2 In 5 Techies Quit Over Inflexible Workplace Policies

Two in five techies quit in the past year because their employer didn't offer requisite flexibility with respect to hours, location and the "intensity of work."

The findings come from a survey of 26,000 plus staff that operate in 35 markets, including 2,548 respondents in tech, and fly in the face of more and more corporations issuing return to office mandates and demanding long working hours.

Amsterdam-based recruitment biz Randstad, which commissioned the research, says 40 percent of the tech people it polled said they resigned due to hardline policies, and 56 percent threatened to seek an alternative if their requests for flexibility were ignored.

Almost three-quarters claim remote work boosts a "sense of community" with colleagues – versus the average of 58 percent across other sectors – and 68 percent say they'd trust their employer more if they were more easy going on hours, the intensity of the work and the place where they can work.

Graig Paglieri, Randstad Digital boss, said the "IT sector has shown that personalized work benefits and flexible options are essential not only for attracting top talent but also for retaining them in competitive markets. Policies should align with organizational, team and individual needs, ensuring a flexible and tailored approach."

In a separate survey of 1,060 recruiters across 21 markets, some employers seem to be acknowledging requests for flexibility. More than a third say businesses now accommodate different working arrangements and introduced policies related to this in the past year, while 81 percent think this helps create equity at work.

The sentiments reflect the findings from Pew Research's American Trends Panel in January, where nearly a half of the 5,395 randomly selected US adults said they'd walk if their bosses told them they could no longer work from home.

Not all tech bosses are listening to their staff, however. Amazon, Meta, Google, Elon Musk's collection of businesses, IBM, Dell, and many others are demanding staff come back into the office.

• 'Return to Office' declared dead
• HR expert says biz leaders scared RTO mandates lead to staff attrition
• Hybrid working? Buckle in, there's no turning back as survey takers insist: You can't make us go back
• 91% of polled Amazon staff unhappy with return-to-office, 3-in-4 want to jump ship

Reasons given for the shift in the post-pandemic policy to return-to-the-office include better innovation from in-person work, helping younger staff to learn the culture and the job better, and improving productivity.

It all depends in which field of tech someone operates – there is little point, for example, in a software engineer being asked to work on site. There are, however, studies that show productivity does not take a hit from home working, no matter how paranoid the bosses can be.

As for the demand from Google co-founder Sergei Brin to work 60 hours weeks, with at least five of them in the office… the less said about that, the better. ®