‘Return-to-Office’ is Glassdoor’s 2022 Word of the Year in the U.S.

Key Findings

The U.S. labor market has had very little room to breathe this year, with employers and employees alike on their toes in anticipation of another economic downturn. We analyzed millions of Glassdoor reviews from 2021 to 2022 to provide a front row seat into what it has been like in the workplace for 2022.

Employee conversations cover a wide array of themes and tones, from opinions on their company’s return-to-office (RTO) policy, to concerns about their sense of belonging on the job.

Employers eagerly began calling workers back into the office after a bumpy start to the year, as many return-to-office plans were delayed due to the Omicron variant’s spread. But with stronger bargaining power and inflation top of mind for many employees, workers stood ready to part ways for better pay, perks and flexibility. However, as the year went on, the labor shortage began to ease up, as concerns of a recession began to mount. Tuning into what employees have been saying helps us get a better sense of their thoughts on this past year and what may lie ahead in 2023’s labor market.

Return-to-Office: Our Word of the Year

Glassdoor’s 2022 Word of the Year in the U.S. is ‘return-to-office’ (RTO). ‘Return-to-office’  encapsulates various themes in the labor market and workplace this year. As the world opened back up for business, many companies looked to return to how things were before the pandemic. Yet, the calls for employees to be back at their desks were met with pushback. The tug-of-war between employees wanting to stay remote and employers wanting them back in the office resulted in the share of employee reviews discussing their company’s RTO policy doubling since 2021 (+122 percent). Many companies were more lenient towards employee demands during a tight labor market, but the emerging threat of a recession saw employers taking their power back. 

When analyzing employee discussions on their company’s RTO policies, it is clear that employees want autonomy in choosing what type of work is best for them and clear communication from their employers when making decisions about how they work. Reviews discussing employer RTO policies are overwhelmingly negative, with 86 percent of all mentions found in the cons section (down from 78 percent in 2021). As the uncertain economic climate weighs heavier on job seekers, there will be less opportunities to challenge calls to return to in-person work and lower outside options to find a different role if employee demands go unmet. Return-to-office plans have been deeply unpopular and the question going forward is whether the balance of power will tilt more towards employers and see employees being back at their desks.

Other Terms That Define the Times

As the battle over whether employees will be back in the office continues, less compromising employers risk losing valuable talent, and in a softening labor market employees who refuse to consider in-office work risk losing out on opportunities. Indeed, the middle ground of hybrid work gained traction over 2022.

Hybrid

Glassdoor’s Workplace Trends for 2023 report highlights remote work as a trend that is here to stay. Emerging largely out of necessity from the pandemic, companies quickly went digital to remain operable. However, as the pandemic slowed, employee discussions of ‘hybrid’ surged leading into 2021. This trend, as laid out in the report and as shown in Glassdoor reviews, has shown little signs of easing, with the share of employee reviews discussing hybrid work increasing 388 percent over the past year. Sentiments towards hybrid work have improved over the past year, with roughly 73 percent of reviews discussing hybrid work found in the pros section on Glassdoor this year (up from 65 percent in 2021). Yet there is still room for improvement.

Overall, when it comes to hybrid-work, employees are either glad they have it or wish they had it, but the decision to remain at home or in person isn’t entirely up to employees or employers. With 2022 seeing rising costs of living across the nation, a larger utility bill for example may push some employees back into the office. For other employees, a more expensive commute might keep them at home.

Inflation

The Federal Reserve’s consistent interest rate hikes to slow the economy and temper rising prices kept inflation trending higher in Glassdoor reviews throughout the year. Even as wage growth began to pick up steam coming into 2022, inflation continued to eat at employee salaries.

The share of reviews discussing inflation increased 326 percent over the past year and the discussions have largely been negative. Employees show most concern around how much less money they are bringing in. And although there is greater monetary upside to switching roles rather than waiting for a promotion, job seekers in a cooling labor market are more likely to stay put as their bargaining power tapers, making the effects of inflation on household finances more harmful.

Recession

A potential recession has become increasingly likely as inflation persists, with many companies taking steps to lessen the impact of a downturn by reducing the pace of hiring or laying off workers. Employee discussions of a recession have risen 133 percent over the past year, reflecting the shift in the economic climate and changing employer-employee dynamics.

Employees experience recessions differently. Roughly half of all mentions of a recession were in the pros this year (or 53 percent), reflecting the mixed sentiment towards downturns and the unevenly distributed impact. Some employees are in roles they consider ‘recession proof’ but for other employees, recessions have only resulted in greater instability and uncertainty over whether they will still have a job if the economy takes a dip. Overall, employee experiences in times of crises are unique and in the coming year, it may be even harder to find a one-size-fits all approach to address the specific challenges of workers.

Belonging

Despite the evolving ways of working and shifts in economic climate over the past year, there are bright spots. Discussions of ‘belonging’ among employees have increased 48 percent over the past year, reflecting the collaborative effort among employers and employees to ensure greater inclusivity in the workplace. Being ‘the only’ in the room can be challenging for employees with different backgrounds or experiences, particularly when collaborating. As a result, many organizations have begun updating their DE&I strategies to include a ‘B’ for belonging (even as broader access to DE&I programs has stalled).  Overall,  the rise in employees discussing their sense of belonging in the workplace has been positive, with 64 percent of all mentions found in the pros section this year, a good sign of the evolving times.

Conclusion 

Employee discussions in 2022 were packed with vivid narrations of what life has been like in the workplace. The tension between employees and employers on returning to the office and the continued demand for more flexible working arrangements. Employees have had to manage rising prices at a time when the economy is slowing and with so many moving parts and pieces to juggle, employees are still trying to find their North Star in the workplace. It is not clear what 2023 will bring, but keeping one ear to the ground for what employees are saying is an indispensable guide during good times and bad.

Methodology

To analyze how the use of terms in employee reviews have changed over time, we examined the text of company reviews on Glassdoor (including the pros, cons and feedback sections) for all reviews submitted by U.S. employees for jobs held from January 1, 2021 to October 18, 2022. We calculated the percent change in the share of reviews that use each word or phrase from 2021 to 2022. Insignificant terms that do not add considerable context by itself to a sentence, called stopwords, were removed from all reviews. We grouped together different forms of the same word (for example, ‘ran’, ‘run’ and ‘running’ would all be grouped), a process known as lemmatisation.

We define a mention of a word as positive if it appears in the pros section of a review and negative if it appears in the cons section. When calculating the proportion of mentions that are positive or negative, we use (number of mentions in pros + number of mentions in cons) as our denominator.