The Return to the Office: "Business is full of clever people doing..." (Charles Handy)

This article follows an intriguing post from Joe Harris on yet another Leader’s insistence that remote workers should return to the office: Click here for the detail.

Background

This article's engine will be scientific evidence.  This seems to be the best way to interrogate the call back to office.

There is no intention of attacking anybody personally. The leader's views expressed on Joe's post converge with those of many others in demanding a return to the office. Their arguments are consistent and show their own logic, which is why they merit examination. However they are scientifically wayward, inaccurate in practise and bear little testimony to what really happens in a workplace. They stand as an indictment to many business leaders.

These siren like calls to the office represent a centrist perception which posits organizational power (and ground rent, something covered elsewhere) as crucial. Being in charge gives the leader/manager comfort. In almost every case, this is what matters and to hell with everybody else. Management comes first. 

This explains the return to the pre-pandemic office, where managers ruled the roost. Yet this was a world where science showed us that key business indicators were universally depressed, including well-being, engagement and productivity.  There are few benefits in rebuilding old workplaces that are predicated on management power and failed performance and happiness.

Leaders'/managers' fear of the dilution of their authority is disguised by poor, unsubstantiated, arguments such as the ones we we will explore here. These arguments mask an attempted power grab, which will make the manager’s world right again. Any subsequent workplaces will inevitably be suboptimal, except that is for the manager's workplace.

Before we start looking at the points raised in Joe's post, we should say that an office-based workplace can be superb, but it takes managerial bravery, egalitarianism and science to achieve this, not some clarion call back to Mordor.

Let’s look at the key points.

Business thinking

Claim Boosting performance: Office attendance drives higher engagement and productivity.

My mortgage on the fact that this – or almost any leader - has only a limited grasp of how to measure engagement and no idea at all as to how to measure productivity.

He is not alone in any of this. His company may well be excellent compared to its competition, but by God it could be better. The point made – and all the points that follow – are just opinions. They are untested hypotheses based on that canard experience, which here is just another word for personal bias. We need science to make great workplaces, not waffle.

 The scientific evidence shows that office attendance categorically does not drive higher engagement and productivity. Especially when that attendance is enforced.

Reference

 Claim Enhance collaboration: In-person meetings yield better results than virtual ones

Do they really? There is a host of evidence pointing to the effectiveness of remote meetings and methods. The comment above is unsubstantiated opinion.  It would be fairer to say “Meetings – all meetings – tend to yield poor results, which is why the effectiveness of meetings is generally ridiculed. Let’s do something about it.”

Reference 

Claim Strengthen relationships: Face-to-face interactions foster conflict resolution and team bonding

Face-to-face interactions can boost conflict and undermine teams. Face-to-face meetings are not necessarily positive. Team interactions can all be improved to the benefit of the business and – most importantly – to the benefit of team members, regardless of where the teams are located.

Reference: Ying, L. & Lie, L (2020). A Review of Research on Team Conflict, Conflict Management and Team Performance, Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research, p321-326, 155

Claim Facilitate information flow: Informal office chats spark unique ideas that remote work can’t replicate

In a poor workplace, informal office chats will undermine creativity. Informal chats can happen virtually or face-to-face. Meanwhile, remote workers can be just as creative as those based in an office. Creativity is frequently predicated by Organizational Identity. If businesses undermine how people identify with the organization, they will reap the consequences

 Reference 

Claim Support mental wellbeing: Positive in-person connections reduce stress and boost morale

Positive in-person connections reduce stress and boosts morale. Those connection do not have to be in person. Meanwhile negative in-person connections will crush all key organizational variables. Drag people into the office unwillingly and guess what type of connections you are likely to foster?

 This point returns us to unqualified people spouting rubbish about mental health. This is a leader doing what so many others do, demonstrating misappropriation of a skill he does not have. Leave mental health to the experts, bungling amateurs only do harm. This is a prime example of somebody who does not know what he is talking about.

 Reference

Boardroom sensitivities

Comment I find it a disgrace to our culture that less than 50% of employees come to the office +2 days per week

We have covered culture before and here we see the basic misunderstanding of what culture is. We see instead a blasting out of organizational diktat, not culture.

Culture is what arises from the bottom up in reaction to how the organization behaves. Culture is not likely to be very good if people are dragged back into work like recalcitrant children because management think it knows best.

The reference below provides a little scaffolding for those who struggle to bridge the lacuna between what managers want culture to be and what it really is. We return to Organizational Identity. If organizational identity is positive, culture will be positive; otherwise…well. Whether people are office-based, or hybrid isn’t particularly relevant.

Reference 

Comment We will stop the insanity of people working remotely from places like Bali. That is a vacation not what we hired them to do.

If somebody in Bali is talented, they can hardly nip into Tallinn each day.  Meanwhile, if somebody can work well while living life as a vacation, then it is only managerial jealousy that will stop them. What is the problem? This comment is an expression of petulance that some people are enjoying their work from outside the immediate managerial aegis.

Virtual teams, indeed, virtual friendships are becoming stronger as more of our lives are on-line.

Work in harmony. If you have a workforce that is disparate, help it to work at its best. Don’t mash it up and bring it in-house, you will only import (t)rubble.

Basically…

 If you would like to see your organization thrive, then at least ask me.  Then you needn’t disappear down the self-pumped managerial cistern that seems to be flushing rather incessantly right now.

Truly; the way ahead is incredibly promising. There lies opportunity for well-being, creativity, happiness, productivity and all at once. Please, move that way.

Going backwards, though, will just be a dismal return to past mediocrities. Is it worth just so the boss can feel good?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. C