The salary increases offered by companies in the US so that their employees work in the office every day – 2024-04-05 01:24:13

Boeing, UPS and JPMorgan Chase are among the large corporations that have mandated in-person attendance five days a week.

But for some of these companies, getting workers back into the workplace comes at a high price.

This is particularly the case in the United States, which experienced the most dramatic shift towards flexible working: in January 2024, around 29% of all paid working days were still worked from home.

“Employers who cannot compete on flexibility will have to compete more aggressively on wages,” says Julia Pollak, chief economist at California-based ZipRecruiter.

The result is that American salaries for fully administrative positions are increasing.

According to data from ZipRecruiter, seen by the BBC, companies were offering an average of US$82,037 for fully in-person positions in March 2024, an increase of more than 33% compared to 2023 (US$59,085).

The trend is cross-sector: Compared to hybrid ($59,992) and fully remote ($75,327) roles, workers appear more likely to increase their salaries if they return to pre-pandemic office hours.

Part of this is making up for the loss of flexibility that workers have prioritized over the past few years: the greater the push to give up that autonomy, the more employers will have to offer to compensate.

ZipRecruiter data shows that workers who switched from fully remote to fully in-person environments in the US through 2023 received a 29.2% salary increasealmost double that of those who changed in the opposite direction.

Some employers want to make up for the loss of flexibility that workers have prioritized over the past few years.

“The bottom line is that people are demanding higher pay increases for white-collar jobs,” Pollak says.

“An employer who offers flexibility can negotiate the overall compensation package with non-monetary incentives, while an employer who wants teams on site five days a week “It can only offer financial incentives: a dollar value is assigned to time spent in the office.”

In the UK and Europe, the availability of remote work has been scarcer; For example, a survey conducted in October 2023 among 15,000 employers and employees in the United Kingdom showed that 43% of workers had returned to fully in-person settings.

This means that the trend of extra payment for in-person work is expected to be weaker than in the United States, says Pollak.

In the current cost-cutting climate, offering employees flexibility instead of a pay increase seems like a win for both sides.

However, despite this, some employers are willing to increase their salary expenses in exchange for full offices, because they believe the trade-off is worth it, Pollak says: the expense will lead to better business results.

“There may be a perception among some employers that remote workers are less productive,” he adds.

Many are also “psychologically and financially committed to their corporate real estate”: they want to fill their workplaces, at any cost.

Full offices can be costly for employers, but for some companies the cost is worth it.

This wage discrepancy has an unintended consequence, says Barbara Petrongolo, an economics professor at the University of Oxford: It could reinforce inequalities in the labor market.

“Those with caring responsibilities tend to prefer flexibility, and this disproportionately involves women. So if higher-paying jobs offer less flexibility, some sectors of the workforce are forced to give up higher-paying opportunities.”

If bosses really want their workers to work in offices, the extra pay offered for a fully in-person workweek is likely to stick around for a while, experts say; There are no signs that flexible working patterns are disappearing.

For example, ZipRecruiter data from March 2024 shows that about 33% of professional and business services positions in the US are advertised with hybrid or remote work.

“Workers still want flexibility and there are many jobs that advertise the possibility of working from home at least two days a week,” says Petrongolo.

“Therefore, if inflexible and unfavorable working conditions for the employee are imposed, employers will have to continue paying more.”

This article appeared on BBC Worklife. You can read the original version in English here.