The problem with RTO FOMO

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

When Amazon CEO Andy Jassy issued a memo this September mandating corporate employees’ full-time return to the office effective next January, many staffers were far from pleased. However, it’s likely that at least some of the company’s younger professionals are quietly celebrating the change.

In a recent survey of 1,000 US workers by the consulting firm Big Chalk, almost half of Gen Z respondents expressed a preference for working in an office, compared with around 30% of millennials and approximately 16% of Gen X and Baby Boomers. Another report, from the workplace consultancy Seramount, revealed that only 11% of Gen Z workers would rather work fully remotely than in an office some or all of the time,  compared with more than one-third of their older peers. Some are calling it ‘RTO FOMO’.

These attitudes reflect the evolving needs of workers across various phases of their lives and careers. Older workers are more likely than young ones to have family responsibilities, such as caring for children or elderly parents, which are easier to manage with flexible working hours and the ability to work from home. Older workers tend to also be more established in their careers, with the skills and professional networks to show for it. 

Younger workers, on the other hand, typically have fewer personal responsibilities and more to gain professionally from working shoulder-to-shoulder with their colleagues. For some of them, not working in an office may even pose lasting professional penalties.

Gen Z’s remote-work tax

A recent report by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the University of Iowa, and Harvard suggests that younger workers benefit the most from the “power of proximity” in the workplace. In a study of software engineers at a major tech company, the researchers found that junior engineers received less direct feedback on their code when working remotely. Some were also more likely to quit.

Additional Gallup analysis shows that Gen Z and millennial workers are less engaged at work than their older colleagues.

For all the benefits of remote and hybrid work configurations, it is increasingly clear that, for many younger professionals, forgoing the daily commute to an office may be a double-edged sword.

“Early-career workers are missing out on the informal learning and networking that just happens when you put people in an office,” said Steven Athwal, the CEO and founder of the British ecommerce company The Big Phone Store. In Athwal’s view, “those water-cooler chats or impromptu brainstorming sessions are invaluable for [junior] developers and engineers.” 

Davide Romano, the Delaware-based CEO of Prime Digital Solutions Inc., agrees, adding that these critical interactions can be difficult to replicate in a virtual environment. Missing out on them “may lead to a steep learning curve for early-career workers and restrain their professional growth over time.”

Ilija Eftimov, an Amsterdam-based engineering manager for a global fintech company, agrees that young engineers “can learn a lot from overhearing senior engineers debug a problem or participating in an unplanned design discussion.” By observing their colleagues in person, young engineers are also better equipped to negotiate critical team dynamics, such as knowing whom to ask for help, when to push back, or how to handle challenging personalities. “For young engineers, being remote means much of this context is missing, leaving them less prepared to navigate the company,” Eftimov said.

Visibility is another challenge for remote workers who are relatively new to the job. “In a physical office, there are organic opportunities to make your work known: informal chats at someone’s desk, quick project updates shared in hallway conversations, or being visibly busy and engaged in group settings,” Eftimov said. “Remote work, by contrast, requires individuals to be more deliberate in surfacing their contributions, which can be daunting for someone just starting out.”

Engineering solutions for the virtual office

Although some professional interactions may occur more naturally in a physical office, leaders of remote and hybrid teams can (and should) take practical measures to better support younger employees’ career development and workplace engagement. That means supporting their professional growth and, somewhat relatedly, ensuring their integration into the social fabric of the organization.

“If you’re in a leadership position at your company, implementing mentorship programs can be a good place to start to make sure people don’t feel like they’re left out,” said James Zhong, the Melbourne-based operations manager for RJ Living. 

Eftimov, who manages a few early-career engineers, has implemented a “structured and explicit” mentorship protocol for his team. “Junior staff have a spin-up buddy and a mentor that they can lean on whenever needed,” he said. Eftimov also encourages pair programming sessions between mentors and mentees, which can replicate the kind of shared learning that happens in an office.

To account for the lack of in-person “water-cooler chats,” Athwal recommends that managers schedule virtual networking get-togethers that offer team members the opportunity to connect faces to names and start conversations – “whether informal coffee chats, buddy systems, or ‘ask me anything’ sessions where senior engineers share experiences,” Athwal said. 

Remote managers should also be prepared to offer clear communication and feedback on a regular and frequent basis. Matt Collingwood, the managing director for VIQU – an IT recruitment company headquartered in Birmingham, UK – suggests implementing daily video calls that focus around the previous day’s successes, achievements, and challenges. “This will help managers catch and intervene on any early-career employee who may be struggling or feeling unable to keep up with the workload,” Collingwood said.

Finally, managers should create opportunities for junior team members to develop and showcase their abilities.

“Find small tasks or projects that they can own, end-to-end,” said Eftimov. “This builds up their skills and their confidence, and makes them gel better to the team without having to be in the office. The team starts to recognize their abilities and their impact and starts thinking of the newcomer as an expert.”