What the Return to Office push is really about

Years after the pandemic showed us many “office jobs” could be done just as well or better from home, allowing more women and other non-traditional employees to enter the [sufficiently-paid] workforce than ever, some American companies started pushing us back to the office anyway.

Under a thin facade of “productivity” and “alignment,” this widespread push is really about upholding an economic model that depends on caregiving work remaining unvalued and invisible.

If you’re new, I’m telling the stories leading up to getting fired after raising concerns about gender equity multiple times. See this Linkedin post for links to each.

The Return to Office policy effectively created a second-class employment status.

You may be able to work from home a couple days a week, but it is clear you are there by exception only. Your time and capacity are more heavily monitored, you are subject to routine HR interviews about your family and life decisions, and you often feel as though you have a target on your back—even if you’ve demonstrated literal years of consistent, stellar performance.

Second class status generally applies to most women, but more particularly, it applies to anyone who doesn’t have a “stay-at-home” spouse.

To break it down, the policy says every employee must come in office full-time. But you can qualify to work there on an exception basis as long as you can show you need this consistent flexibility. The question is how that “need” is determined, which was a whole, intrusive and uncomfortable process for the employee.

As a manager, the hardest exceptions to advocate for were for men with stay-at-home-wives. The company’s response, when we discussed one of these cases: “I don’t know why he needs an exception. His wife doesn’t work.”

His wife didn’t work.

They had small children and his wife was the primary caregiver for each of them. This employee wanted a hybrid schedule so he could be available for brief periods during the workday, recognizing that what his wife was doing at home was more than a full-time job, and he wanted to shoulder some of it. 

But offering flexibility to an employee who had a stay-at-home spouse would mean treating her caregiving work as legitimate work.

Legitimate enough to warrant accommodation. But that would mean placing a value on work that is supposed to remain in the background, invisible.

And we already know how threatening that can be.

This man wasn’t viewed as “needing” an exception. He was already with the program, in the club. First class.

Here’s what I was told when I pushed the issue. I synthesized all the complaints, fears, and anxieties surfaced by my team and across the business, and showed my manager how the outcomes didn’t line up with the stated reasons for the policy. He finally said,

“Kate, we know. We know some people can be more productive at home. This policy is not about productivity. And you’re right, it’s not even really about alignment.

It’s about a nostalgia for how things used to be. The executive team wants to go back to how things were, before Covid, when everybody could just come to work.”

He emphasized that last line. What exactly was it about the past that they want to go back to?

Why could employees just come to work? 

Because their wives were at home, taking care of everything for them. For free.

Is that what they want us to go back to?

I brought the concerns up to HR separately. I showed how the policy was objectively hurting our business, and that we were losing out on top talent, women, and others wanting a “woman-friendly” workplace. I was told the executive team had heard our concerns, understood these implications, and chose to keep the policy as it was.

*****

Our current system was built with the expectation that each employee would have access to a full-time, unpaid laborer to manage all their childcare and domestic responsibilities for them.

That’s not a reality for most families anymore, and even at its best, this system left women extremely vulnerable. Rather than digging in, resisting change, and trying to go back to something that was never good for most of us anyway, let’s imagine something better.

It starts with actually valuing caregiving work.

What could that system look like?

Join the conversation by commenting on this post on LinkedIn. Comments drive the algorithm, but I’ll keep your messages private if you email me.

Disclaimer: This is my experience, and how I remember it.