Why An In-the-office Approach Is Best for Entrepreneurial Companies — And for Talent Who Want To Grow Fast

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Emmies have been working remotely for a long time. As the restrictions eased, we gradually returned to the office. We have now taken the step of limiting home office use to Fridays. This is much stricter than before, but I do believe this is the right thing to do for all entrepreneurial companies – and for talent who wants to grow fast.?

To understand my point, it is important to distinguish between a personal perspective and an organisation-wide perspective. Many discussions I have participated in have been focused on the personal perspective: Yes, people like flexibility and autonomy. Yes, autonomy increases motivation. And yes, many people will say that the flexibility of working from home has increased their productivity. I agree with all these points.?

But from a company-wide, macro level perspective, the drawbacks of working from home are not as obvious, and therefore underestimated — for example, slower talent development and a collective loss of entrepreneurship. Consequently, being in the office helps us (a) develop talent faster and (b) boost entrepreneurship.?

Developing talent?

People and teamwork have always been the true source of Emma's success: the way we approach new topics, build outstanding teams, and develop talent. With this, we have grown massively. Specifically, in 2021, only 6 years after launch, we profitably turned over EUR 645 million. And this growth has been accompanied by an influx of new talent. About 80% of our Emmies were hired after Covid hit.?

Even before Covid, the rapid growth of the team has presented us with the?challenge of maintaining our unique culture and approach of doing things in an agile and smart way. While we do provide trainings across all subjects - from our way of doing things, methods, and tools, to best practices, team leadership, and culture -?the best way to learn at Emma is on the job, by observing others and by asking other Emmies for help. This is most effective in-person. It is only through this intensive learning in the office that we have been able to take Emmies from fresh graduate to country manager in less than 2 years. And our own internal research confirms this. Our “team barometer” shows that time spent in the office correlates not only with sense of belonging and feeling supported in the role, but also with the speed of personal development.?

Boosting entrepreneurship?

When we went into lockdown the first time, I was impressed by the productivity in the company. But as home office became the new normal, I started to feel that new, bold ideas were missing across the company. Which makes sense if you think about it: ideation, creativity and entrepreneurship suffer if you try to think something through alone at home. Ideation, creativity and entrepreneurship thrives by discussing with others.?

Sure, you can brainstorm via video conference (and Miro is certainly a great tool), but you could be missing out on all the informal discussions that are so important. It is not the moments where it is already clear you are having a meeting and who is going to attend. It is the small moments! The moments of doubt when you leave a meeting, walk through the door with a colleague and tell them, "I'm not sure we made the right decision." Or the moment when you sit at lunch with colleagues and tell them what you are working on. Something you were convinced and confident about. But the input and often out-of-the-box-feedback of others at lunch has you making a 180-degree turn on your decision. Or the moment someone comes to your desk and shares an early idea for a growth opportunity. They would not call you to share it. Maybe they would squeeze it into a Microsoft Teams message, just to receive a "sounds interesting" response from you. That is not creativity at its best.?

I honestly?cannot imagine how Emma could have become successful if my co-founder and I had both worked from home or come into the office irregularly. Many of the best and most ground-breaking ideas came about outside of formal meetings, simply in informal conversations in person, between meetings, over coffee, at lunch. In terms of numbers, even for me personally, these moments are only a few times a month, but they make a huge difference to our success. That's why it's not really noticed by people. They get their jobs done and the meetings are productive. So, it all feels right. But it is not: entrepreneurship goes down significantly with home office setup.?

To be fair, it is not so easy to notice. It is not obvious and immediate. Accordingly, I had Emmies asking me whether I can specify a bit more where I saw that we were less entrepreneurial. And to be honest, it’s hard to pinpoint to the creative ideas, which are missing.?

Making the change?

For these two reasons - developing talent and boosting entrepreneurship - I believe that an in-the-office approach makes sense for all businesses and teams whose success is based on these elements.?

That said, I am not unaware of the benefits of remote working. There are tasks that require little collaboration and can be even more productive from a (quiet) home: A software engineer or an illustrator can often work very productively for days without much discussion and distraction.?

I know there are other leaders who would like to make the same move in their teams but do not push through?because they are worried about the team's reaction and how to implement it. It is not easy to take something away from people. And examples like Apple show how going back to the office can trigger a significant backlash.??

What helped us was to strictly separate personal preferences from the company-wide perspective in the discussions: The question is what people think makes sense for the company, not for themselves. Many discussions can easily drift into people defending home office on personal grounds, but they do not scrutinize what could be better at a company-wide level.?

To run a discussion on what makes sense for the company, it is also important to agree on the goals for the company. Is it retention or talent development, is it employer branding or entrepreneurial success? Spotify, for example, has announced that employee turnover has decreased thanks to its flexible "work from anywhere" policy. That sounds like a success. But the company's operating profit has fallen so much over the same period that this move has not appeared to have been accompanied by greater business success. At the same time, it may be?the right setup for their specific business model, the phase they are in and the goals they currently have.?

With this approach of explicitly distinguishing between the individual and the organisational perspective, I had very fruitful discussions with our team leaders early on. And once we made the decision, we openly shared the reasons with the whole team. That helped us to get their agreement - even if not from everyone.?

And even though some people are concerned that this might be a disadvantage in recruiting new talent, it does not seem to be. We may be at a disadvantage when it comes to candidates for whom personal flexibility is a top priority. But for those talents who are more focused on rapid learning and development, who want to make an impact in a highly entrepreneurial environment, and who want to work personally with like-minded and inspiring people, we are the perfect match. Accordingly, we have not seen a drop in active applications or in the number of candidates accepting our offer. We even saw that bringing candidates to our bustling offices increased acceptance rates.?

So, after a month in the new structure, I am more convinced than ever that this was the right decision for Emma’s entrepreneurial success and for the development of the great talent working here.?