I’ve blogged my feelings on the inanity of RTO mandates, forwarded innumerable links purporting that people are as/more product remote and definitely happier, shared my feelings with anyone willing to listen. My friends whom have been forced back into the office are forced to grin-and-bear-it as the job market is much too tight to take the risk of pushing back.
Today the New York Times published an opinion piece The Secret Reason Bosses Want Everyone Back in the Office, Every Day of the Week in which the author declares:
Case by case, there may be good reasons for teams to work together in person. As a general rule, though, it turns out that ordering people back to the office full time is a power and status move. It’s a signature strategy of leaders who exhibit narcissistic qualities. They see any kind of remote work as a threat to their authority and admiration. They want to be worshiped at the office altar.
The author is not a prototypical, whiney technical employee (e.g., me). Rather, Dr. Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, someone with some street cred, basically confirming what many of us have felt/claimed/known for a while.
Dr Grant doesn’t completely disavow in-office collaborations but defines boundaries: welcoming newcomers and mentoring juniors, yes; in-office for the sake of in-office, no. Intensity beats frequency. More in-office collaboration when work bounces between people and less when work is more individual in nature. Sensible stuff like that.
Recent history clearly confirms that organizational leaders don’t listen when the message goes against their preferred narrative, especially on return to office, and that is unlikely to change without another triggering event (i.e., COVID-19). The job market for technologists is so dire that most are unwilling to take the risk to challenge. Michael Dell claimed that RTO mandates were the wrong approach and then flipped 360° by forcing employees into the office full-time. Was this Michael’s decision? The board of directors uncomfortable with a remote workforce? Michael’s senior leadership council who threatened to mutiny? Dell is as profitable as ever, so definitely not a drop in productivity, delivery, collaboration, etc. I’d love to hear the true story!
By choice, I’m currently unemployed but casually looking. Remote is ideal, hybrid perhaps if the opportunity was exciting enough, but definitely not going to accept full-time in-office. Articles like this provide hope that, in time, the tide will turn yet again and organizations actually do what’s best for their employees; unfortunately, many of us remain tethered to despots who are more concerned with what’s best the themselves. Bummer.
