In a bid to convince workers that commuting into an office to do the very same job—except under the beady eyes of the boss—is worth their while, employers have been pimping up their workplaces with better coffee machines, living walls, and the latest tech equipment. But leaders who want millennial managers to play ball with return-to-office mandates will need to seriously up the ante.
That’s according to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), which surveyed over 1,000 managers of all ages in the U.K. and found that those under 35 years old are most likely to meet their boss’s request to work in the office with a list of demands.
In exchange for returning to the old way of working, the latest generation to enter management expect their boss to pay up: In fact, half of the millennial managers surveyed would demand a pay raise to return to the office five days a week, compared to just 19% of managers over 55.
Failing that, more than one in four young managers would want their travel to be subsidized or for their employer to bolster office benefits, like free lunches and an on-site gym.
Managers under 35 years old are also most likely to demand regular team socials, in exchange for ditching remote work; meanwhile, those under 55 were significantly more likely to expect more flexible hours compared to baby boomer bosses.
“A lot of this flexibility is driven by family responsibilities and the under 35s, that’s the cohort most likely to have young kids and therefore need to work more flexibly,” Anthony Painter, director of policy at the CMI, told Bloomberg.
Overall, managers in Britain would expect an average pay bump of 12% if asked to work in the office full-time, the survey found. Meanwhile, for 13% of respondents it was a flat no—nothing would get them back to a cubicle five days a week.
With vacancies still at an all-time high, Painter pointed out that workers, especially those in high-demand roles, still have the power to bargain with bosses.
“If you’re looking to hire for key positions, then inevitably there’s gonna be a negotiation around whether you can meet the expectations of the people that you’re looking to hire,” Painter added. “The labor market is evenly balanced between employers and staff, so that’s still an active conversation.”
CEOs who think staff will quietly return to in-office work may be disappointed
The CMI’s data comes as some 2.5 million workers have already faced orders to return to the office in 2023. But for the most part, companies have asked workers to ditch working from home for only around half of their working week.
Although most CEOs think we’ll be sitting at desks five days a week by 2026, it’s clear that workers won’t return to the pre-pandemic style of working without a fight—or at least, a very long list of demands.
What’s more, research consistently suggests that hybrid working opportunities are set to surge in 2024, increasing workers’ powers to push back against strict mandates.
The average job ad globally in 2023 asked for just one to two days of in-office working, according to Flexa’s extensive 2023 report, which took into account nearly 3 million job searches and 30,000 workers.
Meanwhile, in the U.K. around half of job ads on the platform are currently listed as hybrid, and this figure has been increasing every month, according to LinkedIn. In comparison, just a third of the roles advertised in August 2022 offered hybrid working.
“We will see this trend persist in 2024 as companies continue to move to hybrid options as a way of balancing employees’ demand for increased flexibility with employers’ desire for office attendance,” Olivier Sabella, vice president of LinkedIn Talent Solutions for EMEA and LATAM, told Fortune.
