Return to Office? Not So Fast

Many large companies such as Starbucks and Amazon have announced that between now and 2025 they will be requiring employees to return to the office 40 hours a week, as if the pandemic never happened. But it did happen. And the consequences are all around us, whether we realize them or not. We ignore them at our own peril. 

In his book “Apollo’s Arrow,” Nicholas Christakis, a Yale University professor who has studied pandemics and their aftermaths going back 400 years, has found there is structural change to the workforce for the 10-20 years after every pandemic. Structural change means that there is an important shift in the way the components of the workforce (employees) come together.  

A Transformed Workforce

Indeed, the U.S. workforce has undergone some big shifts. In the U.S., Covid-19 has killed 1.2 million people. And then there was the Great Resignation: In 2021, alone almost 48 million people in the U.S. quit their jobs. Still others chose to reprioritize their world — and work’s place in their world —differently.

Many people have forgotten that “full employment” is considered 5% national unemployment.  The U.S has been below 5% national unemployment since August 2021. That is 39 months as of this writing. For 22 of those 39 months, the U.S. was under 4% unemployment. 

If your organization is among the many companies still seeking to hire talent, the aforementioned numbers, in part, should explain why.

Flexibility Is the Future

In this reshaped work environment, what is the key to attracting and retaining talent? Flexibility. Humans want agency: the ability to make decisions that affect their lives. And agency is created by flexibility.

So you have a decision to make about how your organization will respond. Here are your options:

Option A

Require employees to report to the office as they did pre-pandemic. This is the approach many companies are taking. But I have yet to hear a valid reason to impose this universal return-to- work policy. When a company takes away a perceived benefit (like flexibility) without clear rhyme or reason, that company will lose people. 

In the coming months, as companies impose return-to work-policies, they will see an exodus of their strongest employees — the ones most likely to have outside options at companies that still offer flexibility. Those who remain will be the mediocre-low performers without outside options. 

Option B

Treat flexibility not as a right, but as a privilege that comes with high performance. Build a culture focused on team-based metrics, with organizational goals that require in-person collaboration. Your employees will return to the office voluntarily in order to be successful. Flexibility is given based on those team-based metrics.

Yes, you will lose people under this option, too. But the ones who leave first will be your low performers. That is a gift to any organization! By offering flexibility, you may also have the opportunity to hire employees you previously could not.

In short, in choosing Option B, your high performers stay because they are being recognized and rewarded with flexibility, and your low performers leave because they are being held accountable and can’t or won’t reach that level of performance.

Companies forcing employees back to the office say it’s in their best interest. It is not. We’re already seeing the evidence that companies with flexible cultures are the ones that win. 

Obviously, hybrid work is not possible in every job. But other forms of flexibility — like condensing the work week or making it easier to swap shifts with co-workers — are. Your employees crave flexibility, whatever form it takes.

The choice of how you will manage your future workforce is yours. Do you want to improve employee performance and retention through a culture with flexibility? This is the work we do. Let us know how we can help.

I’d love to hear your questions and comments. If you would like to discuss this topic further, just drop me a note.