The internet has changed the way a lot of people work. Many jobs can easily be done at home or anywhere with a laptop and a wifi connection.

The pandemic only made working from home more commonplace. Many companies were forced to let their employees work from home, and some of those employees have never returned to the office.

Is all of that about to change?

If you work from home, maybe you’re hoping to work remotely forever, or maybe you greatly miss the days of water cooler conversation. Whatever your take on the situation, there are multiple reasons that bosses want their employees to return to the office.

One reason has to do with onboarding.

Perhaps you are looking for your first job or switching careers. If not, think back to a time when you were in this position, just getting your feet wet in your industry. Mostly likely when you landed that first real job it involved some sort of onboarding process.

Now imagine going through that onboarding process 100% remotely. Most likely in-person meetings would become Zoom meetings, and instead of walking over to a co-worker’s desk when you had a question, you would have to communicate through your office’s preferred online chat app or perhaps via email.

It could take a lot longer to get up to speed, and it makes sense that new hires might need to work in person instead of remotely, at least for awhile.

But what about employees who used to work in-person and now work remotely? Many of these employees are pros at their job and don’t need the knowledge and skills of their coworkers to rub off on them like a new hire might.

Bosses want these employees to return to remote work because they feel that remote employees are less productive than employees who work in the office. Honestly, there are studies that prove both sides of this argument to be true, but Fortune reports that according to a report published in 2022 by Liberty Street Economics, remote workers work about 3.5 hours less per day than in-person workers.

Does how many hours someone works per day really matter in the grand scheme of things as long as the work is getting done on time? Many remote workers, especially those with families, feel that the work life balance is much better when they don’t have to commute to and from work on top of taking their kids to and from school.

But maybe bosses aren’t concerned about work life balance. In fact, maybe they hope that forcing employees to return to work will actually make them decide to quit.

Watch the video below to learn more reasons why some bosses want to force remote employees to return to work.