our CEO is demanding we return to the office but people don’t want to — and I’m a manager stuck in the middle

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

In 2020, due to the pandemic, my entire company started to work from home. I enjoyed a much better work-life balance and know many others did too, especially because so many people moved further away for more space.

Sadly, we’ve been asked to come back into the office. At first it was a loose mandate, so people did it sparsely. I co-lead our department of 13 people with my boss, and at first we were pretty chill about it. Then the CEO started wanting people in three days a week, minimum. This caused backlash among the departments. We decided to try two days to try to be in the middle. We thought it was working well and had it going for a year, but with other departments doing their own thing too it became a problem. Some did the three days, while some did just one day. Recently, the CEO — upon hearing Amazon mandated everyone back in-office — sent an email: “Come in Tuesday – Thursday.”

So we’ve told everyone the time has come to really stick to it. And it’s been … not great. We had a meeting to say we understand this isn’t what people want, so in an attempt to be flexible — because some people have meetings with international regions, which make some days really bad to come in when they’re on calls from 8 am until noon — we’ll let people come in other days, as long as it’s three days.

Well, that hasn’t really happened. Local staff are rarely doing three days. Some reasons are understandable: they’re sick and don’t want others to get sick, children-related, pet emergencies, etc.

But it’s getting to a point where the CEO is going to feel we’re disrespecting his mandate, and boom it’ll be a mandate for five days.

Our HR head is checking our key entries. We got a list last week.

This is a constant hot topic in senior leadership. The old-school people think if we did five days a week in the office before, we should be able to do it again. Others, like me, feel it’s a step backwards to not see the benefits of flexibility or permanent WFH.

Our jobs are very hard. I’ve never worked as hard as I’ve had to this past year, due to layoffs and terrible clients. It’s so demoralizing working until 11 pm sometimes and still be expected to be cheery the next morning in-office for the benefit of an out-of-touch CEO. He’s one of those “if I don’t see you working, are you working?” people. Plus, when we’re in the office, we all seclude to rooms for non-stop meetings.

However, if I’m being honest, I do think some of our staff are too comfortable. Some don’t even show up in the office or give a reason.

We feel a bit stuck. If we bring it up again, people will again spit out the reasons for opposing it. I do think some of those reasons are reasonable! And I also think some people are taking some advantage.

I don’t want to care about this. Our team is built of highly functional workers. Many live so far that the commute is really bad (we do let people leave when they want so they can beat traffic). It’s really about tapping that key card for optics. And unfortunately there’s no “can you talk to people above again?” It’s been a discussion for three years now and in the end, what the CEO says goes.

The answer is in your last sentence: in the end, this is the CEO’s call. As part of the senior management team, you can try to convince him that it’s in the company’s best interest to allow more work from home, but ultimately it’s his call — and it’s your job to be forthright with your team about that reality.

I do think it’s worth coming to terms with what sound like some previous missteps. If the CEO wanted people in the office three days and your team compromised on two but even that wasn’t enforced and you’ve had employees not showing up at all and you thought some people were being too lax but you didn’t address it … well, it’s not surprising that your CEO is now responding with a firmer mandate.

That’s not to say the CEO is right. For all I know, he might be; I don’t know your business or how hybrid work has played out there. And it’s possible it’s working for your team but affecting other employees in ways you don’t see (in particular, junior employees who are missing out on the learning by osmosis that happens when they share space with more experienced employees). But he certainly wouldn’t be the first CEO to cling to an old way of operating because that’s what he’s comfortable with, without recognizing that the workforce has changed, or that what technology makes possible has changed, or that what top talent in your field will demand has changed.

And it makes sense to lay out for him  your understanding of how a return-to-office mandate will affect the company’s operations. If you believe you’ll lose good people, struggle to hire the candidates you want, and generally be less effective as a result, you absolutely should present that case. But it sounds like you’ve done that, he’s heard you, and he’s still making a different call. Which he gets to do.

If that’s the point you’re at, all you can do is to be very transparent with your team about the situation — about what’s being required, how much flexibility there is and isn’t, and the consequences if they flout that — and that it’s not about whether they’re right or not, but about what your company will and won’t allow.

However, in order to do that, you need management above you to be clear about what consequences they’re truly prepared to enforce. If that conversation hasn’t been had yet, it needs to happen soon, so that you’re not managing blind. And who knows, maybe it’ll turn out that the CEO isn’t prepared to fire people who won’t comply, in which case you can decide whether you’re willing to just keep existing in a state of tension with him over it indefinitely and what that would mean for you/your team. But it sounds like it’s time to call the question: he wants everyone back in the office, people aren’t willing to do it … so now what? He needs to make that call, and then the answers for how you proceed will stem from that.