Four years on from the start of the pandemic and the great remote versus in-office debate shows no signs of slowing down, with company bosses and workers at odds over workplace location.
From Dell's decree that remote workers won't be eligible for promotion if they choose to continue working remotely to Walmart issuing a RTO (return to office) mandate for all of its remote staff to relocate to its Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters or its other main offices in New Jersey and San Francisco, it's clear that company bosses mean business with regards to removing remote work from the equation.
But would you be willing to leave your current remote role if an employer was offering you a lump-sum bonus to relocate to a more central location? Or what about a 40% jump in salary?
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Census migration data shows that in 2020 and 2021, 110,000 people left the San Francisco metro area, compared to just 20,000 remote workers in 2018 and 2019.
Similarly, New York experienced the same level of mass migration with 200,000 workers leaving in the first two years of the pandemic compared to 40,000 in 2018 and 2019.
Instead, remote tech workers flocked to Austin, Dallas, Denver and Raleigh, along with recent college graduates. And now a recent survey is highlighting how the tables have turned, with companies increasingly incentivizing staff to relocate back to bigger cities, with 44% offering a sign-on bonus in 2023, up from 42% in 2022.
Additionally, companies are offering an average of $82,037 for in-person roles, a nearly 40% jump from what these roles paid in 2023 ($59,085), and those who moved from a fully-remote role to a fully in-office role received a 29.2% pay increase.
And while 64% of companies found that their staff didn't want to relocate for a host of reasons, including not wanting to leave their local communities, their families or give up their work-life balance, some companies are now using hybrid work models to sweeten the deal.
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Separate data from Gallup reveals that as of February 2024, 54% of the U.S. population now work in a hybrid capacity, a statistic that has been steadily climbing since May 2020.
Conversely, exclusively remote workers are on the decline, sitting at just 27% compared to 70% in May 2020 when Covid-19 related restrictions forced the vast majority to adapt to working from home.
And with so many positive outcomes stemming from workplace flexibility-hybrid workers have higher employee engagement, lower attrition rates and are the most connected to the company mission compared to both fully remote and fully in-office workers-hybrid work for more pay is arguably a good compromise.
Return-to-office battle escalates as 64% of workers refused to relocate last year
