Young workers often get flak for sabotaging return-to-office plans, but actually, it’s top-level executives that employers will have to contend with if they want their mandates to go to plan.
That’s according to new research which found that financial executives would rather quit their high-paying jobs than ditch working from home.
Exactly two-thirds of the 700 hybrid working financial executives surveyed by Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence said they would likely quit if they were ordered to return to the office five days a week.
Wall Street chiefs have been among the loudest in pushing for a full-time return to the office. It’s probably why 50% of respondents said they feel pressured to go into the office more often.
Both JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have already ordered workers back to the office five days a week. The latter bank’s CEO, David Solomon, famously called remote working “an aberration that we’re going to correct as quickly as possible.”
But without top talent on board, hard-line back-to-the-office mandates may backfire. According to the report, financial services firms forcing workers back to their cubicles could “run the risk of losing their pipeline of leaders and have difficulty recruiting fresh talent.”
That’s because respondents who said they would consider leaving their current role in the next 12 months would mostly do so for a job with more flexibility—this superseded better pay or benefits.
So chucking money at the problem, as many businesses did during the Great Resignation, won’t do.
Female leaders are your biggest flight risk
Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence’s report also revealed an eye-opening but unsurprising finding: Women’s careers are the collateral damage of RTO mandates.
Those with caregiving responsibilities, which statistically are more likely to be women, were 1.3 times more likely to say they would leave their employer if the ability to work from home was eliminated by the company.
What’s more, nearly half of women respondents in senior leadership roles and 41% of women occupying next-generation roles reported being likely to leave their current employer over the next year.
Perhaps most alarming for the financial industry, forcing workers back into the office could be sabotaging the sector’s efforts to close the gender gap and pull women through the ranks: Half of the women looking to leave their jobs are considering leaving the financial services industry altogether. While 16% of those are eyeing up a career pivot, another 5% are considering leaving the workforce altogether.
“Without any deliberate action, women’s representation in senior leadership roles could stagnate. And in next-generation roles, representation could fall by 2031,” the report warned.
The solution is simple: When looking at what retains female workers, 70% of respondents cited flexibility as the top reason for staying put or leaving a company.
“Financial services institutions should be immensely concerned that many of their leaders—particularly women in senior leadership role—have one foot out the door,” Dan Schawbel, managing partner at Workplace Intelligence, said in a statement to Fortune. “While returning to the office can help organizations achieve their business objectives, companies should do so in a way that doesn’t sacrifice employee engagement and well-being.”
Diversity, equity, and inclusion expert Neda Shemluck, a managing director at Deloitte Services LP, echoed that warning.
“This latest report puts timely and relevant data behind the notion that flexibility in workplace arrangements is a driving force in employee engagement,” added Shemluck, the firm’s U.S. financial services DEI leader. “As employers work to establish their in-office policies, it’s important that they carefully examine how to optimize in-person interactions, identify the most suitable tasks for remote work, and empower employees with flexibility.”