If your company is new, small, or on the cutting edge, don’t do this.
Before I get too far down the RTO path, let me address the remote-work naysayers. Yes, I know that there are a growing number of companies that have mandated a return-to-office, that they’ve gotten most to all of the workforce they want back in their building, and that they’ve seen their productivity increase, according to their own measurements.
Honestly, I’m pumped for them. I’m a big fan of a good office environment. Personally, I’ve helped establish in-office company cultures that resulted in years-long streaks of zero employee churn.
That doesn’t mean going all in on an RTO mandate is a good move. A lot of investors went all in on WeWork and Theranos. That seemed like a good move too.
I Was Wrong?
Look, this is opinion, not journalism. I can be wrong.
But I don’t think I’m wrong here.
When I originally addressed this topic, I declared RTO mandates to be dead, not because I was a staunch defender of remote work, and not because I believed that every single last company on the planet would immediately switch to a remote-first policy.
My point, both back then and today—as I pound the keyboard like an angry monkey on a mission—is that the blockers that needed to be removed for most remote work to be just as productive as in-office work had been removed a long time ago, pre-pandemic. Then the pandemic forced almost every single last company on the planet to figure out remote work immediately. Or fail.
But, as it is, too many people thought I was some sort of self-appointed remote work rebel leader, on a mission to let everyone stay in their pajamas and invent new meals on either side of lunch.
Brunch. And tea. They were already right in front of us.
So, what I’ll do with those people is the same thing I’d do with any argument in my life that potentially leads to confrontation and name calling.
I’m not talking to them anymore.
I will say this on my way out the door, because it’s something I’ll remember to say when I get home and then be all upset that I missed my moment:
“You RTO defenders, you won. For now.”
OK, now I want to talk to the rest of you. Those of you whose companies are newer, smaller, haven’t sunk a chunk of operating income into real estate, and don’t have any facet of the business that requires physical contact.
You need to be building your company 100 percent remote from the ground up. You don’t have to abandon your office or central location if you have one, but you need the option to hire remote labor and keep it productive—especially if you want to unseat these incumbents who are allegedly enjoying 110 percent productivity from whomever can afford to live close by.
Magic Elevator Conversations
While the overwhelming evidence shows that companies are indeed mandating RTO in droves, there is no overwhelming evidence that the productivity gains have punched a new hole in the sky.
All the studies I’ve read are a little of column A, a little of column B, and it’s been this way for five years now. The evidence that does promote in-office work almost always revolves around the “quick conversations” held in elevators, at the water cooler, in the bathroom (weird, don’t do that), on a stroll down the cubicle maze—quick conversations that always lead to magical, massive increases in productivity.
Or maybe the employee is just saying that because they’re a 29-year-old Amazon programmer under an RTO mandate and they know their boss will read it.
I wish the media would take more time and care with stuff like this. Because none of these pro-RTO studies get into the cost of that productivity to the employee, whether that’s in the extra preparation needed to spend 8-10 hours a day in a building full of people they don’t interact with, the time and the cost to travel there, or the requirement to live in increasingly difficult-to-live metro areas.
Or, you know, having kids.
Let alone the fact that when they do get there, they’re spending all their time holding Zoom meetings with AI note-takers, firing off emails and Slack messages, and burying their faces in code editors or cloud-hosted SaaS platforms, all in the hopes that their own personal productivity will tick up.
Here’s the deal. The evidence can’t be conclusive because every company is different and every employee is different. The fact that the tools exist for many remote roles to be just as productive as in-office roles means that the mandates themselves are about something other than productivity.
Naysayer! Are you still here? Fine. Look. It comes down to leadership. What leadership is really saying with an RTO mandate is, “We only want to hire those people who can only be productive in an office environment.”
So, for the rest of you leaders, it’s time to cast a wider, less expensive, more productive net. That’s the scenario that scares the shit out of the naysayers.
Make Remote Work Work
I’m telling you, the smarter option is to be able to foster productivity out of both in-office workers and remote workers, and the far less expensive option is to not have an office in the first place—not to keep doubling down on only hiring talent who live in whichever city the CEO happens to live in.
Ask yourself: “What if we didn’t have to mandate and we just focused on actual productivity tools instead of this five-year wild goose chase of ever-shifting studies?”
If you can come up with a good solution to that challenge, you’re ahead of the game. Because no one has convinced me that RTO mandates are about anything more than sunk real estate costs and a terrible job market. Those two things won’t be true forever, and when they shift, let me tell you, the pendulum is going to swing back the other way.
Companies with RTO mandates will be—like they were just three short years ago—promoting how cool they are with their loose policies on in-office work. And just like they were three short years ago, they’re going to get blindsided by an employee-leaning job market that encourages bad remote behavior that they can’t control because they were, up until the moment, completely focused on in-office work.
Be that far ahead of the game.
I wish I had more of those massively productive quick elevator conversations, but my office only has one floor. Now would be a good time to join my email list in case I figure out the magic.
Source: