It makes for good click bait, but much of the remote working thinking is flawed

Resolving the post-Covid metaphoric arm wrestle between leaders and employees over where, when, and how work gets done and how people want to live their lives presents a once in a generation opportunity for organisations. Yes, you read that right, at Multiple we see it as a genuine opportunity. An opportunity for three things: 

• to innovate and position your talent strategy as a true source of competitive advantage,  

• to evolve your culture to the sweet spot where it enables your business strategy and reflects wider socio-cultural changes; and, 

• to have positive human impact by enabling your people to live the kinds of lives that give them purpose.  

We’ll unpack those three sources of opportunity in a separate journal article but first, we’ll highlight and challenge some of the flawed thinking bubbling around on this critical issue of remote work and the hybrid workplace.  

What we have argued is flawed thinking, made for great clickbait over the past twelve months, but has ultimately distracted organisations from moving forward to evolve their culture and employee experience.  

Flawed thinking exhibit A: A business slowdown will nudge or shove people back to the office. 

Thankfully that business slow down touted for 2023, didn’t quite eventuate. But the fact business commentators and consultants claimed executives and hiring managers were relying on the fear of a looming business downturn to regain their leverage on the issue of remote working was alarming. It was and is a surface level “macabre” fix to a much deeper issue. Implicit in the message is that a downturn could lead to layoffs. The logic follows that for employees to reduce their chance of being on the layoff hit list, they need to get back into the office and get visible.  

Early anecdotal research is suggesting those working from home are vulnerable when layoff decisions are being made. However, if physical attendance in the office is your organisation’s solution to solving this post Covid workplace arm wrestle, an economic downturn might work in the short term, but you won’t necessarily attract or retain the most talented and diverse employees. And those that do agree to meet your mandate of required days in the office, won’t necessarily be feeling a great deal of trust towards the organisation. Nor will they experience the levels of satisfaction and engagement that lead to the heightened individual and team performance that drives innovation.  

Flawed thinking exhibit B: The hyper-focus on the number of days in the office v’s working remotely at the expense of evolving the culture to enable the hybrid workplace.

Second, the arguments over reasonableness or unreasonableness of how many days employees should be mandated to return to the office are a distraction. The two days, versus three, versus four days back in the office mandate makes for great headlines and LinkedIn banter, no question. But regardless of the number of days mandated to be physically in the office, this will have little impact on employee productivity, engagement, satisfaction, and performance unless organisations also realign on what, where and how work gets done. Importantly, that realignment must extend to how performance evaluation and promotion decisions are made.  

As this episode of The Daily podcast highlights, a “hybrid worker malaise”, where both the employee and employer fails to leverage the benefits of a hybrid workplace, will set in if the enabling culture isn’t in place. No quick fix of a stand-alone “work from home” HR policy will be enough to reshape your organisations culture, it’s just one small piece of the puzzle, more systemic cultural evolution is required.  

Flawed thinking exhibit C: The “research” used to justify return to work mandates is often misrepresented.

Research demonstrating the positive business outcomes of working “in the office” is often mis-represented to justify, implicitly or explicitly, a return to the office. Senior leaders will often cite research as part of their justification for going back on earlier promises about workplace flexibility. However, they consistently fail to call out if the research “bakes in” the opportunity for new ways of working to evolve to enable positive outcomes from a hybrid workplace. Let’s explore just two examples. The CEO of Salesforce Marc Benioff cites empirical research about the positive performance of new hires in the office as part of his justification to tighten up on the return to the office requirements for his workforce. Empirically demonstrating that new hires have a better start when they are physically in the office is an absolute no brainer if the ways of working that support their onboarding were designed for new hires to be in the office. What wasn’t clear in this often-cited example is if the research included a controlled trial with different ways of working designed to enable effective remote working were included to compare and contrast the effectiveness of new hire onboarding. 

Similarly, a 2023 article in the Financial Times highlights a report referencing over a century’s worth of academic literature demonstrating the economic benefits of face-to-face collaboration. According to the report it suggests “there will be a long-term productivity hit” from reduced office activity. However again, given its based on past analysis of collaboration time and the various ways of working that facilitate that collaboration, extrapolating that into future predictions into productivity is highly problematic as it’s based on an assumption that ways of working won’t evolve to better facilitate hybrid working arrangements. Perhaps I’m more worked up on this point as a researcher, but this should matter to all of us. Pushing back on evolving and reworking an organisation’s ways of working relying on misleading research conclusions, is a lost opportunity for all of us, business leaders and employees alike.  

Our analysis of the flawed thinking on the hybrid workplace might appear harsh. In fairness, I’m not sure the reported narrative attributed to executives and their views on hybrid working is always accurately contextualised. We understand provocative statements from high profile CEO’S makes for excellent click bait. Our experience tells us many executives and their teams are doing their best to navigate their way through this arm wrestle. It can be frustrating when there are so many other urgent and strategic challenges to address.  

We do though see a different future. What if instead we could do the work to really understand the needs and concerns of employees and business leaders, co-create solutions and use the opportunity to reimagine a new "reality of work"? One that stands the test of economic headwinds, tailwinds and even a global pandemic.