‘Return to Office’ orders are a managerial #Fail of Epic Proportions.

First, cards on table. I believe that post pandemic, the best offices, operated in the right way, will generate more income than they ever have before. I am very long on great offices. I am a fan of great offices.

I am though very short on bad offices and bad management. So it was disheartening, speaking politely, to read this morning that according to the Financial Times, a Cabinet Office Minister, here in the UK, is issuing orders to government departments to force civil servants back to the office.

The premise being it will ‘bring economic benefits for businesses across the country, with sandwich shops and the hospitality sector due to see a dramatic increase in footfall’. The Minister wants to see “the maximum use of our office space” and “a move away from a reliance on video meetings and get back to the benefits of face-to-face, collaborative working,”.

Sorry, but this Minister is a fool. Who I think will be joined by many other managerial fools in the coming weeks, as work from home orders are removed across the UK.

We have learnt a lot during the pandemic. Most pertinently we have learnt that, by and large, remote working, works. Yes there are areas where it does not work but according to data from Leesman, who have been running the largest ongoing survey on these matters, for circa 70% of people their home office setup enables them to be more productive than they were in their actual office. Talk to any successful business and they will tell you that working from home has enabled them to perform their business more than adequately. Look at the performance of the better ‘knowledge’ based companies across the globe and mostly they have had a good pandemic, in financial terms. Look at the tech sector and performance has been stellar.?

Are these companies ditching their offices? No. Are they optimising their portfolios and their workplaces? Absolutely. Are they embracing the benefits to themselves and their employees of greatly enhanced flexibility, agency and working methodologies? Of course they are.

It is abundantly clear that the days of rigid five days a week in the office are over. It didn’t work before (look up the reams of evidence that offices performed very inefficiently) and it won’t in the future. Neither for employers or employees.

What is also clear is that for specific tasks, which might be practical, physical, social or emotional, most companies have a need for spaces that enable these tasks to be performed efficiently and effectively. The best offices will be those that understand what their customers ‘jobs to be done’ are and provide the most appropriate spaces and places to get them done.

For every task someone needs to undertake there is a space where it can be done well. As referenced above, we know that our homes tick the required box for many tasks and for many people. Any office we attend needs to provide a better space or service than we can find elsewhere. Quite simply, why would anyone pay for space to do something that can be done better elsewhere?

I am very long on great offices because I believe it is possible to create great spaces that are the best place to do very many tasks, for very many people. These will be sophisticated environments that are configured and optimised by skilled operators based on intimate knowledge of the wants, need and desires of their customers. This will be no easy task but therein lies the value; whoever cracks this has huge competitive advantage. The perfect space to get X done is a valuable asset.

But it is a two way street. No operator will be able to create great spaces without their client company being intimately involved. It will be a partnership, a 2+2=5 arrangement, where aligning incentives, sharing data, and working collaboratively will yield the best results. For all parties. It needs to be grasped that no company wants an office, they want a productive workforce. The space is an input, not an output.

What is a catastrophic input is managerial myopia mandating everyone come ‘back to work’. It is foolish on so many levels. Without understanding employees wants, needs and desires you have zero chance of creating a productive workforce. If you are mandating office use without a clear reason why this is preferable then you are failing in your job. In fact you are guaranteed to be costing your company money. Enabling people to be happy and healthy might sound like the ‘fluffy’ stuff you despise but happy and healthy people are the most productive, over the long term. Adam Smith would approve of a happy and healthy workforce. It’s optimising corporate economics.

I am not even going to start on why it is not an employees responsibility to patronise a particular, probably private equity owned, city centre hospitality venue. We are still spending our money. That is what keeps the economy going. Not where we spend it.

To be clear there is no right answer to whom should be in the office at any given time. The only way to get to a right answer is to go through the process just described.

But there is absolutely a wrong answer, and that is to issue orders to get everyone ‘back to work’. That does nothing but guarantee failure. And most likely lead to your best employees leaving.

Don’t do it. Use your brain. Think first. Best of all, get some management training.

If you are on the receiving end of ‘back to work’ mandates, my best advice is find a better employer, fast. Bad employers seldom improve. Good ones get better.