Apple, Microsoft, and SpaceX lose senior talent over RTO
MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES — Major tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, and SpaceX saw a significant exodus of senior employees after implementing return-to-office (RTO) mandates, according to a new study.
The research, conducted by the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago, analyzed 260 million resumes and found that senior-level staff were much more likely to leave these firms once forced back into offices.
At Microsoft, which required employees to spend at least half the week in the office, the proportion of senior staff dropped by over 5% after the RTO policy. Apple experienced around a 4% decline in senior roles after mandating a minimum of one office day per week. But SpaceX saw the largest impact, with its strict five-day office week leading to a 15% plunge in personnel.
“In particular, we find the strongest negative effects at the top of the respective distributions, implying a more pronounced exodus of relatively senior personnel,” the report said.
“Taken together, our findings imply that return to office mandates can imply significant human capital costs in terms of output, productivity, innovation, and competitiveness for the companies that implement them.”
Company responses and industry impact
Microsoft disputed the study’s findings. Amy Coleman, VP of Human Resources, told Fortune that the company is a hybrid workplace “that revolves around flexibility and a mix of workstyles across worksite, work location and work hours.”
Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock said that the study draws “inaccurate conclusions” and “does not reflect the realities of our business.”
“In fact, attrition is at historically low levels,” Rosenstock told The Washington Post.
The study highlighted that “several senior employees appear to have moved to large, direct competitors that did not have an RTO mandate in place.”
Anthony Nyberg, a management professor at the University of South Carolina, noted that senior employees leaving for competitors is not a new phenomenon but emphasized that companies should reconsider their RTO strategies. “As soon as an organization can no longer achieve its strategic directives, halt the RTO plan.”
The future is hybrid
Stephan Meier of Columbia Business School argued the future is inevitably hybrid.
“An organization is really hurting itself if it forces people to come back… People are really motivated by having flexibility in how they organize their days,” she told Fortune.
For the first time since the pandemic, Americans now prefer hybrid over fully remote work arrangements. According to a Morning Consult survey of 6,625 U.S. adults, including 3,389 employed individuals, 29% said they preferred a hybrid model in 2024, up from 25% the previous year. Meanwhile, the percentage favoring full remote work dropped from 27% to 23%.
