80 per cent of bosses regret earlier return-to-office plans: Report

New Delhi: Three years after haphazard plans to get workers back to their desks, the return-to-office movement is experiencing remorse as a whopping 80 per cent of bosses regret their initial return-to-office decisions and said they would have approached their company's return-to-office strategy differently if they had access to workplace data to inform their decision-making, a new report has said.

According to the US-based firm Envoy, over half (54 per cent) of managers report having to forgo making a critical workplace decision because they didn't have access to the necessary data to support it. This number increases to 62 per cent for managers in the consumer goods industry.

The report surveyed over 1,000 US company executives and workplace managers who work in person at least one day per week.

"Workplace leaders across industries believe that easier access to data would enable them to drive smarter decisions about their space, programs, and policies. The vast majority (73 per cent) agree that they would be better equipped to measure the success of their workplace strategies," the researchers said.

Since individual biases and limited perspectives can turn out to be costly, the report mentioned that nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of managers admit to trusting their gut to make decisions.

"For hybrid work organisations in particular, this can result in poor decision-making. Employees come and go at different times of the day and week, and adherence to onsite policies can vary greatly by location. This makes it impossible for workplace managers to know how many people are onsite on any given day, and how to best allocate space and resources across the organisation," the researchers stated.

Further, the report said that with easy access to real-time data, leaders can be more agile, pivoting quickly when a strategy proves to be ineffective and doubling down on the ones that work.