Stop that WFH / Office discussion – You're missing the point!!!

Allow me to rant...just a little...this week.

I'm getting fed up with that discussion around calling people back to the office or allowing them to work from home. Last week it was Apple; the week before, it was JP Morgan; this week, it was Tesla. And the millions of other companies too small to warrant big news headlines.

You still don't get it, do you?

First, when JPMorgan and Apple got push back by their employees, they changed their policies. Let's see how it will go with Tesla. In any case, by now, it should be clear that it will be very, very difficult to impose a return to office policy.

Second, even if you succeed in imposing it, research shows that about 30% of your people will actively seek a new job. Can you afford to lose 1/3 of your staff? Think about the cost of replacing them. And, because of your work at office policy, it might get much harder than you think to find people.

And, with disengagement rates of 85% throughout the world even before the pandemic, what impact do you think imposing a policy, and threatening people that they will get fired as Musk did, will have on the engagement, motivation, and commitment of those who comply?

Third, and most importantly, guys, YOU'RE MISSING THE F#@!ing POINT!!!!

It's not about the office or working from home or anywhere else. Instead, people want more autonomy, more flexibility, and being treated as adults, who best know where, when, how, and maybe even with whom they'd like to work.

And in some cases, that might mean that it's best to be in the office, and in some, it means that it's better to work remotely.

A one-size-fits-all return to the office policy is certainly not catering to the needs of your business either.

Many activities can be performed perfectly well remotely. Your business would even save money in terms of real-estate costs and benefit from increased productivity, which has also been proven when working from home.

This might not be true for everybody and in all circumstances, and we certainly need to learn more about the types of activities and contexts where it does.

But again, it's about flexibility. Not one size fits all.

Consider the example of Deutsche Bahn (Germany's railway). DB has more than 300'000 employees, a lot of them can obviously not work from home, and it would have been easy to use that as an excuse to call everybody back to the office.

But they didn't.

Instead, they focused on increasing the autonomy and flexibility of every employee.

So for office workers, flexibility comes in the fashion of deciding to work from home or come to the office.

For their train staff, flexibility comes, for example, in the fashion of planning their own shifts within a team, being free to swap shifts with colleagues when you'd like to attend your kid's soccer game, etc., without a boss or HQ dictating these things.

And DB has a dual focus: improving the employee experience while reducing costs for the company.

Now many will say, "but working in the office is better for collaboration, socializing, etc." Maybe it is, but maybe not.

It's an illusion to think that they will collaborate or socialize more by default because people are in the office. (I had people in workshops literally say that the colleagues shouldn't expect them to have lunch with them just because they're in the office...OK, there might be other issues.)

If you want your people to come back to the office, you'll have to make it meaningful. Design the experience.

We've all heard the stories – and maybe experienced it – of people coming back to the office only to spend their time in Zoom meetings.

Obviously, you will only do this 1-2 times before you stay at home again.

The office is the new offsite.

And as such, coming to the office needs to be designed. It needs to become an experience. One that people won't have at home. Design the collaboration, the communication, the social interaction.

And make it easy to come to the office. Remove the pain points. Think traffic between 8-9 am, finding a parking spot, taking care of groceries, good food in the canteen, etc. Things that many companies have been doing well for many years.

OK...enough of the ranting...what can you do?

As a leader, ask yourself:

• What's my motivation for asking people to come back in? Do I truly believe they work better at the office, or does it just make me more comfortable?
• What are the main activities of my team? What are the requirements of the business?
• Which of these require collaboration, and which can be done perfectly well wherever, whenever?
• Those that require collaboration: does it need to be onsite, or can it be online? Does it need to be synchronous, or can it be asynchronous?
• Are there any other, maybe non-core, but still essential activities for my team? Think about innovation, learning, onboarding, networking, and the more informal stuff,...
• Which of these require us to spend time together, and what would be better done in person at the office?

Then, have a conversation with your team about your answers. Get their view. Define what collaboration and communication modes are necessary for your team to function well.

That way, you'll start designing the best ways of working for your business, your team, and everybody involved.

Here's another thought: How did your employees do during the pandemic? Did they keep on doing their job? Did they maybe even go beyond to make sure your company survives? Did productivity go up or down? Did they get the job done or not? If they did, it's an insult to now say, "we can't trust you'll work at home or think you'll do a better job in the office; that's why you need to come back."