Stat: The reasons employees don’t want to work in offices are plenty. The Clarify Capital survey found those factors include commuting to work (cited by 45% of employees); getting home later (44%); spending more money on lunch (32%), work attire (30%) or gas (27%); not being home with their kids (30%) or pets (29%); and not wanting to be exposed to illness (17%).

Businesses continue to grapple with where-to-work policies. Disney was the latest large company to mandate employees come back to the office (4 days a week). Additionally, I recently came across a study by Clarify Capital that where 68% of respondents said they would rather look for a new job than return to the office; 27% would negotiate a higher salary to return; and only 5% would return without salary negotiations.

What continues to be abundantly clear is that team members DO NOT want to go back to the way things were. They’ve had a taste of more autonomy, and they like it.

My advice: Change the conversation. Focus more on autonomy.

Autonomy doesn’t have to mean sole discretion to do whatever the team members wants, but rather, having more input or influence on their professional lives. For example, they would like to be involved in or have more discretion in:

• When to work
• Which assignments to accept
• How many assignments to take on at once
• Setting deadlines
• Making decisions

Yes, where to work is a factor, but if a leader or organization can bolster involvement in some of these other areas, team members may be more willing to be in the office more often. In fact, they may choose it for themselves because they feel more in control over their day-to-day lives. That is what working from home has given them—more control, hence more autonomy.

If leaders would have more intentional conversations about ways to increase autonomy with employees, engagement and retention will increase across the board.