January 20th, 2024: Greetings from Austin and welcome to the hundreds of new followers via my free digital book giveaway. You can read more about why I did that below. If you’re new here, I write on a wide range of topics including unconventional paths, our relationship to work, and organizations and remote work. Today is a reflection on the “return to office” campaigns that companies don’t seem willing to give up on
Great article. Your “mediocre slides” made me chuckle.
I work in the rail industry in the UK. A large part of our revenue comes from people going into the office. So we had an additional (and maybe more ridiculous) reason given to us....we should be setting an example to the wider working population!
Thanks for sharing the definition of "coffee badging". It is an interesting concept. I 100% agree with how having a clear company mission is more important than strict office rules. None of the WebMD execs looked like they believed what they were saying.
I was always astounded that at my prior employer (Google) RTO wasn’t taken as an opportunity to genuinely reflect on how to use remote vs in-office time intelligently. One obvious (to me) arrangement would be 1 day a month or quarter to have big all-hand meetings, ideation/planning, team building and fun time (ie, things that are much better in person)...then treating people like adults the rest of the time and letting them sort out where and when and how they do their best work. I think there are companies out there doing this but it I think it’s rare.
I appreciate this analysis - I can attest to my experience with RTO. I felt like I was constantly micromanaged and gradually losing my freedom as I signed my work contract as a remote employee.
I think people will be drawn to work at companies that have policies and cultures that best align with their own goals.
The same way some people are averse to jobs that expect them to always be online/on-the-clock. Or how people evaluate “do I want to be a part of a small growing team, or a slow moving monolith”. Just some examples of unique work cultures.
What’s attention grabbing with RTO is that every company is processing it at around the same time, and most seem to be fumbling the change messaging/mgmt.
Long term “hybrid” will become remote first with consistent and coordinated in-person collaboration, in my view.
And, full disclosure, I’ve worked in Workplace Tech the last 10+ years.
The gent who put a badge swipe in the middle of his run is an inspiration. If I were a CEO right now I'd be tempted to put aggressive RTO policies into place and then promote those who found a creative way to work around them.
Second, reading this made me reflect on remote work. I split time between wfh and going in, and I have a lot of friends in both types of roles. On the one hand, I am an extrovert dialed up to 11. I have come to yearn for an energetic workplace. The main reason I work from home is because my office at work--although big--is a windowless interior corner office and I would hardly see or interact with anyone if I went in. At least when I work from home I have a better computer, a little more free time, and I can get some chores done, work out, play with my dogs, and save an hour of driving. However, I like working with other high-energy people--I just like being around people, so if I were in a slightly more communal space, I would go in a lot more often than I do now.
THAT BEING SAID, I think it is CRAZY that there's an enormous managerial class of people who have not figured out a way to manage and monitor their subordinates' productivity without being able to physically monitor and interrupt those subordinates whenever they want. I'm sure there are people who find this an unfair characterization. But the thing is, if there was any good reason to bring people back to office, you think they would surface it and bang that drum as hard as they could? But instead they just kind of lean on vague platitudes and junior executives reading cue cards. It just seems like managerial ineptitude. It smacks of those scenes in royal court dramas where the megalomaniacal king or emperor is losing his grip and he starts to accuse everyone of conspiring and undermining him.
Like, I enjoy being around people and am trying to get back around people and get back to office as often as possible, and even when I see things like the WebMD video it galvanizes me to want to fight for the right to work from home, because it seems so clearly motivated by poor managers. I think you nail it when you basically say it's people not adapting and following old scripts.
In the late 90s people could choose whether to build a nicer bookshop or start selling on Amazon.
Everybody had that choice.
Find or build technology solutions that enable a more effective remote-first work environment (because there are still problems, of course), and you'll win.
However, unfortunately, no enterprises really tackled this problem yet...
Super great point. I don’t work for a company and am doing my own freelancing thing (as you know). I don’t have HR and policy to dictate what I do, when. Thank G-d for that.
What I find most interesting is the free book giveaway. One of my goals this year is to write a book and I want to follow your path (pause for irony #pathlesspaulpath) and I love this idea of just giving it away for free.
Would you have done this at the beginning? Didn’t you want to make some money with the book? And how did you get over the hump of feeling it was an X stunt to just gain followers? Many times I see, hit “REPLY” for my secret document/email/content that Twitter peeps post and it feels like a trap for new followers. Is that just the game?
There’s a lot of thoughts here so I give you permission to respond with what resonates.
I was basically remote my last 2 years at Google (no local teammates on my direct team) and thus benefited from the freedom and flexibility you’ve described above.
I’d go in around 10-11 about 4 days per week, after doing my focused work at home.
I enjoyed the benefits of the office: nice people, good food, fancy gym, and I chose to work there a lot.
But this was internally motivated and up to me, which I think was Old Google where most people had a sense of mission and purpose and enjoyed their work.
P.S. since leaving to start my business in 2020, I’ve been remote. But Claire and I just rented a private office at a coworking space in Lisbon as we want more day-to-day social interaction and just doing cafes etc wasn’t cutting it for us. We’ll see how this experiment goes!
Great article. Your “mediocre slides” made me chuckle.
I work in the rail industry in the UK. A large part of our revenue comes from people going into the office. So we had an additional (and maybe more ridiculous) reason given to us....we should be setting an example to the wider working population!
Thanks for sharing the definition of "coffee badging". It is an interesting concept. I 100% agree with how having a clear company mission is more important than strict office rules. None of the WebMD execs looked like they believed what they were saying.
I was always astounded that at my prior employer (Google) RTO wasn’t taken as an opportunity to genuinely reflect on how to use remote vs in-office time intelligently. One obvious (to me) arrangement would be 1 day a month or quarter to have big all-hand meetings, ideation/planning, team building and fun time (ie, things that are much better in person)...then treating people like adults the rest of the time and letting them sort out where and when and how they do their best work. I think there are companies out there doing this but it I think it’s rare.
I appreciate this analysis - I can attest to my experience with RTO. I felt like I was constantly micromanaged and gradually losing my freedom as I signed my work contract as a remote employee.
I think people will be drawn to work at companies that have policies and cultures that best align with their own goals.
The same way some people are averse to jobs that expect them to always be online/on-the-clock. Or how people evaluate “do I want to be a part of a small growing team, or a slow moving monolith”. Just some examples of unique work cultures.
What’s attention grabbing with RTO is that every company is processing it at around the same time, and most seem to be fumbling the change messaging/mgmt.
Long term “hybrid” will become remote first with consistent and coordinated in-person collaboration, in my view.
And, full disclosure, I’ve worked in Workplace Tech the last 10+ years.
The gent who put a badge swipe in the middle of his run is an inspiration. If I were a CEO right now I'd be tempted to put aggressive RTO policies into place and then promote those who found a creative way to work around them.
First, huge thanks for the shout out and here's the essay for anyone else who wants to "Do the weirdest thing that feels right." https://charliebecker.substack.com/p/do-the-weirdest-thing-that-feels
Second, reading this made me reflect on remote work. I split time between wfh and going in, and I have a lot of friends in both types of roles. On the one hand, I am an extrovert dialed up to 11. I have come to yearn for an energetic workplace. The main reason I work from home is because my office at work--although big--is a windowless interior corner office and I would hardly see or interact with anyone if I went in. At least when I work from home I have a better computer, a little more free time, and I can get some chores done, work out, play with my dogs, and save an hour of driving. However, I like working with other high-energy people--I just like being around people, so if I were in a slightly more communal space, I would go in a lot more often than I do now.
THAT BEING SAID, I think it is CRAZY that there's an enormous managerial class of people who have not figured out a way to manage and monitor their subordinates' productivity without being able to physically monitor and interrupt those subordinates whenever they want. I'm sure there are people who find this an unfair characterization. But the thing is, if there was any good reason to bring people back to office, you think they would surface it and bang that drum as hard as they could? But instead they just kind of lean on vague platitudes and junior executives reading cue cards. It just seems like managerial ineptitude. It smacks of those scenes in royal court dramas where the megalomaniacal king or emperor is losing his grip and he starts to accuse everyone of conspiring and undermining him.
Like, I enjoy being around people and am trying to get back around people and get back to office as often as possible, and even when I see things like the WebMD video it galvanizes me to want to fight for the right to work from home, because it seems so clearly motivated by poor managers. I think you nail it when you basically say it's people not adapting and following old scripts.
Great article. So much good stuff, Paul.
In the late 90s people could choose whether to build a nicer bookshop or start selling on Amazon.
Everybody had that choice.
Find or build technology solutions that enable a more effective remote-first work environment (because there are still problems, of course), and you'll win.
However, unfortunately, no enterprises really tackled this problem yet...
“Refer 10 people to get my book for free” is less enticing now
Instant share to LinkedIn 😅
Super great point. I don’t work for a company and am doing my own freelancing thing (as you know). I don’t have HR and policy to dictate what I do, when. Thank G-d for that.
What I find most interesting is the free book giveaway. One of my goals this year is to write a book and I want to follow your path (pause for irony #pathlesspaulpath) and I love this idea of just giving it away for free.
Would you have done this at the beginning? Didn’t you want to make some money with the book? And how did you get over the hump of feeling it was an X stunt to just gain followers? Many times I see, hit “REPLY” for my secret document/email/content that Twitter peeps post and it feels like a trap for new followers. Is that just the game?
There’s a lot of thoughts here so I give you permission to respond with what resonates.
Nice piece!
I was basically remote my last 2 years at Google (no local teammates on my direct team) and thus benefited from the freedom and flexibility you’ve described above.
I’d go in around 10-11 about 4 days per week, after doing my focused work at home.
I enjoyed the benefits of the office: nice people, good food, fancy gym, and I chose to work there a lot.
But this was internally motivated and up to me, which I think was Old Google where most people had a sense of mission and purpose and enjoyed their work.
P.S. since leaving to start my business in 2020, I’ve been remote. But Claire and I just rented a private office at a coworking space in Lisbon as we want more day-to-day social interaction and just doing cafes etc wasn’t cutting it for us. We’ll see how this experiment goes!