their recognition that the employee value proposition is key to attracting and retaining top talent.’ 

People Management reports on this and points out how the CEOs’ views appear at odds with what employees want. A separate survey conducted by People Management shows that more than two thirds, 69%, of employees would start looking for a new job if they were told to spend more time in the office.

So clearly there is a mismatch when it comes to what businesses leaders and employees want so let’s consider that. Earlier I caught up with D&I specialist Kate Dodd and I asked her what she makes of the CEOs’ expectations: 

Kate Dodd: “So, I suppose I'm quite surprised by that. I know that there have been some really high profile businesses who've brought all of their people back into the office, or at least they've declared they're going to bring their people back into the office, but I haven't realized that this was something that was so high on the agenda of the majority of CEOs and I do think it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out because I don't think for a minute that it's probably what the people who are working for those CEOs necessarily want.”

Joe Glavina: “I think you're absolutely right there, Kate, and there's a separate survey which Bloomberg carried out not so long ago that shows that 75% of staff would actually sacrifice pay for more flexibility, and some staff in London would insist on a pay rise before they were forced back into the office, so they're definitely at odds with staff.”

Kate Dodd: “Absolutely, absolutely, 100% at odds with the with staff and I think that we can't overestimate the potential impact of generational diversity here either because what is happening is we are now four years post pandemic, but that's a huge number of people in our workplaces who have never worked in a pattern that involves being in the office five days a week. So for them, it's simply something that hasn't existed before and even for those who were in the office more regularly prior to the pandemic, they have got very used to it and they've adjusted their lives accordingly. Having canvassed some opinions from those around me, from some of my clients, on this topic the response has been kind of good luck with that, and a strong belief that people actually would vote with their feet, so that it would be a reason that people would find, you know, a kind of a red line for them and they would not be able to continue working for an employer who said you have to be in the office five days a week.”

Joe Glavina: “Just picking up on another stark statistic from this survey, 81% of UK CEOs said they're likely to reward employees who come into the office, significantly up from 56% last year, and there are definitely risks with that approach, aren't there?”

Kate Dodd  Yes, there absolutely are. So there's two types of risk really here. The first is a risk around diversity and inclusion. So the problem we have if we create a two-tier workforce in whatever way that may be, we create an ‘us and them.’ We create people who are rewarded for being in the office, and not necessarily for being good workers, or having great output, but simply being in the office. We then have the fear and the possibility of proximity bias which we know is hugely damaging. It's based on the fact that we tend to favour those who we see and who we are close to and who we are regularly interacting with because, essentially, it's easier and so essentially we are we start to create gaps, opportunity gaps, for example, and from a D&I perspective having this situation where there are those who are in every day and those who are not becomes a real issue and I do remember some of our clients were describing their office and they described it like a man cave because they said there were so many men who were back in the office and actually so few women and, of course, we know that women bear the majority of the caring responsibilities.”

Joe Glavina: “Which brings us on to the risk of discrimination claims, Kate, and we have seen some cases on this, haven't we?”

Kate Dodd: “Yes, so generally speaking, definitely a real risk of discrimination and not just on the grounds of sex. There is risk of sex discrimination, and particularly, I think, in relation to opportunity gaps and then creating pay gaps with people are being rewarded for being in the office and that is really difficult. More than that, of course, is the potential actual legal risks around bringing people back into the office who've been working from home and there, of course, you will encompass potential disability discrimination. So the hybrid mode of working has actually allowed a lot of people to work who wouldn't necessarily previously have been able to, not even people who are suffering from a disability that it's a physical disability. It may be people who find being in the office everyday overwhelming, it could be people who've been diagnosed with neurodiverse conditions, for example, who are able to kind of manage being in the office for a couple of days a week, maybe, but would find it very difficult to change that. So what we're seeing, and what we have seen, is successful tribunal claims from people who have been forced to come back into the office who have claimed indirect discrimination. So where the employer has got their legitimate aim of wanting to bring people back into the office for productivity reasons or for teamwork, etcetera, the tribunal will look very, very carefully at that and say, was there any other way, was there any less discriminatory way, that they could have achieved that legitimate aim and the tribunal are not holding back from saying to employers, simply saying that everybody has to be back in in order to achieve this aim is a lazy approach to this, it’s too general, and it does discriminate against people, or it does disadvantage people, differently depending on their personal circumstances which, as you know, could then lead to a successful claim for discrimination.”

Joe Glavina: “Last question Kate, which is your message to HR professionals watching this. I can imagine a lot of them nodding as you make those points but how do should they go about persuading their CEOs that requiring staff to return to the office more than staff would like could present an issue for the business?” 

Kate Dodd: “So, lots of our HR colleagues, HR professionals, that we work with are also quite keen to see people back in the office more frequently. It is easier to deal with things like poor performance etcetera when people are in the office but what I would be recommending to our HR colleagues, and our D&I colleagues, is to say you need to look at the research that shows what the potential impact of this is going to be on a business in terms of staff retention and also attraction and there is a lot of research out there to show that different people, potentially different generations, will simply not choose to work for an employer. So if you're a very, very highly sought after employer you might be able to get away with this because there's enough people who are going to want to come and work for you whereas if you do have any skills gaps, or if you're in an area with competition for talent, then you need to think very carefully before enforcing something like this and my recommendation to HR would be to go in armed with that data, so that it's a data led discussion.”

KPMG’s 2024 CEO Outlook Report is available from KPMG’s website with a separate section dealing with the UK’s CEOs. We’ve put a link to that in the transcript of this programme for you. You have also included a link to People Management’s article which comments on it.

LINKS
- Link to KPMG’s 2024 CEO Outlook Report
- Link to People Management article