Poll: Managers likely to pass up job offer if fully office-based

More than half the number of employees qualified for middle- to senior-level management positions will most likely turn down a job if it requires them to report full time in the office, a survey showed, reflecting a choice unavailable to many rank-and-file workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fifty-two percent of these professionals are likely to decline a full-time job, while only 20 percent said they would most probably not turn down the opportunity, according to a country survey by headhunting and recruitment agency Robert Walters Philippines.

Country manager Nic Sephton-Poultney said company clients were being advised to be open to a hybrid work setup in which some days were spent working at the office and other days at home, especially if they wanted to attract and keep top talent.

‘Move with the times’

“If they are wanting to remain competitive, if they are wanting to attract the best talents, they have to move with the times. [It will] become very unattractive if you, as an organization, are expecting your staff to be in the office five days a week. So, with that in mind, organizations need to think progressively,” Sephton-Poultney told the Inquirer in a Zoom interview on Friday.

The findings were taken from the company’s Salary Survey 2022, which was conducted last October. The number of respondents in the Philippines was not provided.

Nevertheless, the company said, citing internal data, that the country ranked second to Singapore in Southeast Asia in the preference to work at home than in the office.The data do not represent the general job market in the Philippines, which would include fresh graduates and displaced workers who are competing for work during the pandemic. Rather, the data cover professionals with some experience under their belt and who are in demand to fill middle- to senior-level management positions, Sephton-Poultney said.

Daily commute

Asked to expound on how professionals in the Philippines seemed to want remote work more than those in other countries, Sephton-Poultney cited the hassle of the daily commute and how much going to work had taken up people’s time compared to the work itself. According to the Traffic Index of the Netherlands-based technology specialist TomTom, Manila placed fourth in the world and second in Asia for having the worst traffic, wherein a total of nearly eight days—or seven days and 20 hours—were lost to the rush hour in 2020. “The uniqueness of the Philippines is obviously the commuting to work. People spend a huge amount of time traveling to work. I think what the pandemic has demonstrated is that a number of organizations can operate with a remote workforce. We certainly see that,” Sephton-Poultney said.

At face value, the data show how many professionals would choose to work remotely if given the choice—a luxury that many more do not have. Latest available data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the unemployment rate in the country declined to 7.4 percent, or 3.5 million unemployed Filipinos, last October, which was when the survey was conducted.

This rate is slightly lower than the 8.7 percent jobless rate in October of last year.

While the latest available figure is considered one of the lowest in 2021, suggesting a recovery, it still pales in comparison to the life before the pandemic: a 4.5 percent unemployment rate, or 2.1 million Filipinos jobless, in October 2019. Moreover, the underemployment rate, or the number of people looking for either longer working hours or higher pay as they settle for part-time jobs, in October 2021 reached 7 million—the highest in months.