For a long time, the purpose of most corporations was to serve one primary stakeholder: shareholders. Over the last several years, there has been a concrete shift in the business world; corporations now aim to serve not only shareholders, but all stakeholders — including customers, employees, suppliers, and communities.
Return-to-Office Plans Don’t Have to Undermine Employee Autonomy
In recent years, organizations have been hard at work reviewing, renewing, articulating, and disseminating their corporate purpose. Renewed corporate purpose statements have more explicitly centered human-centric values, such as employee well-being, growth, and inclusion. This has been a good thing: Gartner research shows that businesses who put these human-centric values front and center see better talent and business outcomes. However, return-to-office mandates, if not done strategically and transparently, can feel like an about-face in employee flexibility, autonomy, and well-being, and starkly at odds with a human-centric corporate purpose. The authors identified three imperatives to help leaders navigate the return-to-office revolution in a way that strengthens, rather than damages, employees’ connection to the organization and its purpose.