CEOs Are Using Return-to-Office To Fight an ‘Erosion’ of Culture—But It’s a ‘Recipe for Resentment’ if Done Wrong, Warns Workplace Strategist
Fortune via MSN | June 16, 2023 | Steve MollmanCEOs are increasingly issuing return-to-office mandates. They may well have legitimate reasons to require workers to return to their desks—and see it backfire anyway.
After prolonged remote work, “people are realizing that there’s been this slow erosion of the culture of their organization,” author and workplace strategist Erica Keswin said on Bloomberg’s The Tape podcast on Friday. “A CEO said to me this week, ‘The party’s over. We are bringing our people back.’”
Venture capitalist Paul Graham recently tweeted that founders he’s spoken with have changed their minds about remote work and are trying to get staff back to the office. “Why were all these smart people fooled?” he wrote. “Partly I think because remote work does work initially, if you start with a system already healthy from in-person work.”
But Keswin warned against bringing employees back in an ineffective or possibly damaging way.
“I talk a lot about designing a day in the office that’s worth the commute,” she said. “What we don’t want is people coming in and no one from their team is there, and they’re on Zoom all day and they’re not seeing anybody. That creates what I call the recipe for resentment. They are mad.”
…
That might also make it more likely that employees simply ignore a return-to-office mandate. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz betrayed an annoyance earlier this year that workers had disregarded a request to come back to the office one or two days a week.
And some employees will simply not want to return to the office, period. Amazon recently saw an employee walkout over its return-to-office mandate, and workers at Google let their displeasure be known last week, as well.
Motivated interns and Hawaiian-themed work days. It’s the only solution.
I consider this post to be a big W.
DEI until you DIE…
“We can’t tell if our employees are messing with their color tint on our Zoom “woke” sessions, so we’re not sure who to castigate…”
And who to promote.
Oh, there’s nothing in the budget for that…
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
I won’t be worried until it’s 7 mads.
In this case the “big W” stands for get back to Work!
Personally, I think staying home and using your own bathroom is one of the key decision makers. Not having to chose which washroom won’t get me fired, attacked by a Fembot or sentenced to Diversity and Inclusion training..lots of stress gone right there..
They will need to greatly relax the office dress code (up/down to clothing optional) and provide an additional monitor with headphones to all so the folks returning can binge watch whatever they want while ‘working’ in the office.
I don’t know how you can convince people to actually work for their salary when government is offering to pay for those who went to college (and made the commitment to pay for the education) yet asks not if the person met any type of GPA/attendance requirements…just a free-ride baby and don’t forget to vote D early and often.
When we were in lock down I got as taste of “Retirement Lite”. Really hated going back and looked forward to getting out as soon as I could.
A dozen donuts is a lot more satisfying when teleworking vs. bringing them into the office.