Office Culture Revolution in America

Until the last few years, American office culture was similar to office cultures around the world. Management still held power and employees were expected to blend into each company’s corporate culture if they wanted to advance and move into higher compensated roles.

Management held the ultimate tool ? “employment at will”. This is a legal concept in the U.S. that means management can fire any employee at any time for any reason. If an employee didn’t follow the rules or perform as expected.

While U.S. laws, particularly those protecting civil rights, have been slowly taking some of that power from management, nothing has changed the office culture so rapidly and completely as the COVID epidemic. Now, more employees are issuing demands to management that alter the ways a company does business. If management doesn’t comply, employees threaten to resign, leading to a talent drain, or they organize protests or walk-outs, or they hire attorneys to bring lawsuits on a variety of causes.

An article from the New York Times, “The 23-Year-Olds Want to Run the Office” (10/31/2021) listed the following examples of Generation Z’s influence in the office (note: Generation Z or Millennials are defined as individuals born in the years 1997-2012).

- Young employees are demanding paid time off for “anxiety” or because
they needed a “mental break”.
- A young employee asked her boss to leave early because she had finished
all the jobs she felt were necessary for the day.
- A new employee wanted to delegate some of her tasks to the company’s
owner.
- Young, newly-hired employees are pushing their companies to make
political stands. Recently Netflix employees invaded a management
conference to protest anti-transgender comedians who appear on their
subscription service. They also organized employee walk-outs to protest
management’s decision not to take actions against those comedians.

The COVID pandemic has also inspired people to re-consider their commitments to commuting to work. Companies largely adopted remote work policies allowing most employees to work from home. But now that vaccines are available, companies are requiring employees to return to their offices but employees are resisting.

The American press often writes about the “Great Resignation”, describing how 4 million Americans resigned because remote work was denied or they felt the office was unsafe or unsatisfying. Financial stimulus checks from the government and policies prohibiting the collection of rent have greatly helped these people survive without jobs. It is unclear how they will survive when rents are allowed to continue but millions of Americans seem reluctant to go back to the office after 18 months of working at home.

One HR manager commented that remote workers, who saved thousands of dollars by working from home and not commuting, are now asking for pay increases to cover the cost of commuting again!

The US government just released data today (Nov. 5, 2021) showing the unemployment rate has dropped to 4.6%, suggesting a further tightening of the labor market. That suggests that companies will continue to struggle to find and hire employees in the months ahead, giving more power to employees to negotiate more flexible work arrangements.

There are clear benefits for employees, particularly new employees, to work in an office so they can observe in person a company’s culture. They have access to top management with open door policies and sometimes in the hallways. They can see what behaviors are rewarded and those that are discouraged, helping them to earn promotions and merit increases.

It is uncertain how companies will compete in the “war for talent” with all these demands for remote work and more power particularly from young employees. Those companies that can create compromises between young and veteran employees will have the best chance for success in this new environment.

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