Many recent headlines claim that an upcoming recession will sharply curtail remote work. The thinking is that in a cooling labor market, executives have more power to force employees to comply with their demands. And while surveys show that the majority of white-collar employees prefer to spend most or all their time working remotely, most executives want employees to be in the office.
However, the authors of these stories have it backward. What they miss is that in a period of economic growth and comfortable bottom lines for most companies, traditionalist executives have significant leeway to default to their intuitions, which tend to favor in-office work for personal and selfish reasons. If a recession hits, executives will need to show more financial discipline. And there’s no question that a focus on profits over personal preferences would call for more remote work, not less.
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