Nearly a third of adults say they would look for a new job if their boss banned working from home (WFH) and made them come into the office full time, fresh research has found.
According to an exclusive poll for City AM, 58 per cent of employed respondents said that if they were faced with a return to office mandate from their employer, they would comply and return to the office for five days a week.
But a striking 29 per cent said they would seek alternative employment, laying bare the tightrope bosses are having to tread when determining their firm’s approach to hybrid working.
Charlie Thompson, a partner at litigation specialist Stewarts, said that it was “not particularly surprising” a majority of staff would opt to comply with a shift in office working policy when faced with a direct mandate.
“However, although it is often possible for employers to force through these kinds of changes, the data shows that even if the employer ‘wins’ that battle [many] employees would vote with their feet and choose to find another job straight away,” he told City AM.
The findings – from research conducted by City AM‘s polling partner Freshwater Strategy – come as several of the UK’s biggest white collar employers grapple with the best approach to WFH as the pandemic rolls further into the rear-view mirror.
Last month, leadership at London-listed adverting behemoth WPP faced a staff revolt – culminating in a public online petition attracting nearly 20,000 signatures – after boss Mark Read ordered staff in for at least four days a week.
And leading lenders Lloyds and Barclays have both tightened their rules on working from home this year, with the former telling senior bankers that their bonuses would be pegged to their office attendance.
However, on Tuesday it also emerged that Citi has bucked the trend in investment banking towards a five-day office week, allowing almost all staff to WFH twice a week.
In an email first reported by the Financial Times, chief executive Jane Fraser reassured top executives that its current hybrid policy would remain in place, despite the likes of JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs all mandating full-time office attendance.
The Freshwater Strategy research also found UK workers to be fairly sanguine about the threat artificial intelligence might pose to their jobs.
Fewer than one-in-ten respondents (nine per cent) said their job was at risk of being replaced by AI in the next few years, while a fifth believed their role would be under threat in the next decade.
Meanwhile over half of respondents felt their job was unlikely to be at risk of being replaced by AI in the next decade.