It Is Time to End the War on Remote Work

Corporate leaders and their employees are in a fight for the soul of the workplace. For many of us, the outcome will define our work life for decades.

Since the pandemic began, many employees have relied on remote work to perform their jobs. But employers have applied steady and increasing pressure to do more work in the office, fueled by a belief that employees work more effectively when they’re physically present. There is little objective data to support their position, but it remains strongly held by many. As a result, companies continue to bludgeon their workers with return-to-office (RTO) mandates. And those affected by them continue to fight back.

The benefits of in-person interaction are meaningful, such as spontaneous opportunities to learn and collaborate. Rather, the real dispute is about who decides how and to what extent that kind of work will happen. Some leaders believe that more control over where people work will create better results, but the data tell a different story. It is clear that mandates should end.

Attendance requirements fail and aggravate. Despite sustained efforts to get people in more often, office attendance has been flat. Employees with rigid work schedules are substantially more likely to leave a job compared to those with flexibility, according to a Future Forum study released earlier this year. And these sentiments are not confined to the lower ranks. Most executives insist on some autonomy over where they work.

Many in leadership do not realize that when they enact a mandate they often trigger an innate response to oppose it. This reaction is a well-studied behavior referred to as psychological reactance. It is our resistance to something that threatens our behavioral freedoms, and it is observable in even the most trivial situations. Studies have found that it is so deep-seated that it taps into both our cognitive and emotional response systems.

A mandate to attend an office is usually perceived as a threat to personal freedom. In a lot of us, it provokes reactance, which may cause refusal to comply, a search for a new job or complying but being intentionally less productive (otherwise known as quiet quitting).

Furthermore, we can even experience reactance when we simply observe another’s freedoms being restricted. For instance, if your colleague is forced to come in three days a week under threat of performance demerits, you may have a negative emotional reaction, even if the requirement does not apply to you.

Additionally, by almost every measure, employee experience is harmed by required attendance and improved by flexibility. It is no wonder that so many RTO mandates fail.

Despite numerous botched attempts, new attendance requirements continue. Countless RTO initiatives have been rolled out – and later scuttled after those affected refused to cooperate. In some cases, mutinies have played out publicly on social media. Yet companies continue to demand more in-office work. A few factors are likely at play:

The reason most often cited is that some employers have blind faith that physical proximity increases output. They insist that our best work is done in person. The hard truth is that we do not know to what extent being in person improves our productivity. Their claim cannot be proven nor can it be denied.

Many in the C-suite are frustrated that their office space is underused. Most companies have put years and significant thought and capital into how their offices are designed, where they are located and how to improve their employees’ experience at work. It frustrates them to see those real estate assets sit idle.

But there may also be a more personal reason for the relentless RTO push. Most leaders achieved their position while working in an office and therefore want to maintain the playing field on which they succeeded. I will not claim this is a calculated move. I will simply say that people are often biased in favor of themselves. The fallout has been that employers continue to ratchet up their enforcement. Many have used peer pressure and implied punishment to encourage more office time. Some have even tied performance reviews and compensation to attendance. The unintended consequence is that many people go in to perform “productivity theater.” Or even play games with badge swiping to pretend they are in. In those cases, nobody wins.

Employers must only mandate choice. I have some advice for any company debating its workforce strategy: Don’t fight trends. They are more powerful than you are. Trends should be leveraged, maneuvered or followed, but not resisted. The right to choose where we work is the trend that has emerged from the pandemic. Despite what some believe, it absolutely does not mean fully remote. People thrive on in-person interactions. They know that part of their job is often done better in a shared space, and they enjoy socializing in an office. But they still want a choice.

Flexible work has proven that it works, and employees know it. Their resistance to in-office mandates has created the new normal for the workplace. The C-suite should welcome that change. In the last year, companies that allow more flexible work have grown faster.

Any workforce solution must be customized, but above all, people and their teams need autonomy. If they need to be in the office, they will choose it. But they must have the power to determine when and how they collaborate. Their productivity and outcomes will prove them right. Leaders should call a truce to this fight, rather than be proven wrong.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/d35pruE