Don't blame design...This is management's moment

This past week, some readers of ThePrime.cz have been sharing some of what they learned in the year since the pandemic broke out. They're all fascinating in their own way, and if you have your own thoughts on the matter, I'm definitely interested in hearing them — long or short. One thing I learned was that in any sudden crisis, you should never believe (or re-tweet) the first glaring headline that catches your eye. "The Office is Dead" from back in April is a case in point. Whoever wrote that gem has spent the last 11 months being mocked by an army of experts who claim to know better.

Personally, I've found I can work quite well from home and that online meetings can be an extremely efficient way of conducting interviews. Still, I'm skeptical about promises by some companies for permanent work-from-anywhere arrangements. Assuming you have a strong team of talented, intelligent people, it's hard to believe that the value they can produce working together isn't greater than the cost of the office space it takes to house them. If that's not the case at your company, you really need to figure out why.

Sure, there are probably ways that most companies could (and probably will) employ to reduce their office footprint. But I suspect that we're missing the point by concentrating solely on the physical office space. I think it comes down to management. Management of people, teams and work itself. The lesson of the pandemic is not simply to let your staff work from home twice a week, instead of just once. Frankly, if you are having trouble getting your employees to come back to the office, you may have more basic problems to solve.

Amazon has long been held up as the ultimate success story, but it treats its workers like machines. It even seems to want to replace them with machines. Employers whose priority is to ensure the laziest people work efficiently will be unable to compete for talent with the companies that tailor their work processes to their best people.

There's been a tendency to believe that in order to foster teamwork, you just need to create pleasant common areas and a trendy work environments. But architecture and design aren't a replacement for enlightened management. Now that working in the office isn't simply a given, employees are going to have to be given a reason to come in and relying on the social aspect isn't going to be enough. It's going to take a new, more flexible type of leader who understands how to promote both dialogue and teamwork. And it will take a modern, active view on how to use office space to promote those values — not just as a place to make sure his or her employees are putting in the hours.

This article originally appeared in ThePrime Note, a free newsletter I write that can be subscribed to here. For more news, a week's worth of articles and interviews is available at ThePrime.cz, but everything older is behind a paywall.