Employers regain upper hand amid return-to-office mandates

As firms clamp down on remote-work policies, reduce benefits and cut travel budgets, the Wall Street Journal argues that there has been a shift in leverage toward employers post-pandemic. The report quotes Michael Gibbs, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, who says: “Firms are trying to reset expectations” with mandates around office attendance and other issues. Crystal Williams, chief human resources officer at Atlanta-based company Corpay, which helps firms manage non-payroll expenses, described the firm’s new policy: “we’re really not going to do the work-from-anywhere scenario unless a person has a very specialized skill set and they really can’t move.”