Well known are incidents of management exercising arbitrary power in terminations of employees with specialized knowledge. Get rid of the ones who know and you soon find that now, no one knows.
The Brain Drain - Baylor University 2025
Implications for Boards and Management
While RTO mandates are often promoted as a productivity measure, or quietly deployed as a cost-saving substitute for layoffs, our evidence suggests they carry hidden strategic costs:
- They lead to the departure of employees who are hardest to replace.
- They undermine diversity goals by disproportionately impacting women.
They reduce firms’ competitiveness in hiring, especially in high-skill sectors.