Forcing employees to return the office hurts productivity, future-of-work consultant Gleb Tsipursky wrote in Fortune, basing his argument on government data.

After passing the symbolic threshold of more than half of office workers returning to the office in January, that number has declined in February—and one of the factors is leaders’ reaction to remote work and so-called “quiet quitting,” he wrote, using government data to verify his assertion.

As productivity fell in the first and second quarters of 2022, followed by a Gallup survey that reported that at least half of the U.S. workforce consisted of quiet quitters, some business leaders blamed the productivity drop on remote work causing quiet quitting. Yet Tsipursky pointed out that productivity did not decline at the beginning of the pandemic, when many workers went remote, and it did not increase when workers began returning to the office in 2022. In fact, the opposite occurred, as productivity has not reached the same level as it had when people were able to work remotely.

Citing research and surveys, Tsipursky found that forcing employees to come to the office is unproductive, as the threat of discipline leads to disengagement, fear, and distrust, and that employees work better and are more satisfied when working remotely or in a hybrid environment. In fact, Gallup found that working offsite 60 to 80 percent of the time boosts workers' “optimal engagement.”

“No wonder, then, that mandates forcing employees to come to the office result in quiet quitting,” he wrote. “Disengaged workers aren’t productive. That’s especially the case if they’re looking for a new job.”

To remedy this problem, he recommended a “flexible team-led approach,” in which team leaders decide what works best for all. “A conversation about compensation should always accompany a return to office initiative,” he wrote, suggesting that an alternative to a general salary increase is to pay for such things as commuting, catered lunches and dry cleaning.

Allowing workers to perform certain tasks that require focus at home rather than having them come to the office to perform them would also help, he wrote. “Instead, the office should be a place for socializing, collaboration, and in-depth training, especially for newer employees,” while taking aspects of collaboration between in-office and remote workers into consideration.

In-person training and providing mental health benefits are also important to reduce quiet quitting, boost engagement and productivity, and address burnout.

A return to the office mandate should be done in a way that “shows [employees] the value of the office, which will reduce quiet quitting and boost performance,” Tsipursky concluded.