The RTO Debate is Missing Something
I've been seeing more chatter about companies forcing their employees to return to the office (RTO). Most notable is Twitter, as Elon Musk is apparently trying to hot-box his engineers into fixing the platform.
It's too early to tell if the strategy will be successful, but forcing people to work 80+ hour weeks will end spectacularly one way or another.
Unsurprisingly, there are big feelings about being called back to the office. After 2+ years of working from home, most people finally have their routines down. Productivity hasn't suffered in most cases, and the additional freedom to work whenever from wherever is actually tapping into some people's best work.
Employees don't want to be called back in just so Big Brother can more closely monitor their daily activities. Meanwhile, companies want to ensure their capital and real estate investments aren't all for nothing (and some of them want to be Big Brother).
These are the two main points I see argued, and as usual, the truth lies somewhere in between.
There's clearly value in being in the same place and time as your colleagues. The opportunities to collaborate, the human connection, it's all worth something. But how do you manufacture that kind of lightning in a bottle?
As someone who's always been remote, I initially resisted the idea of bringing sellers back into the office. Why can't sellers be trusted to get their work done? It's a results-oriented game. Then I talked to my friend Phill who changed my eye level on the topic.
"I work with a team of young salespeople. They need to be around each other, and they need to be around me. So much nuance and talent development are gained through osmosis. Their success is held back if we're not in the same place at the same time, at least a few days a week."
He made some great points, and I've thought about the topic differently ever since. Still, what's the right balance of time in and out of the office?
The aspect of the argument that I think most people are missing is that if the office is perceived as a place that is valuable to return to, people will want to come back. When it's worth it to work from the office, they'll be there. If their best work is enabled from home, a coffee shop, or a beach in Tahiti, they should be able to do it there.
Here are three themes that most people are missing in this debate:
If more leaders thought of their teams as their customers, they'd see the value in an offer like this.
If more organizations enabled their managers to work with people instead of procedures, this wouldn't be an issue.
If more leaders were willing to hold their teams accountable to outcomes instead of timesheets, a lot more work would get done (and in a lot less time).
It's easy to get swept away in the corporate tyranny of making people commute to the mundanity of the office park, but I don't think that's the real discussion here. The best companies are being very pragmatic about what "the new way to work" looks like and how it's going to impact their balance sheets going forward rather than trying to do everything the way it was done pre-COVID.
The ones stuck in their old ways are just getting in their own way.
I don't think forcing people to come back is the answer. It feels disrespectful, and people immediately jump to the worst conclusion. Haven't we learned over the past couple of years that people don't like being told what they have to do? But invite them to collaborate in a conducive space and watch what happens!
