Just as employers are pulling in the reins and summoning employees back to the office to work, those workers are busy searching for jobs that provide flexible work.

HR Dive reports, in fact, that data from hiring lab Indeed show that searches for “remote,” “telecommute” and “work from home” are up a whopping 32 percent year over year, even as employers “want more control over employees' daily work and better collaboration in the office.”

IBM, Best Buy, The Wall Street Journal, Reddit and Aetna have all dialed back on workers' out-of-the-office arrangements, which has not made workers happy—and it could have repercussions on recruiting and retention for some time to come.

How unhappy? Well, IBM marketing staff in particular, according to a report, are being required to work beside colleagues on their assigned teams in New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, Austin and Raleigh.

For those formerly fortunate enough to be assigned to teams outside of their locations, their fortune has changed; they were told that they must either relocate or resign.

Employers are playing a dangerous game here, since employees are not fond of having advantageous arrangements taken away from them—particularly as more and more of them are finding the advantages in flexible work.

And IBM has had such arrangements with its workers since the 1980s, when it wasn't a “thing.”

Now, however, it is; data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey shows that the percentage of at-home workers grew from 19 percent to 22 percent between 2003 and 2016. IBM had as much as 40 percent of its workforce off premises before it decided to buck the trend.

Employers who take this route risk losing their competitiveness in recruiting, hiring and retaining staff.

Interestingly, however, older workers are the ones happiest with flexible arrangements—and if they head off for greener pastures rather than come back into the office to a desk, their store of institutional wisdom and experience could be lost.

Younger workers, on the other hand, are more willing to work under the boss's eye for the social interaction, as well as for the office visibility that can advance their careers.

So employers should consider being somewhat flexible, too.

Instant Insights /

Who wants flexible work arrangements?

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