RTO, Romanian version: A Marx and the Corporations story

I was in the process of preparing a new article on corruption, globally, locally, and within the IT industry. However, in the last few days, a very hot topic has arisen on social media in Romania. As I was deeply involved in it, I decided to add my humble opinion to the debate.

I am talking about the Return to office (RTO), which has been a topic since the pandemic intensity decreased and became a lesser concern for practitioners and corporations. The pandemic restrictions proved, generally speaking, that the IT industry is well-prepared for an almost completely remote model. Yes, there were some initial glitches with home infrastructure such as laptops, internet, furniture, space, family, children, heating or cooling. Some security issues also occurred for a few large players, but they were quickly fixed without a serious impact on customers. Within less than a year, the industry proved to be very reliable, demonstrating that most of the services we are supposed to provide can be executed remotely.

Both service providers and clients quickly realized that the remote model also brings financial benefits. First, space requirements could be reduced as people work mostly from home, and second, there is less travel within projects.

In terms of productivity, let's agree it remained stable, although many IT professionals believe their productivity is higher when working from home rather than in the office. I have no clear data to support such a statement. I thought it would be a problem, but reality contradicted me, people delivered from home excellent results. Well, not all of them, as always.

Now, since the pandemic's inception, many companies, service providers, and buyers have shifted their model to a highly remote work model. During this process, the profile of the IT professional has also changed dramatically. Initially, many of them were discontented with not coming to the office due to reasons such as the location of their children's school, travel habits, socializing, and so on. Nowadays, the situation is completely reversed.

Over four years, many have relocated to the outskirts of large cities or even to the countryside; schools and kindergartens are now close to home rather than to the office. The entire set of habits has changed so drastically that today, most IT people are unwilling to attend face-to-face interviews in the office and prefer to conduct them remotely, via screen, or by phone. I do not think that because they are lazy, but rather because they recognize the inefficiency of wasting time in traffic or traveling. These hours could be better utilized, especially when technology enables us to have the same conversation from the comfort of our home office.

A bit of a lengthy preamble to the story, but it is worth putting things in perspective. And now arises the issue with some large companies, including my former employer IBM, mandating practitioners to come to the office for at least three days a week. The explanations were rather weak: company culture must be preserved, concerns about alienation and estrangement, instances where some practitioners took their lives due to loneliness in various countries, and potential harm to one's career prospects. That is pretty much all there was.

Interestingly enough, initially, some very large customers were very keen to have people in the office full-time or four days per week. However, when we explained to them the reluctance of many of the seniors specifically and the risk of losing them to competitors, they lowered their voices, which helped ease the atmosphere. I always told my colleagues that our customers are smarter than us, a belief I held while working for the Big Blue.

The explanation is very simple, reminiscent of the communist era and the great leader's directives: 'We all need to come to the office at least three days a week because I say so! Full stop!' And those who disagree will suffer the consequences. What better reason is there than: 'I mandate something because I? have the authority and privilege!' Reasoning is less important.

In IBM Romania RTO has been on the table for a while. Despite the local management's efforts to avoid sending a message to the masses, despite the constant pressure coming from the new EMEA Leader who replaced me, in the end, they couldn't stop it. By the way, the new Leader is of Indian origin - a good guy!

Just before the visit of another important leader, also Indian obviously, and another good guy, the message was finally sent out and created a wave of unpleasant reactions. Somehow on top, a few smart people realized that if all practitioners came to the office there would be no room for everybody. This statement holds the truth; in 2022 I was tasked with reducing space across EMEA by 25% and continuing the process in 2023 by reducing it to 50%.? When I left IBM in December 2023, we were not far from achieving the target.

The same “bright” people who pressured the local management to drastically reduce the space, are now demanding three days of mandatory office attendance. The reality is that while more people are coming to the office today, the space is still far from being overcrowded. People simply do not follow the management's request, and I am looking forward to seeing when the first employee will be fired for not complying. It is not going to happen.

After the announcement, the people's reaction was harsh; negative comments and jokes, some quite funny, were posted on several social platforms. Humor is the privilege of intelligent people, and I am not aware of many sectors with a higher average IQ than the IT sector. As Romanians traditionally do when faced with irritating situations, people are joking and mocking.

As I already stated in one of my articles, this situation could have been avoided with a more refined, nuanced request. Let's first ask to come to the office the people on projects where clients demand that and/or have some serious security constraints. Second, include projects that are on the fast track and/or use various flavors of Agile, where face-to-face daily scrums make a difference. Third, require all juniors to come, and fourth, people who have been with the company for less than a year. Maybe you can add some more categories but keep in mind that large delivery centers are dealing to a high extend with long term AMS projects that do not require too much office activities. For the rest, office attendance can be on an as-needed basis, but at least once a week. That will probably give us around 40% - 50% of the entire workforce coming in the office. Would that make sense? I bet it does! Anyway, it would be better than the 'communist' approach of making everyone suffer equally, with no discrimination!

This brings me to another favorite topic. Having leadership of a large organization and people, from a completely different geographical region can be problematic. I mean, I have been to India probably ten times. I even took my wife on a superb 10-day vacation in Goa. I know that the food is much spicier in southern dishes than in northern dishes, that Andhra Pradesh state is the home to the spiciest food due to the green chilies, and the Indians from the South have longer names than the northerners. I also know about their Hindu Gods Trinity – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and the list goes on. But I would fail if I were asked to run a large project or manage thousands of local Indian people. The local culture would quickly overwhelm me. I strongly believe that, especially in certain regions of the world, knowing very well the local culture and habits is a must for leading large teams. Being a good guy would not suffice. Some corporations simply do not understand this, and leaders who accept such roles often perform poorly. There are exceptions though, I admit!

Talking about leadership, a few days ago the leader of a large IBM division was replaced - excuse my French, 'retired'. He is easily recognizable as one of the examples in "The Management" chapter of my saga. He almost brought this division to its knees after holding top leadership positions for more than 20 years. During his reign the word of the day was restrictions, being always in a survival mode, the division’s results never improved and a large number of hilarious programs were driving people crazy. A leader who would give every task to at least three different managers, just to be sure! Lincoln nicely said: 'You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time”. He was replaced by, try to guess, a gentleman with origins from the same region as the current CEO - a resuscitated former IBM-er and former colleague of the current CEO. IBM’s favorite sport these days is cricket! We should count the runs and wickets in few quarters from now.

PS. Great event in Orlando with over 2.500 partners and leaders, incurring huge costs. I assume that locally, outings and team buildings paid by the corporation are back on the agenda. These will definitely improve the appetite for RTO!

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