Is Gallup trying to make remote work look bad?

The latest Gallup Workplace report has a ton of bad news for US workplaces. They open with this depressing statement:

Employees across America are feeling increasingly detached from their jobs. They are seeking new job opportunities at the highest rate since 2015, while overall satisfaction with their employer has returned to a record low.

This is important for US companies to know and act on and I commend Gallup for pointing it out.

But then it seems they try to spin their own numbers in a couple of cases to make it look like remote work is part of the problem and not (as is actually the case) part of the solution.

One headline reads “Exclusively Remote Employees Feel Least Connected to Organization’s Mission or Purpose” but the actual differences are tiny with 29% feeling connected for remote workers and 31% for fully in-office workers. You can’t tell me that is not within the statistical margin of error for this study.

I have recently seen people cite this particular finding as an argument against remote working, so people are taking the wrong lessons from this.

It’s also worth noting that the group that is most connected to the company’s purpose is hybrid workers. If being in the office is so great, how do you explain that?

Another headline is “Few Employees Believe Virtual Meetings Are More Effective Than In-Person Meetings” but the data shows that most employees actually believe remote meetings are as effective as in-person meeting.

The also cite “Hybrid and remote growing pains” as one of the factors making American workers less engaged when it might as well be the fact that US companies are now forcing people back to the office in large numbers:

What is causing people to detach from their employers? Hybrid and remote growing pains: Hybrid work entails switching work locations throughout the week and often results in team members working different schedules, which naturally challenges communication and coordination. The physical distancing inherent to remote work can also create an emotional distance. Gallup research shows that fully remote workers are consistently less connected to their organization’s mission or purpose compared with their hybrid counterparts.

It basically seems to me that they chose to put a negative spin on remote work in a couple of cases even though studies show that remote workers are more effective and happier compared to their in-office counterparts.

Even Gallup’s own report confirms that in-office workers are the least engaged – this time by a significant margin! How do you get from that to “remote growing pains are making workers less happy?”

The lesson here really should be that US workers are hurting and remote work is part of the solution, not the problem.

But don’t take my word for it – read the report for yourself and let me know what you think. Is remote work a major factor making US workers unhappy or is it something else… and what might that be?

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