(iStockphoto/AndreyPopov)Remote work has always been an essential part of economic activity. Some people work from home, some work from anywhere, and some work where customers need them.
But the COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to both full-time remote work strategies and the part-time—or hybrid—version that gained acceptance (at least for coders) in tech companies like Cisco Systems and Sun Microsystems 30 years ago.
The pandemic surge in work-from-home has morphed in some organizations into hybrid work strategies that allow employees to work from home on a part-time basis, whether or not it is at prescribed times or days of the week. According to Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, who has studied remote work for years, totally remote workers constituted 15 percent of the US workforce as of early 2023, with another 30 percent working a portion of their time remotely.
We are told that hybrid work strategies make jobs that can be performed from the “home” more attractive by eliminating the need for some commuting. They raise productivity modestly, and provide employees more control over their personal and work lives. The latter appears to be especially attractive to the latest generations of entrants to the workforce who have become accustomed to study and work from home, if not from anywhere. Bloom estimates that working from home is equivalent to a 7-8 percent pay increase for them. It allows a larger group of talented people who can’t commute every day to participate in the workforce, a benefit to organizations that have jobs that fit the strategy.
Remote work strategies appear to be so popular with new generations of potential employees that Tsedal Neeley, the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, concluded in her recent book that, “Remote work is increasingly here to stay. The future is in remote work.” Not all business practitioners agree, at least for their organizations.
CEO Jamie Dimon has concluded that a remote work strategy isn’t appropriate for JPMorgan. While acknowledging that there are jobs that can be performed remotely without harming the organization, he tacitly agreed with CNBC pundits recently who jokingly labeled his views as a “back-to-work” strategy, especially for jobs influencing client relations in any way.
In another presentation, Dimon said, “… look at who’s getting ahead, who’s getting the plum assignments? It’s the person going to the office every day.”
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently remarked in an internal communication that, “Salesforce’s young, remote employees are hurting the company’s productivity.” (Presumably they were the first to go in Salesforce’s recent massive layoff.) He has commented elsewhere that one reason may be the organization’s failure to select, orient, organize, and measure new remote employees in ways that enable them to work as productively and creatively as longer-term, less remote employees.
How do we explain differences in the views of these academics and practitioners? Does it have something to do with the notion that remote work has the potential to compromise the so-called “soft side” of the organization, its culture or, if you wish, its soul?
Is there some kind of hard-to-describe glue that working together in-person over time with daily visual reminders of belonging, a common purpose, and shared values and ways of working together seem to create? Is it glue that simply cannot be replicated in hybrid work strategies? If so, does this have long-term significance for the organization’s performance? Are the practitioners seeing something that the academics don’t?
Of course, the “soft side” of the organization isn’t so soft. Its culture is one of the important drivers of employee engagement and loyalty that in turn influences the customer engagement and loyalty that are primary determinants of long-term sales and profit.
Hybrid work strategies appear to be useful short-term solutions to both a massive global pandemic and, at least in the US, a talent shortage. Even so, how do you explain the contrast in attitude toward them among at least some practitioners and academics?
Are the practitioners reacting to a phenomenon that has emptied their offices and destroyed much of the daily face-to-face give and take coupled with pride in the organization that they enjoyed over the years?
Will hybrid work strategies destroy much of this? Will they pull down long-term performance? What do you think?
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
References:
- Kevin J. Delaney, “What We Know Now About the Business Impact of Hybrid Work,” Time, September 6, 2022.
- Shana Lebowitz, “Marc Benioff may be right that Salesforce’s young, remote employees are hurting the company’s productivity. But it’s not their fault,” Insider, January 10, 2023.
- Tsedal Neeley, Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere (Harper Business, 2021).