The Opposite of WFH is...

For a mind-blowing intellectual exercise, estimate how many collective hours have been spent since January 20th of 2020 on the topic of the most efficient and effective place for employees to work. There are logical and data-driven arguments to support any opinion regarding the "best" (purposely subjectively vague word) way to work. There is also no one-size-fits-all for every industry, company, department, team or individual. What is absolutely critical, however, is that a leader provide clarity around the principle that an organization follows with respect to the workplace of record. For Tigo Energy, the workplace of record is the corporate office, which for the majority of employees is adjacent to the picturesque Edith Morley park in Campbell, California.

About a year ago, I was part of a panel, moderated by Jon Suarez-Davis of The CMO Club, called "Returning to Work: A Discussion on the Future of the Workplace." The other panelist led her company with an initiative called "Work from Anywhere," which is a much better way to describe what most call a hybrid environment. With over 17K employees and $22B in annual revenue, this 170-year-old health care company had very sound reasons for this decision. I have no doubt that they have implemented this, made the necessary adjustments, and have been successful. As Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan taught us in the book by the same name, it's all about the "Execution."

The decision for Tigo Energy has been quite different. Not better, just different. I just listened to the recording and on June 2nd of 2021, I naively stated that we were just about to come back into our Campbell offices "full time." A Delta and Omicron variant later and 11-months have now passed. Better late than never... we are now back in the office, as of May 2nd of 2022. It is useful to revisit the rationale behind this decision.

"Collaboration leads to effective business outcomes and this is best done face-to-face." -- Zvi Alon, in a letter to employees

At the highest of levels, that statement above is a self-evident truth. It is upon this truism that we have built clarity around our workplace of record. A second salient fact is that Tigo is a relatively small and growing company. We are in the adolescent stage of a company where we have surpassed the point where a small group of individual contributors drive the company but have yet to reach the point of established structures and processes. Finally, the culture at Tigo Energy is familial and best suited to the personal touch of working closely as a team. This is particularly true in the hyper-growth stage of our development.

In the end, I agree with the CEO of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon. Remote work "is not ideal for us, and it’s not a new normal." That does not mean that I will go back to my military roots and have a formation at 0625 in the morning. There will be exceptions for a variety of reasons and the lines between home and work are indeed more blurry and fluid than years past. Furthermore, there are risks associated with our approach. However, as Tigo Energy CEO Zvi Alon has stated, the Tigo Energy culture is to take calculated risks and the upside of making the office our workplace of record outweighs the downside of doing so. Most importantly, we have clarity as we enter the fifth month of 2022. As our team in Israel toasts their return to the office months ago (below), it's great for the entire Tigo team to have the clarity to achieve our mission of "delivering smart integrated software and hardware solutions that offer fast, flexible, and dependable choice to solar professionals and system owners alike."