In 2020, the global pandemic forced most companies – including ours – to become remote-first virtually overnight. Today, according to a survey from ResumeBuilder, 90% of companies, led by some of the largest names in business, will require employees to regularly spend time in the office by the end of this year. In fact, more than a quarter have made in-office attendance a requirement for employees to keep their jobs. We aren’t one of them.
Return to office (RTO) advocates often cite the importance of face-to-face interaction for culture, collaboration, productivity and, ultimately, innovation and profit. But a recent University of Pittsburgh study of S&P 500 firms found that RTO mandates are often driven more by the need for managers to exert control than building culture, and ultimately have little impact on firm performance. Meanwhile, a Gartner survey found that many employees are unhappy about rigid RTO mandates– especially high performers, who are 16% more likely to leave. How does driving away your best employees benefit either company culture or the bottom line?
Unlike some of my fellow CEOs, however, I think the benefits of remote and hybrid work make us a stronger company. We give employees the flexibility to work from home or the office, except when they’re needed for in-person meetings (or for certain jobs or in countries where work can’t be done remotely). Our belief is that if we trust our employees with the flexibility to choose, they’ll reward us with their best work. And they have.
Here’s what our real-world experience embracing hybrid work has shown me and why other companies should consider it.
A Key to Culture is Connection and Belonging
For a global company, the idea that regional RTO will positively impact culture reflects a narrow perspective. I’ve never felt more connected to our global employee base since we fully embraced the hybrid model – a sentiment that’s echoed throughout our organisation. From my vantage point, being a hybrid organisation is an advantage, not an obstacle, to building a culture that enables us to grow, innovate, and meet the needs of our customers.
Because we’re more connected than ever, there has been a significant impact on one of the core values that defines our culture—the idea of belonging. We define this as recognising the diverse experiences and cultures of every individual, empowering all employees to bring their authentic selves to work.
The reality is that people are more than their work. They have families, interests, and challenges – physical and otherwise. Whether it’s a parent with a sick child or a person with a health issue, the flexibility of the hybrid model allows our employees to be present in both their lives and at work, and ultimately, we hope, to reach their potential. And those small moments when we get to glimpse the personal lives of our fellow employees during virtual meetings help us to create connections and build stronger relationships with each other.
Collaboration is more than “serendipity”
Among many business leaders, there is an assumed linear relationship between innovation, collaboration and in-person interaction. Some companies and leaders pushing RTO talk about the “serendipity” of face-to-face interaction that can only be achieved when employees are together physically.
Of course, serendipity can be valuable, but it’s not enough. The fact is that regardless of whether a company is fully in-person, virtual or a hybrid, collaboration is hard. It requires shared purpose and intentionality. Research from Gartner shows that teams that collaborate intentionally are three times as likely to see a high degree of innovation.
A global company should have a global perspective on collaboration. In our case, the hybrid model has had a real impact on how our remote and local teams interact. Prior to the pandemic, remote teams were often the only people to join meetings virtually. It was harder for them to participate and contribute. But by normalising virtual meetings, we’ve become better at being inclusive, enabling everyone’s opinions and perspectives to be heard. In other words, we’re collaborating better.
Impact on Productivity
There is little universal agreement about how to define productivity. My own formula is output of a certain quality that the organisation accepts, divided by a reasonable time (which implies cost) over which that output is delivered. We can measure whether two team members doing the same job for the same amount of time are delivering value (say, lines of code or sales quota achieved) at an acceptable level.
The true management challenge, however, is distinguishing between actual performance and productivity. In a hybrid model, you need a strong culture of accountability. Self-motivated high performers are more likely to use the benefits of hybrid work (like the time saved no longer having to commute), to deliver even better results. Low performers may struggle with motivation and distraction in a hybrid model and need more creative engagement from their managers.
I’m firmly convinced that hybrid work is the right model for us and should be more broadly considered by other companies as well. The motivations for RTO, while often couched as beneficial to the goals of the enterprise, are too often the product of assumptions rather than data, as that University of Pittsburgh study cite above found. Trust your employees, empower them with choice, and they will deliver for you.
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