Your top performers know they are the top performers and they know they have options. They will be the ones to move. The only factor that would deter that is golden handcuffs. They will be left with very highly paid, high performers who are not happy and mid to low performers who have fewer options or less impetus to move.
They won't be the ones to move because these companies are not stupid. They have mechanisms to save top talent by making exceptions for them and giving more equity.
The coming years will have stories of regret from tech folks who arrogantly left good positions because of RTO and then failed to find WFH jobs because those were all snapped up by the very best of the best.
Nothing can bring an ego down to earth faster than to realize that of the 400k workers out there looking for work…more than half have better resumes, better interviewing skills, and a better chance to secure the jobs than you do.
assume you are unhappy with this situation and you decide to f off. who is more likely to find a new job (especially in this economy) ? top performers or low performers?
as a company this virtually guarantees that most resignations will come from top performers. I give it 2-3 weeks before they walk this back and/or maybe go to 1-2 days per week.