One in three millennials are ignoring return-to-office demands as bosses grow increasingly frustrated over home working, new figures show.
A survey of 1,000 staff has found that those born between 1965 and 1980, known as Gen X, were the most willing to comply with return-to-office policies, while millennials – those born between 1981 and 1996 – were the most resistant.
The findings revealed that a third of millennials would either disregard requests to return to the office or seek a new job if forced in, according to a survey conducted by TopCV.
The findings come as a growing number of chief executives voice their frustration over remote working, which has grown in prominence since the pandemic.
A study of US workers published earlier this month by Nicholas Bloom, the Stanford economist, shows that home working has persisted despite the rise in companies demanding staff return to their desks.
Jamie Dimon, the head of America’s biggest bank JP Morgan, last week railed against staff who work from home in an expletive-laden outburst.
“Don’t give me this s— that work-from-home Friday works,” he said in the leaked recording. “I call a lot of people on Fridays, and there’s not a goddamn person you can get a hold of.”
Raising concerns about the “damage” working from home was doing to young recruits, he then accused managers of abusing the system: “A lot of you were on the f—— Zoom … and you were doing the following: looking at your mail, sending texts to each other about what an a—— the other person is, not paying attention, not reading your stuff.
“And if you don’t think that slows down efficiency, creativity, creates rudeness – it does. You don’t do that in my goddamn meetings.”
‘Don’t give me this s–t that work-from-home Friday works,’ says JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon – Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
A number of major businesses have tightened their remote working policies in recent years, including BT and PwC.
Advertising giant WPP also launched a fresh crackdown earlier this year, calling on staff to come into the office at least four days a week from April and on at least two Fridays each month.
Meanwhile, in America, Trump’s decision to order federal employees back to the office full-time has given bosses added motivation to draw a line under remote working.
Amazon, Google, Meta and Apple have all clamped down on home working in recent months.
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