For example, after Apple enacted its RTO mandate, which lets employees work at home part-time, the portion of its employee base considered senior-level decreased by 5 percentage points, according to the paper. Microsoft, which has a hybrid approach, including the option to work fully remote pending manager approval, saw a decline of 5 percentage points. SpaceX’s RTO mandate, meanwhile, requires workers to be in an office full time. Its share of senior-level employees fell 15 percentage points after the mandate, the study found.
[Update 5/16/2024, 12:13 p.m. ET: In a statement, Amy Coleman, Corporate Vice President, Human Resources & Corporate Functions at Microsoft, said:
“Our internal data does not align with these findings, especially around attrition. It is also inaccurate to say we have a return to office mandate. We have a hybrid workplace that revolves around flexibility and a mix of workstyles across worksite, work location, and work hours.”
The researchers’ report says it includes Microsoft due to a policy launched in 2022 where most workers are expected to come into the office half the time:
“Our case-study approach focuses on Microsoft, Apple, and SpaceX because they were among the first large American tech companies to implement RTO mandates. In particular, they did so before a wave of layoffs started hitting the tech industry from late 2022 onwards, allowing us to cleanly disentangle the causal effects of the RTO mandates.”]
Austin Wright, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Chicago and one of the report’s authors, told the Post: “We find experienced employees impacted by these policies at major tech companies seek work elsewhere, taking some of the most valuable human capital investments and tools of productivity with them.”