When Return to Office Mandates Are About Control, Not Productivity
If you've been called back to the office and the reasons don't quite add up, you're not alone. The work gets done, nobody has shown you evidence that things were better when everyone was at their desks and you actually have a nice work-life balance where you don’t stress over doing the school run, but the pressure to return keeps building.
New research suggests there might be a reason the explanations feel thin and sometimes they are.
What the research found
Earlier this year, researchers at Wharton published a study looking at what actually predicts a leader's resistance to remote work. They examined Fortune 500 CEOs, surveyed hundreds of managers, and ran a controlled experiment. The trait that most consistently predicted opposition to flexible working wasn't concern for collaboration or performance. Now my theory was always control, and the reason was narcissism.
In plain terms: for some leaders, the office isn't about productivity, it's an audience. Remote work takes away the visibility, the admiration, and the sense of control that come with having everyone physically present. That loss is what they're reacting to, not your productivity output.
My own experience of this
For what it's worth, my honest position on remote work is not an ideological one. Most office jobs can be done from home. There are also times when being in person genuinely works better, and if you're lucky enough to have a team you like, wanting to meet up with them is a perfectly good reason to go in. None of that needs a mandate.
What I've noticed, though, is that hybrid working is almost always sold on collaboration and culture. I've never fully understood how that works when you and the people you actually collaborate with aren't in on the same days. You end up commuting to sit on video calls you could have taken from your kitchen. Or people are so buried in their computers and with earphones in that nobody speaks to each other.
The chat over the coffee machine argument in particular is like nails on a blackboard to me. Some of us hate that kind of small talk. I'm also yet to work out what collaboration comes from Barry in HR asking Janet from Finance whether she wants milk in her coffee.
"Collaboration" and "culture" are doing a lot of heavy lifting in these conversations. Sometimes they're genuine, but very often they're the polite packaging around something else, which is exactly what the research suggests.
Why this matters
Some return-to-office decisions are made for defensible reasons, so I'd be careful about jumping from "some RTO mandates are ego-driven" to "my boss is a narcissist". The research matters because of what it does to the story you tell yourself. When your flexibility is taken away for no reason anyone can articulate, it's easy to start wondering whether you're the problem.
Here's the reframe worth holding onto: if the mandate is driven by a leader's need for control rather than a genuine operational case, that is about their psychology, not your performance. You can't fix it by working harder or being more agreeable.
What you can actually do
Know your rights. In the UK, you have a day one right to request flexible working, and your employer can only refuse on specific statutory grounds. "The CEO prefers seeing people at desks" is not one of them.
Keep a record of what you deliver and the feedback you receive, in case your arrangements are later challenged on performance grounds. Frame any flexibility request around what the business gets, not what you need. It shouldn't be necessary, but it works.
If the environment is affecting your health or your confidence, that's not something to quietly absorb. Sometimes the right move is a well-prepared request. Sometimes it's an exit on your own terms. Both are easier with support and a clear head and if you’re facing something difficult in work with your manager, performance issues or flexible working, book in a confidential 15 minutes discovery call with me here, and we can see how I can support you.
