Another week, another ‘Wave’ ??

5 news items from the world of work and workplace you can digest in 5 minutes.

This week:

1. RTO mandates in 2024 won’t look the same as they did in 2023 or 2022
2. The biggest winners and losers from the work-from-home revolution
3. Neuroscience research debunks argument that remote employees can’t form strong connections with colleagues

Forming Remote Connections: New neuroscience research debunks argument that remote employees can’t form strong connections with colleagues, reports Yahoo Finance. A common refrain from CEOs who staunchly prefer in-person work is that employees cannot form the same connections or work experiences in a remote setting. While Zoom fatigue is very real and remote workers are more prone to loneliness, recent research from the consulting firm Slalom’s HabLab and researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Neuroscience Initiative finds that small tweaks in a virtual setting can boost employee engagement and productivity. Employees who rated each other as close colleagues exhibited similar brain activity and felt similarly about the workplace. Of note, work friends in the study displayed similar brain activity both in person and virtually. “We proved through our research that you can create virtual friendships that are just as strong in the brain as in-person friendships,” says Natalie Richardson, director of Slalom’s HabLab. “I think that's really encouraging for a lot of us who are part of virtual teams or virtual workplaces.” But managers and leaders still have to put in the legwork to foster relationships digitally, such as carving out time before or after meetings to encourage small talk. Read Full Article.

A Policy Change: 2024 will see plenty of return-to-office mandates, but the definition of ‘RTO’ is changing, reports Fast Company. Employers will continue pushing return-to-office mandates in the year ahead, but they won’t necessarily look the same as they did in 2023 or 2022 as how they craft such policies is evolving to include more flexibility. When ResumeBuilder.com surveyed 1,000 business leaders at the end of 2022, 9 in 10 said they will require employees to return to the office in 2023. When they ran the same survey a year later, they got the same answer, with 9 in 10 employers saying they will mandate RTO by the end of 2024. But “what they’re not doing is defining what RTO is; that’s the part that has changed the most,” says ResumeBuilder.com’s chief career advisor Stacie Haller. “In our most recent survey, only 19% defined it as five days a week [in-person].” “RTO could mean three days a week, it could mean one week a month; it doesn’t always apply to everybody in the organization,” she says. “Only 44% said that at least three-quarters [of staff] will be required to come in in-person, so it’s not one-size-fits-all.” Haller explains that most organizations remain unwilling to force high performers—those who have proven their ability to be productive while working remotely—back into the workplace for fear of losing key talent. Instead, Haller suggests the landscape will get a little more fractured in the year ahead, with employers announcing sweeping RTO mandates that contain plenty of exceptions to match a range of employee needs and preferences.“They realized that today they need to compromise, and that employees want to have a say in the way they work,” she says. “It comes down to economics; if your employees are leaving because they want to work remotely, you’re not going to be able to attract top talent. If you don’t let some employees work remotely, you’re missing out on a section of the candidate pool.” Read Full Article.

An Attractive Model: Although WeWork went bankrupt, the model it pioneered remains attractive. Experts say the company had unique problems with its business model, but that the demand for the kind of flexible workspace it provides will continue to grow. Some of the biggest property owners in the world are increasingly adding flexible office space to their buildings, says Julie Whelan, who leads a global research team at CBRE. Traditional space, customized for long-term tenants, is still the backbone of most commercial property portfolios, she says. But landlords are likely to continue adding space with more flexible designs, and shorter lease terms, as they adjust to changing demands. WeWork helped accelerate those changes, Whelan says. Its bankruptcy isn’t likely to slow them down. “It was obviously a huge event in the market for a company that was discussed so often in the market leading up to this, but I would say it is really important to separate the business model flaws from the overall fate of the market,” she says. “Ultimately, the flex market is going to continue to grow and strengthen and morph. We are now into a more mature flex environment that is going to last.” Read Full Article.

The Need for Coworking: Coworking, no longer the new kid on the block, is evolving from a social movement to a key post-pandemic workplace strategy, offering flexibility and cost-efficiency. As coworking leader Cat Johnson has documented, coworking businesses are not only thriving, but are here to stay. What were once the groovy, Millennial-only alternatives to adult officing, coworking spaces are now viable nodes in the larger world of work. In the aftermath of the pandemic, companies of all sorts are struggling to balance employees’ genuine needs for flexibility and autonomy with the organization’s needs for co-presence, trust building, and cultural cohesion. Hybrid work has become shorthand for slightly tweaked work schedules which allow people to work from home a few days a week, and at the office the other days. But as companies continue their long and gradual adaptation to hybrid work, simply scheduling days at the office with days at home is not enough. The cost of 30-40% space occupancy in traditional offices is too great, and more recent efforts to lure people back to offices with amenities is more trickeration than substance. Despite their high cost per square foot, per month for full-time access, when used on an ad hoc, just-in-time basis (which is what employees are saying they want), using local and easily accessible coworking spaces for company co-presences is significantly cheaper, and more effective. Such a move gives today’s employees exactly what they want: choice, flexibility, autonomy, and community. Read Full Article.

Winners & Losers: Looking ahead to 2024 and beyond, who are the biggest winners and losers from the work-from-home revolution? The fivefold increase in WFH ushered in by the pandemic is perhaps the largest change to hit U.S. labor markets since World War II. The biggest losers are likely city-center office and retail property owners—often pension funds, family firms and endowments—who have collectively lost hundreds of billions of dollars of investments. Another loser has been mass-transit rail systems with ridership dropping by 30% nationally as commuters shift from a five-day commuting schedule to two or three days a week. The winners? The environment for one, thanks to reduced travel and energy needs. A recent study found working from home two days a week reduces pollution by about 15%. This comes from lower commuting emissions alongside additional savings from lower office energy bills. But also the workers. In national surveys, employees report they value the ability to work from home two or three days a week as much as an 8% pay increase. This vast dividend has benefited employees through less commuting and lower stress, alongside more personal, leisure and family time. And perhaps the biggest work-from-home winner are companies. Research finds that hybrid working three days a week in the office has a net neutral on employee productivity, while allowing firms to save on recruitment and retention costs. Firms can save money by trimming office expenses while using remote working to lower labor costs by hiring employees outside major cities. U.S. firms made about $1 trillion higher profits in 2022 than in 2019, an increase of almost 50%. While many factors likely contributed to this, including the strong economic growth, it is notable this happened alongside the fivefold surge in working from home. Indeed, the mass adoption of hybrid working by millions of firms across the U.S. and Europe is perhaps the strongest evidence of its positive impact on profitability. Read Full Article.