Rto

Cast you mind back to the pandemic. Close your eyes. Be brave. This won’t take long.

Social distancing. Quarantines. Vaccine mandates. Masks. Fear and anger.

As we know, all this led to political polarization, urban flight, crashed interest rates and ballooned deficits, FOMO, bidding wars, an invasion of Bunnypatch, downtown deserts, a 90% drip in transit riders, empty office towers and something people thought would last forever. WFH.

And what did a certain pathetic blog forecast?

Remote work will eventually collapse, we said. It’s not a sustainable model. Humans were built to work and socialize with other humans. Workplaces foster growth, learning and achievement. So put on your pants and get back to the job. Sheesh.

As it turned out, we were dismally wrong about a large-scale return to the office once Covid faded and we all got vaxxed. Surveys showed those who fought it the most were the young and females. Freed from the yoke of supervision and the drole of commuting, people would do anything and call it ‘work’. They worked at walking the dog, shopping, taking the kids to school, doing errands and going to the ball game. As long as there was a phone in their pocket, they were employed, and indignant at being called out. But five years later evidence is piling up that working from home has failed. How could there have been any other outcome?

The only astonishment? That it took this long.

BMO is the latest bank to tell its employees they need to have bums in chairs four days a week, starting this September. Scotia, RBC and a host of other heavies in the financial business are tired of trying to make WFH work.

In the US a quickly-growing list of large corporations (Amazon, Google, Starbucks) is going the RTO route. The number of major American corps allowing hybrid working has fallen from almost three-quarters to less than half while among the top 100 firms a full return-to-the-office mandate has soared from 5% to 54%.

A survey by Cisco explains why in clear terms: 81% of employers don’t believe (rightly) that employees are actually working and being productive when not in the workplace. They don’t trust. And because workers resent being told they have to be in the office after four or five years at home, the atmosphere has grown taxic.

Look at the civil service. What a war happening there.

Last year the Treasury Board told the federal government’s workers they must transition from two days in the office to three. (What a hardship.)  That resulted in a lawsuit between the feds and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, with the union claiming an “abuse of authority” on behalf of the government and arguing the change was made “arbitrarily, without sufficient evidence, and in contravention of previously negotiated understandings.”

The courts kind of agreed. Seriously. That saga continues.

Meanwhile we’ve seen the rise of “Revenge RTO” tactics, as employees fight back against workplace mandates – at being forced into accountability, measurement, judging and supervision (not to mention having to travel).

“As companies mandate more days in office, there’s a rising trend of employees finding passive-aggressive ways to get back at leadership in the workplace,” says an analysis published in Forbes. “Revenge quitting is on the rise. In fact, it’s the top career trend of 2025, according to some sources, showing that 28% of employees expect it to happen at work this year. And workers are not slipping away quietly. They’re making sure their exit is seen and heard, leaving loudly and dramatically over unmet promises, RTO mandates and toxic cultures. Examples of revenge RTO are coming in late, leaving the office for lunch, leaving the office early, taking home office snacks and more.”

At the same time this revenge quitting wave is washing over some companies, employer advocates argue that only by bringing people together physically in one place can employees benefit from, “live observation, spontaneous interactions, non-verbal communication, shared experiences, stronger relationships, and passive learning.”

The fight will continue. Lots of WFH workers want corporate salaries, corporates benefits, corporate positions and professional status while designing their own work-life balance and scheduling around vet appointments, child care and mani-pedi sessions. The longer the pandemic residue continues, the more hybrid work is seen as a right. Folks that have entered the workforce since 2019 basically know of nothing else.

The demise of the work ethic, it turns out, may be Covid’s most tragic victim.

About the picture: “A friendly dog with my Granddaughter at Uptown in Victoria,” writes Victor. “Thanks for your great information Garth over the years, we certainly appreciate it. I think we will be buying a home in the next few months. Wish us luck!”

To be in touch or send a picture of your beast, email to ‘garth@garth.ca’.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2025/07/22/rto/