My Opinion: Open Office Plans and Commutes are Key Reasons Why We Don't Want to Return to the Office

I say "we" but really mean me.

I have been a vocal advocate of work-from-anywhere (regionally) for 28 years. At Calix, our culture was WFA (regionally) for 65% of the company since 2016 and has moved successfully to 98% WFA through the pandemic. (WE ARE HIRING)

We have a world-class 4.8/5 Glassdoor culture because (1) Leaders are held accountable for the culture. I wrote here that I believe that WFA success/failure is all about leadership and we continue to expand our leader's development through programs such as Predictive Index (I have been a fanatical believer in PI for culture building since 2007) and HBR management training (2) Everyone must have video on to build connections (I personally call-out those with video off - sorry Harvard it is strategic nagging - every day) (3) We are investing in face-to-face meetings to build personal relationships with all North America managers coming together in San Diego in Sept and (4) We apply a Better, Better, Never Best mentality to ensure we are always taking feedback and adjusting our culture. The Calix culture is not something we maintain as we grow, the Calix culture is something every team-member takes ownership for and is constantly changing/adapting to the needs of our employees, customers and stakeholders.

Which brings me to why "I" will not be returning to the office other than once in a while.

1) In my opinion open office plans are the worst work environment. I detest them. While they were introduced under the false pretence of "better collaboration" their true purpose was to jam more people into less space for financial gain. That is a fact. Forbes has a great article here on why they kill morale and productivity. Harvard has an article here on how open offices reduce collaboration by 30%.

When I moved to the UK, Microsoft had just implemented a very costly open office plan and I lost my closet-sized office in Canada. It was disruptive and in the end I turned the meeting room behind me into my office (My EA had it taken off the Outlook booking system).

Open office is great for a call-centre (As it facilitates open coaching for every call) and for ad-hoc connections (hoteling). In other words, I will go into the office when I want to connect with people.

I learned the benefits of WFA during my first 12 years of work as I was in sales. I only went to the office to be at our once-a-week team meeting. I would plan that time to meet with people, get paperwork in and chase down difficult to solve issues. Other than that? I was never in the office as I had customers to serve.

These days when I am in our beautiful open-plan San Jose office, I can be found in the executive briefing centre boardroom working with the door closed OR I am in the cafeteria consciously "connecting" with people. It depends on my goals for the day.

2) Commutes are a waste of time. If I lose 2 hours a day commuting (train, car, etc) that is lost time. It could be used exercising or spending time with the family - thereby improving morale which will make me a better team member - or doing what many of us do, converting that time into productive work time.

Seriously! How many have actually worked less during the pandemic?

I do not know a single person who has said they are working less hours (unless unemployed) and there are a zillion studies that prove this - this Economist article being a good example.

In fact, working too much has become a very real problem. The topic that our leadership team discusses most frequently is forcing people to take vacation so they do not burn out. We have gotten so worried about this that we have actively shifted the culture to no-emails-on-the-weekend, unless a true emergency, to force people out of their home office, and implemented quarterly recharge days to force breaks. This is led from the top as I wrote here.

For those in small towns who say "This does not apply to me because our employees can get here in 10 min", I would simply say not-so-fast. Think of all the time it takes to get out of the house. That 10 min turns to 40 minutes and adds stress.

In closing, office plans and commutes are key physical reasons why people do not want to go back to the office, which then pivots the conversation to leadership.

The great resignation, which is seeing droves of employees job hunt, is all about corporate culture - not money - with these two elements being part of the cultural dynamic along with the quality of leadership. I tell people frequently that the worst career decision I ever made was moving for money reasons. Fortunately, I did it early in my career and have never done it since. In fact, I can provide 20+ examples of where I turned down more money to stay in the culture I was in because loving what I do every day is worth a lot to me.

It is my opinion that the leaders who force people back to open office plans and commutes, because they did not adapt their culture to WFA, are facing a big awakening and at a strategic disadvantage. Work culture has shifted and the leaders who adapt and build great hybrid cultures, will be the ones who step ahead of the pack in a big way.

If I were to adopt the "worst-case" viewpoint, I would look to the EU's statement that Covid is here to stay. If that is the case then regardless of viewpoint on productivity, adapting the work culture to WFA is not about choice - it becomes a matter of survival.

We are hiring!