Good morning!
I wrote last week that executives are relentless with their expectations that employees return to the office full-time, and are turning to tactics like attendance tracking to ensure workers comply with RTO mandates.
But the company’s top brass isn’t exempt from the demands of IRL work. In fact, they might be getting it the worst. Hybrid roles paying six figures fell by 69% between October and December of 2023, according to new research from Ladders, a career site that lists jobs paying at least $100,000 annually. The share of high-paying remote job postings also dropped 12% during the same period.
But in-person roles paying six figures increased 93%, and job openings paying $200,000 or more saw the highest increases of in-person work required, according to John Mullinix, director of growth marketing at Ladders.
“Companies want their highest earners in the office for collaboration and leadership,” Mullinix wrote in a statement.
Some top CEOs have been public about demanding company leaders work from the office. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon insisted that managers working remotely cannot “be a leader and not be completely accessible to your people” in an interview with The Economist in July 2023. And billionaire Elon Musk, who has called remote work “morally wrong,” threatened to fire managers still permitting remote work for subpar-performing employees at Twitter (now X) following his acquisition of the platform in November 2022.
Although companies may be demanding highly paid employees work in person, that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it. A recent survey from software company Checkr found that 68% of managers would prefer remote work to continue in 2024, while only 48% of employees said the same. And companies pushing for in-person work in industries that still have high percentages of remote workers, like tech and marketing, should expect a real battle for top talent considering how reluctant they are to commute to an office. That includes offering better wages and benefits, Mullinix tells Fortune.
“What you can negotiate on will probably be different between big companies with lots of money, and then smaller companies that maybe don’t have the same budget as the big companies, but they’re more flexible, as far as PTO, work environment, etc.,” he says.
The percentage of senior-level hybrid jobs may be shrinking now, but it’s still unclear whether those postings are the wave of the future or just optimism on behalf of management.
“It’ll be interesting to see the trend [continue] because it might be aspirational coming from the top down, rather than the bottom up,” says Mullinix. “Because employees’ sentiments have suggested that they enjoy the hybrid and the remote work schedule because it offers great flexibility.”
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
- Some Gen Z job applicants are bringing their parents along for their interviews, and employers are not loving it. —Business Insider
- Deloitte just rolled out an AI tool to 75,000 workers in a move that the company hopes will boost productivity. But employees were warned that the tool could produce false info, and it is up to them to ensure accurate writing. —Financial Times
- Nearly 20% of office space in big American cities was empty in the fourth quarter of last year, according to Moody’s Analytics. The last time that number reached such heights was 1979. —Wall Street Journal
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Boycott blues. McDonald’s CEO says that boycotts related to disinformation about the Israel-Hamas war are impacting the business. —Eleanor Pringle
CEO mirage. The CEO of an Australian crypto company with a résumé that included stints at Cambridge University and Goldman Sachs may not actually exist. — Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
Saudi expansions. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are opening headquarters in Saudi Arabia as the country tries to compete with other regional economic powerhouses like Dubai. —Matthew Martin, Fahad Abuljadayel, Bloomberg
Dog days are over. The latest casualty of return-to-office mandates is man’s best friend. People who adopted dogs during pandemic-era WFH are now trying to rehome their animals. —Orianna Rosa Royle
A-list woes. Add Jodie Foster to the list of Gen Z critics: The actress says that young people are “really annoying, especially in the workplace.” —Eleanor Pringle
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