LILLEY: Back in the office for a five-day workweek the new normal

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More than five years after the pandemic forced many people into working from home, employers are finally making a push to return to office. Rogers will require employees to be in the office four days a week by October and five days in February.

BMO, RBC, TD and Scotiabank are all requiring a least four days a week come the fall. Now, the Ontario government has said all employees will be required to be in-person at the office four days by October and five days starting early January.

“Well, it’s time,” Treasury Board President Caroline Mulroney said.

“Remote work developed during the pandemic in response to a public health emergency where people could not come to work. But it’s time to bring people back,” she added.

Mulroney said that more than half of the public services is already in their place of work five days a week. She noted that Service Ontario employees, correctional workers and inspectors are some of the staff that never had the ability to work remotely.

Now office workers will need to face the reality that much of the province has been dealing with for years.

“It’s the reality for so many Ontarians already. And we believe that the public service should reflect the realities of the Ontario people and businesses that we serve,” Mulroney said.

One executive who is in the process of moving his private sector workforce back to the office said that collaboration is key. That, he added, is more difficult when workers aren’t in the office.

Mulroney agrees with that sentiment — part of the government’s reason for bringing workers back full-time.

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“It provides for a better outcome, people get to work together in their teams, collaborate, share ideas,” she said.

One argument that some employees make is that they are more productive working at home with fewer distractions. There can be some merit to that, but it doesn’t help the company culture, according to some executives.

“The company is less productive when you are at home,” said one executive who asked not to be named.

A 20-year veteran of the recruitment and staffing industry, Jessica Culo — co-owner and President of Specialized Recruiting Group in Edmonton — said in a recent interview that most employers want people in-person five days a week, but that’s not what employees want.

“That would probably be less than 10% who want to be in the office every day. And I’d say there’s probably 25% that demand only fully remote and the balance feel hybrid is appropriate,” Culo said.

She noted that making personal connections are a reason workers want to be in-person at the office, but added they also want the freedom to not be there five days a week. She said moving to five days in-office may make it more difficult for some firms to recruit staff, but as more companies and employers adopt this practice, recruitment will be less of an issue.

Culo said the hardest firms to recruit for are those that have turned exclusively to remote work.

Mulroney, meanwhile, noted another reason for bringing people back to the office: Mentoring the next generation of workers.

“You can’t mentor people over the phone,” she said. “There are a lot of people who are new or newly entered the workforce who haven’t had the benefit of that.”

In addition to the Ontario government, Rogers and the big banks, several other multi-national companies have adopted a five-day-a-week strategy, including Amazon, Boeing, Dell and UPS. The City of Brampton and Mayor Patrick Brown announced last week that their workers would be required to return to office by January, as well.

Right now, federal workers are only required to be in office three days a week and several unions representing those workers continue to fight the mandate.

According to the City of Toronto, 70% of their 43,000 workers are in-person five days a week and there are roughly 12,000 that have opted into the city’s hybrid work program.