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The manager talked to his team on zoom, a model acting out the events of the story
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My manager said remote workers "aren't committed to the company." Turns out he lives in a different state.
This happened about two months ago, and I'm still kind of laughing about it. We had a team meeting where our manager, Brian, went on one of his usual rants about RTO and how people working from home are "phoning it in" and don't have "real skin in the game."
He specifically said that remote employees show less commitment and that presence in the office is how you demonstrate you actually care about the company's success. Half the team is remote, so you can imagine the vibe in that call.
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A manager checks his phone while working from home.
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Nobody said anything because, well, he's the manager. After the meeting I was venting to a coworker I'm pretty close with and she casually mentioned that Brian had relocated to Colorado about 8 months ago.
I thought she was joking. She was not. Dude has been managing us "from headquarters" while actually sitting in Denver, which is a 2 hour flight from our actual office.
While many managers state that unpopular return to office policies that they are doing so because remote workers lack engagement, as the manager in this story, studies have not supported this. In 2025, Gallup reported in a study that remote workers actually had higher engagement than staff in all other types of work. In fact, they were likely engaged to their own detriment. With less reporting that they were “thriving” than every other work group, except those stuck on-site with no flexible working arrangements or any other ability to work from outside of their work site. They also experienced more negative emotions than any other group.
If productivity is the question and the mode of evaluation of a remote worker's commitment, well, companies win there too. Many studies have found over the last 6 years, since certain global events forced the work-from-home boom, that working-from-home professionals were more productive than their counterparts.
Which really gets to my question from the intro… Just what are managers aiming for when they push strict Return to Office policies?
It is clear that proximity is important when it comes to work, when leadership has determined that it is a value to them. They think it's important because it feels better to them. The distinction lies in their perception and not in the work being done or the remote employees' “commitment” to their work. But there is some merit to this “feeling” since, if we go back to the same study and look at the negative emotions experienced, there lonliness and stress increase, likely due to the physical distance and lack of face-to-face human interaction. So, when your boss says that they value in-person engagements, maybe they have a point, just not for the reasons they're giving.
The employee concluded their story, as below, with the following.
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A manager works from a remote office
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His camera background is always that fake blurred office thing, so nobody would notice. I started paying attention, and yeah - he's never once been to the office for any of the in-person days he keeps pushing on us. Not once.
I didn't say anything dramatic. I just started documenting every single comment he makes about remote work commitment and saving them. A few people on the team now know, and honestly the energy in our 1-on-1s with him has shifted noticeably. He can probably feel it. Someone anonymously flagged it to HR last week. Still waiting to see how that plays out, but I genuinely cannot wait.
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A manager looks sheepishly at the camera, representative of the manager in the story.
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