Is Remote Dead? - The Work Wire

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[00:00:31] Everybody, welcome to another episode of The Work Wire.

[00:00:34] I'm Bob Goodwin, the president of Career Club joined by my co-host, the president and CEO

[00:00:39] of SHRM, Johnny C. Taylor Jr.

[00:00:41] Johnny, how are you?

[00:00:42] I am doing well, Bob.

[00:00:43] How about yourself?

[00:00:44] I am doing fine.

[00:00:45] Happy New Year to you.

[00:00:47] Happy New Year.

[00:00:48] I can't tell you how fast it looks like.

[00:00:49] I can't believe we're pushing on half the month already.

[00:00:51] It's like insane.

[00:00:53] Time to slow down, slow down.

[00:00:54] It is time to slow down, but you know, the world doesn't slow down.

[00:00:58] That's the beauty of The Work Wire.

[00:00:59] There is an endless funnel of topics to talk about.

[00:01:02] Some of them that we, you know, maybe have touched on before, but things continue to

[00:01:07] evolve.

[00:01:08] And one of those is something that I am sure that your constituents at SHRM are

[00:01:12] talking about constantly and you're providing points of view, which is full time return

[00:01:19] to office, full time remote and hybrid.

[00:01:24] Can I tell you before you say this?

[00:01:26] I'm so over this conversation.

[00:01:27] Everyone I know is, but it continues to be highly relevant because it's moving.

[00:01:32] So let's hear what you think.

[00:01:34] Let me share one thing for you.

[00:01:36] And it's basically is remote dead.

[00:01:38] Makes me want to like press the clicker at the TV is remote dead.

[00:01:42] So this is a survey, Johnny, from ENY that just came out that you shared with

[00:01:46] me and it says that only 1% of executives in a new EY survey say their employees are

[00:01:52] fully remote.

[00:01:53] A stark contrast to T-Mobile is that they are not fully remote.

[00:01:56] A stark contrast to 2022 when 34% of respondents said they had a remote workplace model.

[00:02:04] It looks like hybrid work is the winner with 80% of business leaders confident in the

[00:02:08] strategy.

[00:02:09] And then the one of the EY executives is saying he thinks today's of let's see

[00:02:13] what people want are quickly running out and we shall see.

[00:02:18] But yeah, I'm just real quick.

[00:02:22] I'm not sure I totally believe the 34% number.

[00:02:26] Yeah, it was fully remote in 2022.

[00:02:29] Really? I don't know.

[00:02:31] It was a bigger number than it is now.

[00:02:33] That's a fact.

[00:02:34] But 1% for people to be clocking in at just 1% is pretty amazing too.

[00:02:40] So it seems like, you know, fully remote is dead.

[00:02:44] And it's also kind of indicating that these mandates get your butt back in the

[00:02:49] office.

[00:02:50] That doesn't seem to be holding very well either.

[00:02:52] What are you saying?

[00:02:54] Well, and so like most things, Bob, the answer is in the middle.

[00:02:57] Right. And and frankly, that's a good thing.

[00:03:00] I think that we may have overcorrected one way in the beginning, everyone.

[00:03:06] And I'm going to be very careful about you've heard me talk about the use.

[00:03:08] Everyone did not work remotely at any point.

[00:03:11] We always knew that a majority of the American workforce were actually going to a

[00:03:15] workforce, going to a workplace at the height of the pandemic.

[00:03:19] And I remembered going over to get prescriptions for my daughter.

[00:03:23] Someone was in a workplace. They weren't doing that remotely.

[00:03:26] Right. And the male person was delivering mail and da da da.

[00:03:30] So a lot of the world continued health care workers, law enforcement

[00:03:35] officials like a lot of folks worked in a physical workplace.

[00:03:38] So let's start with that.

[00:03:40] The number was never as large as people said, but it was a significant

[00:03:44] number. It was single digit remote work before the pandemic.

[00:03:48] And that number swelled in the 40s, 40 percent or so higher.

[00:03:54] As some argue, as high as 50 percent were working of the U.S.

[00:03:58] workforce working remotely. OK, so we swung and that was OK in the beginning.

[00:04:04] I mean, we needed that. There was so much uncertainty about safety

[00:04:08] in the workplace. Could we keep people safe except in these most essential of

[00:04:13] roles that it made sense.

[00:04:16] Then we started with all of the headlines.

[00:04:18] People are more productive. They're happier.

[00:04:20] They're saving money on gas. Their car insurance has dropped.

[00:04:22] They don't have to pay for food.

[00:04:24] And all of a sudden, the correction was it's the new way of work.

[00:04:28] Going into the office is dead. You read all of the headlines, right?

[00:04:32] The office space building is done.

[00:04:34] Downtown urban areas are done.

[00:04:36] Da da da da da da.

[00:04:37] And I knew that wasn't right at the moment.

[00:04:41] It was right at that moment, but it wasn't reflective of the future

[00:04:45] because what we knew and all of our data at Shurm was telling us is that

[00:04:49] people are staying home now because they want to be safe.

[00:04:52] The second you reassure them that you can come back to the workplace

[00:04:56] and be relatively safe, not guaranteed, but relatively safe.

[00:05:00] They want to get back because human beings like to be around other

[00:05:03] human beings. Funny how this works.

[00:05:06] And businesses innovate and grow.

[00:05:11] And for good or for bad, this is the way most of them have how we have

[00:05:15] flourished and how we thrive the American economy does.

[00:05:19] So I knew we were getting there.

[00:05:21] OK, but then the opposite happened when the CEOs by the end of 2022.

[00:05:26] So I'm not surprised that that 2022 number in the 30s,

[00:05:30] because if it were January of 2022, I tell you something interesting was happening.

[00:05:36] The cycle was March 2020.

[00:05:39] Of course, right. So no one the people who could there was a huge swing

[00:05:43] the other way. And then if you remember, we kind of had this summer.

[00:05:48] It was the summer and we went through the summer and then

[00:05:50] and then the winter started again.

[00:05:52] So the beginning of twenty twenty one, we saw big uptick in the cases

[00:05:57] and weren't what when Covid wasn't attacking children, it then started

[00:06:01] to go after children until schools were out until you had daycare issues.

[00:06:04] So it went through all of twenty twenty one before we kind of started

[00:06:09] talking about a post pandemic world and then the winter started again.

[00:06:13] The flu, the covid.

[00:06:14] So early 2022, it doesn't surprise me that the number was as high

[00:06:19] as they're reporting as the E and Y people report the Y people report.

[00:06:24] But precipitously, as spring broke in 2022,

[00:06:28] we started to see the get back to work message.

[00:06:32] CEOs are like enough of this, like you're going to come back to work

[00:06:35] or you won't work here.

[00:06:36] And the market started softening the employment market.

[00:06:39] I was looking today, six point two million people looking

[00:06:43] eight point seven million open jobs.

[00:06:45] But remember that was 10, 11 million.

[00:06:48] It was flipped. Right.

[00:06:50] So news alert.

[00:06:52] The market is softening.

[00:06:53] The quit rate shows us fewer people are quitting.

[00:06:56] So employers and not just greedy CEOs, but employers broadly said, hmm,

[00:07:03] we're going to bring this back now.

[00:07:04] And they saw the opportunity to do it.

[00:07:07] And that's where we are.

[00:07:08] Some of them.

[00:07:09] And this is where again, they overcorrected, made these bold pronouncements.

[00:07:13] You know, work can't be done remotely.

[00:07:15] All of you must come back to work five days a week.

[00:07:17] We're going to go back to the good old days before the pandemic.

[00:07:20] And that too was the wrong answer.

[00:07:23] This you're going to come back to work.

[00:07:25] And if you miss two days, I'm going to fire you.

[00:07:27] All of that didn't work either.

[00:07:29] I think we are finally here.

[00:07:31] We are in the beginning of twenty, twenty four.

[00:07:33] Coming back to a more normal and rational approach, which is

[00:07:38] I don't think those who want to long for the Monday to Friday nine to five

[00:07:42] that we had in twenty, twenty, nineteen and early twenty, twenty.

[00:07:45] I think that's gone forever.

[00:07:47] I don't think the people got excited in twenty, twenty one

[00:07:50] that forever I'm going to be able to work not just from home,

[00:07:53] but work from anywhere.

[00:07:54] Like my employer, I'm in the Bahamas.

[00:07:56] Right. Oops. Did I go at you, Bob?

[00:08:00] You know, I'm in the Bahamas and I can do whatever I want to do it out.

[00:08:03] That's not working either.

[00:08:04] So let me tell you a funny it's not funny.

[00:08:06] It's actually tragic.

[00:08:07] In some ways, there was a Wall Street Journal article

[00:08:10] that I read recently and I think it was WSJ.

[00:08:13] But but basically the headline was the new workday dead zone

[00:08:19] talked about productivity is gone between four and six o'clock.

[00:08:24] On Friday afternoons and increasingly every day,

[00:08:28] because as people are working remotely, they're in kid pickup lines.

[00:08:33] They said in recent reports that like half the restaurants

[00:08:36] in New York City were full between four and six p.m.,

[00:08:40] which means these people have left work early.

[00:08:42] Happy hours back. Right.

[00:08:44] Happy hours back. And it's every day is happy.

[00:08:47] And so between four and six managers are reporting,

[00:08:51] I can't find people. It's a dead zone.

[00:08:54] There's no productivity going into the garage.

[00:08:56] And you're like, my God, my garage is empty at four thirty.

[00:09:01] What happened if it ever was filled?

[00:09:04] So what has happened is we've swung back.

[00:09:07] And so I think both sides, if there's fault to blame here,

[00:09:12] if there's blame to lie anywhere, it is both sides took advantage.

[00:09:16] And as we know, learning very early, right.

[00:09:19] If greedy, my my tax professor in law school used to say,

[00:09:22] never forget the quotes.

[00:09:24] Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

[00:09:27] And in both swings, people, you know, essentially got slaughtered.

[00:09:32] So I think we're back in the middle now.

[00:09:34] The win is hybrid.

[00:09:35] I think that's the winner.

[00:09:37] And I'm really excited. Now, what does hybrid mean?

[00:09:39] Exactly. In the office, is it three to an office?

[00:09:43] Is it we all come in on the same days?

[00:09:45] I don't know. That's unique to your culture.

[00:09:47] But at least we were not trying to go back to the old days.

[00:09:51] And old days could be pre 2019 or 2021.

[00:09:55] Both of those are now the old days.

[00:09:57] Yeah. So, you know, you've said before and it stays with me,

[00:10:01] which is it took us decades and decades and decades

[00:10:04] to get to the model that was in February of 2020.

[00:10:08] It's going to take a while and a lot of experimentation

[00:10:12] to kind of sort out where we go from here.

[00:10:15] And I do believe that we are very much

[00:10:18] in this period of experimentation, to your point.

[00:10:21] CEOs experimented with, come on now, we're all going back to the office.

[00:10:26] Don't want to really have a dialogue about this anymore.

[00:10:28] I'm just telling you, it's the mandate of what you're going to do next.

[00:10:32] And people are like, yeah, no, I don't want to do that.

[00:10:36] And so there's this tug of war.

[00:10:37] And I think that power struggle is still in place.

[00:10:41] It's ironic, though, one of the things with Gen Z

[00:10:45] is they want to go to the office.

[00:10:47] They don't get the heck out of their apartment or mom and dad's house.

[00:10:51] They want to be around other people.

[00:10:53] And they they very much want to get back to the office.

[00:10:58] It feels like work when I'm at the office.

[00:11:01] And so, you know, somehow maybe I'm my own bias,

[00:11:06] but like demonizing, you know, going back to the office.

[00:11:09] Like, that's horrible because I know how much I don't like to commute.

[00:11:11] But, you know, there's a lot of people that they do want to go there.

[00:11:16] That's where work happens.

[00:11:17] My life happens at my home.

[00:11:19] I really like the separation of those two facets of my life.

[00:11:24] They're both really important, but they're also very different.

[00:11:27] And I like a Chinese wall between the two.

[00:11:31] I like speaking with my colleagues.

[00:11:33] I like being able to poke my head over the thing and say,

[00:11:37] hey, John, do you do this?

[00:11:39] Because like I don't remember how to do this.

[00:11:41] Yeah. Hey, quick idea.

[00:11:43] Can I share an idea with you real quick?

[00:11:44] But just like you can't slack your way to greatness.

[00:11:48] Nope, nope. Right.

[00:11:49] And I'm going to jump in here because we talk a lot in terms of what

[00:11:53] Generation Z and younger millennials want.

[00:11:55] The fact of the matter is increasingly the data is suggesting

[00:11:59] older workers want it too.

[00:12:01] And I tell you why America has I mean, everyone's talking about it now.

[00:12:06] It's probably globally the case, but it's definitely in America right now.

[00:12:09] We have a loneliness epidemic. Yes.

[00:12:12] We have a serious isolation problem that was exacerbated by the pandemic.

[00:12:18] So we sent people home.

[00:12:19] A number of a significant number of these people are empty nesters.

[00:12:23] And oftentimes they're deceased or their spouse is deceased or they're divorced.

[00:12:29] And so they're at home alone and long periods of time isolated.

[00:12:36] You know, and yes, you can say you got Zoom and you and I interacting

[00:12:39] right now, but there's nothing like, you know,

[00:12:41] pressing flesh, seeing someone having a meal with them, grabbing a coffee, et cetera.

[00:12:46] So we are seeing that on the other end of the multi-generational workforce,

[00:12:52] people want to get out for obvious reasons.

[00:12:55] The older workers are saying, you know, I want to get out and build

[00:12:58] relationships and get to know people as well.

[00:13:00] And so I think it's really interesting that we are seeing a general coming

[00:13:05] together of the workforce saying again, maybe not Monday to Friday,

[00:13:09] the way we did it in the past, but it's also not stay at home and do remote work.

[00:13:14] Yeah. And so there's a few aspects of this.

[00:13:17] I'm hoping that we can kind of explore because these are some of the factors

[00:13:21] that get into all these situations are different.

[00:13:25] Industries are different to your well-made point.

[00:13:27] There were zero work from home, postal delivery people or nurses or whatever.

[00:13:32] Right. So so there's the uniqueness of your industry.

[00:13:36] There's the uniqueness of your company, of your team,

[00:13:40] of the kind of work that you guys do, the work streams that constitute the outputs.

[00:13:46] You know, we both know Katie George from McKinsey.

[00:13:49] And one of the things that Katie talks about that I think is really illuminating

[00:13:54] is that on a project when we're together,

[00:13:59] you know, might be really helpful at the beginning.

[00:14:02] We're in a creative mode.

[00:14:04] This isn't a team dynamic.

[00:14:05] We're kind of getting all aligned on what we're going to do together as a team.

[00:14:10] Then as the work gets divvied out, then it's like, you know what?

[00:14:13] This is head down, hands on keyboard work.

[00:14:16] This is like I just need to go be a knowledge worker and think for a while.

[00:14:20] I need to go do some research, whatever the work stream is.

[00:14:24] And then coming back together to share,

[00:14:27] you know, kind of progress on the project or whatever.

[00:14:30] But, you know, none of that had anything to do with the day of the week.

[00:14:34] It was organized around the work and the work is actually focused on the result.

[00:14:40] How do we get results oriented, get out of a time clock,

[00:14:44] card swipe mindset and be focused on the results?

[00:14:49] Because that's really what matters.

[00:14:52] No, I love Katie and I think they're so right on that.

[00:14:56] It's it's but I do want to say there there is work, right?

[00:15:02] It absolutely on balance.

[00:15:04] We believe that people coming together create

[00:15:09] much better product and experiences.

[00:15:11] First of all, we talk about diversity all the time.

[00:15:14] Well, the funny thing about working remotely is you actually become less

[00:15:18] diverse in many ways because you typically live with and around people

[00:15:22] who look like you have similar experiences, et cetera.

[00:15:24] So what we want to do is get people together so we can actually

[00:15:28] unlock the power of that diversity and fully remote doesn't eliminate it.

[00:15:33] But it definitely hampers it like you don't get everything

[00:15:37] that you could get from people who are different getting together.

[00:15:40] And guess what? Acting like human beings,

[00:15:42] which is how human beings do what they do.

[00:15:45] I will say this, though.

[00:15:47] So, yes, there's the work part and you'll hear me focus on this a lot.

[00:15:51] But there's also that human part.

[00:15:53] Human beings thrive around other human beings to varying degrees.

[00:15:59] Some people don't want to be around people all the time, but they want to.

[00:16:03] But because we know this, we know that in most of the world,

[00:16:08] if you were incarcerated and they put you in with that thing,

[00:16:12] solitary confinement, people go crazy.

[00:16:14] Like they really do significant periods of time without other people.

[00:16:19] So there's something very human about bringing us all together.

[00:16:23] It happens to be commercially good,

[00:16:26] but it's also good for the human being and then societies broadly.

[00:16:31] As again, we most experience diversity when you bring people together.

[00:16:35] I can see someone different on the screen, but there's nothing like doing.

[00:16:38] I don't know if you. Yeah, I know you do.

[00:16:40] You travel around the world.

[00:16:41] Yes, surely I could sit on a screen and visit Europe online,

[00:16:47] but there's nothing like walking down the streets of Europe

[00:16:50] and interacting with their people and eating their food and smelling the citrus.

[00:16:54] Like that's how this all happens.

[00:16:57] So I want to focus on how important it is.

[00:16:59] And we talk about this a lot on the work wire that we focus

[00:17:03] on allowing human beings to flourish.

[00:17:05] And I think that's why hybrid is so important.

[00:17:08] Giving us a time to balance.

[00:17:10] And, you know, I don't use this term a lot, but balancing our lives

[00:17:13] and our work so that, you know, you integrate it,

[00:17:17] you move seamlessly throughout.

[00:17:19] But yeah, this this thing, I think hybrid is where we're going to land.

[00:17:22] Now, what's going to be interesting for me and I'm watching very closely

[00:17:26] is to see where the data falls out.

[00:17:29] So, you know, I'm a data walk.

[00:17:31] And I think in many ways we have a huge opportunity.

[00:17:36] I know Sherm has been doing this, but to measure productivity,

[00:17:40] to measure engagement, to measure satisfaction.

[00:17:44] So we know what the world was like pre pandemic.

[00:17:49] Kind of they weren't we didn't have the best measurements.

[00:17:52] Well, we know for sure that we started measuring productivity and engagement

[00:17:56] once people, a significant portion of whom went home and worked remotely.

[00:18:01] And so it'd be interesting to see.

[00:18:02] I've always said from April to June to July of 2020,

[00:18:07] of course, productivity was at an all time high.

[00:18:10] You couldn't go to a movie theater or coffee shop or anything.

[00:18:12] You're stuck at home. So what else do you do? What work?

[00:18:14] I know for me, I wrote my first book reset

[00:18:17] because I was at home with nothing else to do and I never got.

[00:18:21] Right. I had these kids in the house and I was like, I'll do anything.

[00:18:23] I'll write a book

[00:18:26] to get away from them. Right.

[00:18:27] But I think we're going to be able to see that there was a point

[00:18:32] at which we burned people out.

[00:18:34] We worked too hard because they focused exclusively on work by.

[00:18:39] Do you set the blurring of work and home life?

[00:18:43] And so now we're going to be able to we saw there's a point.

[00:18:46] And then we saw a precipitous drop in productivity.

[00:18:49] All of the data.

[00:18:50] I know there are people out there who are going to deny it

[00:18:52] and reject it and say, oh, not at my employer overall.

[00:18:56] When we look at big Bureau of Labor Statistics data

[00:18:59] and that's the data, right, it tells us that productivity

[00:19:02] started to go on a serious decline.

[00:19:04] And now we've just in the last couple of months from the BLS,

[00:19:09] we've seen it go back up.

[00:19:10] And I submit to you that it's partially because we began

[00:19:14] to bring people back into some type of hybrid work,

[00:19:17] because I think that's when we are most productive.

[00:19:20] You know, so you ended on productive.

[00:19:23] I started on results, but in the middle you wove in were social creatures.

[00:19:28] And I want to go to that part too, because, you know, this is

[00:19:33] what would potentially gets lost.

[00:19:35] What's it called? Proximity bias?

[00:19:37] Is that the term people use?

[00:19:39] And meaning, if I got this right, it's something along the lines

[00:19:42] of basically if I go to the office and I'm seen by the people

[00:19:46] that have the opportunity to tap me for promotions or more responsibility

[00:19:51] or any kind of recognition, I stand a better chance

[00:19:54] than my remote colleague who's kind of out of sight, out of mind.

[00:19:58] Right. So, OK, that's fine.

[00:20:01] But you can't get away

[00:20:03] from the fact that we are social creatures and we just are.

[00:20:08] And so, you know, building relationships with people,

[00:20:12] it doesn't happen

[00:20:14] remotely like it does in person.

[00:20:17] I think about mentoring.

[00:20:19] You know, I know it's just mentor month or is that seems like.

[00:20:25] I think I think it was either.

[00:20:26] Every month is mentor month. Right.

[00:20:28] But but but the fact is, it's like, you know,

[00:20:31] that is a very lost opportunity.

[00:20:35] If someone and mentoring goes in both directions to write,

[00:20:39] I mean, the young person would be mentoring someone more senior

[00:20:43] than them on technology or something else.

[00:20:45] So that's all cool.

[00:20:47] But but to lose those connections

[00:20:51] all in the name of productivity,

[00:20:55] you know, is probably a pretty big opportunity cost

[00:20:59] to develop people, not to hit, you know, a short term

[00:21:04] or whatever productivity goal.

[00:21:07] Because they think that ultimately the muscle of the organization

[00:21:10] is not as strong as it could be because all the muscles aren't being exercised.

[00:21:15] That's right. They've atrophied.

[00:21:16] And listen, I get it.

[00:21:18] I what I love about this and this conversation

[00:21:22] that we're having is we're getting back to the middle,

[00:21:25] like common sense approach to too much of a

[00:21:28] too much of work.

[00:21:30] Work remote was bad, too much of being in the office

[00:21:33] 80, 90 hours a week is bad, like and not a lot.

[00:21:36] So just figuring out how to settle in a good place.

[00:21:39] Another area that I feel like I'm in my

[00:21:43] inclusion, equity and diversity had a lot today.

[00:21:46] But one of the things that we don't talk a lot about

[00:21:48] is because of proximity bias, there are serious long term

[00:21:53] career implications to underrepresented minorities

[00:21:56] when they are not in the work in the workplace.

[00:21:59] If they are fully working remotely, I think the data is going to tell us

[00:22:02] over time that they will have fewer opportunities.

[00:22:06] People like me to build relationships

[00:22:09] and they will be disadvantaged over time to identify mentors

[00:22:14] and mentoring opportunities and sponsors and sponsoring opportunities

[00:22:19] to build networks over time.

[00:22:22] That's something and it's classic.

[00:22:24] People think so in the now.

[00:22:26] Well, I'm going to stay at home because it's easier for me.

[00:22:29] I've read some articles about black women saying, you know,

[00:22:31] I don't have to face the microaggressions of coming to work.

[00:22:33] So I'm feeling better now.

[00:22:36] Yeah. But that's the now a decade from now.

[00:22:40] Let's see how that plays out when people are being promoted around you

[00:22:43] because not because they don't want to promote black people

[00:22:46] or don't want to promote women or Latinos or whatever,

[00:22:48] but because they don't know you.

[00:22:49] They just never had the opportunity to vouch for your work style.

[00:22:54] Your personality, your go down the list, check, check, check.

[00:22:59] And so I think that as we reflect on it,

[00:23:02] and I'm so glad that people are being forced back into a hybrid work

[00:23:08] environment because asking people what they want today, you know,

[00:23:12] giving my kid what they want today may not serve them well

[00:23:17] as become adults.

[00:23:18] And I'm not likening kids to results.

[00:23:20] I'm trying to draw a metaphor, lesson, analogy

[00:23:23] into really important point.

[00:23:25] I can't tell you.

[00:23:27] So I've been talking a lot about that.

[00:23:29] The way that you're going to if you feel like, for example,

[00:23:32] you are named a Latino, black Latino,

[00:23:36] and you don't feel comfortable with other people, well,

[00:23:39] the sure as hell way not to ever get comfortable with other types

[00:23:42] of people is if you don't interact with them,

[00:23:44] you simply do it across the screen.

[00:23:46] That's a surefire way for you never to get comfortable with other people.

[00:23:51] And let's face it, our country is divided as diverse as it's ever been.

[00:23:55] By the way, it happens to be divided as well.

[00:23:58] But it's going to become even more diverse.

[00:24:00] So you've got to force people back into this work environment.

[00:24:04] I believe so.

[00:24:05] One of one of the quotes that you'd like to

[00:24:09] that I've learned from you is just that empathy is a two way street.

[00:24:13] Right. And, you know, my heart is with the worker, the candidate.

[00:24:18] Right. And in you.

[00:24:21] So so when I think about, you know, flexibility, they're a caregiver,

[00:24:25] like all the things that act on us as human beings,

[00:24:28] not just work producing units, like, you know,

[00:24:31] that stuff resonates with me, comma, at the same time

[00:24:35] for the employer to have a healthy company,

[00:24:40] to have a healthy culture for you to as I think you said, well,

[00:24:45] you know, yes, in the short term, I understand why you want

[00:24:48] that one immediate gratification.

[00:24:50] But please understand that is not going to serve you well over time.

[00:24:56] And if you aren't making yourself more available to your employer

[00:25:01] to see and for you to grow and to develop,

[00:25:05] there's a cost that you're going to pay probably on another day.

[00:25:10] But you're just getting back to the, you know,

[00:25:15] the five day a week, however many hours a week.

[00:25:19] OK, that was the model and the employer kind of held a lot of the leverage

[00:25:22] in that shifted.

[00:25:24] And now we're getting back, you know, into finding equilibrium.

[00:25:27] Yes. Like there has to be, I think now give on the part of the worker

[00:25:34] to understand that, you know, the employer believes

[00:25:38] that innovation, you know, and creativity,

[00:25:43] culture, all those things get built when we're together

[00:25:47] or get built better when we're together.

[00:25:50] And to just not pay that due respect of like,

[00:25:55] well, they may be right about that.

[00:25:56] Maybe maybe I should move.

[00:25:59] You know, and Johnny, you said this two years ago to me,

[00:26:02] which was, you know, when the pandemic hit

[00:26:06] and also we went, you know, to in a lot of industries,

[00:26:10] almost fully remote.

[00:26:12] And then employers came back and said, hey, how about three days a week?

[00:26:17] That was already a giant concession,

[00:26:21] pristine model and employees going, yeah, no, like,

[00:26:26] I just want to stay home and say, well, who's operating in good faith here?

[00:26:29] That's right. No.

[00:26:30] And I got to tell you, this is where and I hope people don't

[00:26:34] bite my head off on this one. But ultimately, it is called work.

[00:26:39] And ultimately, the employer is paying you.

[00:26:42] And while you have a choice not to come,

[00:26:46] the terms and conditions of work are dictated by the employer. Period.

[00:26:50] I have the most amazing housekeeper who I've had with us for a while.

[00:26:54] She's helped me raise my daughter, all that good stuff and helps.

[00:26:58] My life is could not work without her.

[00:27:02] But I tell her the hours that I need her here

[00:27:04] and she can't come when she wants to come.

[00:27:06] She has to come when it works for me because it's like that's how it works.

[00:27:10] I pay you. And now she could decide, you know, Johnny,

[00:27:14] the hours that you want don't work for me, in which case I'd get someone else.

[00:27:18] That's just how this works.

[00:27:20] And we have to come to grips with the fact that an employer

[00:27:25] should be flexible, should be accommodating.

[00:27:27] But ultimately, if I'm paying you

[00:27:30] and you're going to give me something in exchange,

[00:27:33] then both of us have to decide if this works.

[00:27:36] What you're seeing more and more CEOs are saying pretty blatantly like, got it.

[00:27:43] But this is how we're going to work.

[00:27:44] I'm going to tell you upfront.

[00:27:46] And if this works for you, good.

[00:27:48] If it doesn't work for you, that's OK, too.

[00:27:50] I would point out something else to one of the areas,

[00:27:53] one of those sectors that has been particularly hit by layoffs

[00:27:57] this year was in the tech space. Yep.

[00:28:00] I don't think it's accidental or coincidental, I should say,

[00:28:05] that that was the sector

[00:28:08] that was the fastest to say work from anywhere.

[00:28:13] Yeah, I think right.

[00:28:14] They that was a group.

[00:28:16] People can work not just work from home, but you can work from anywhere.

[00:28:19] And our people don't need to be together and da da da.

[00:28:22] And I think what we're seeing as an indicator

[00:28:25] is that two or three years later, a lot of those companies

[00:28:28] are not thriving as well as they did when people were working together.

[00:28:32] You're not bringing new products to market as quickly.

[00:28:35] And those products aren't as good because they don't have the advantage

[00:28:38] of that diversity, that diverse group of people working together

[00:28:41] to create an idea and what have you.

[00:28:44] And now all of a sudden, they're laying off.

[00:28:45] I saw this morning Google is laying off a whole hundreds of people again.

[00:28:49] I saw this company Twitch.

[00:28:51] It was unfortunate.

[00:28:52] I don't know if you saw it. It's horrible.

[00:28:54] They they leaked to Bloomberg that they were going to do it.

[00:28:57] So a third of their workforce, they laid off.

[00:29:00] So the CEO was forced to say, we're going to do this in a more orderly fashion.

[00:29:03] But I'm going to tell you all via email because everyone learned

[00:29:06] from Bloomberg yesterday.

[00:29:08] I saw Spotify, which was Wall Street, darling, and doing like

[00:29:12] I saw SoFi and other finance, like all of these debt companies.

[00:29:17] Interestingly, I think and maybe I'm wrong.

[00:29:21] And but I don't think they're willing to ask themselves what changed.

[00:29:27] I'm going to submit to you that some of what changed is the way they worked.

[00:29:30] And this notion, I always called work from home a grand experiment.

[00:29:36] It's like we don't know.

[00:29:37] We've never done it that way before.

[00:29:39] And now we're going to go do it.

[00:29:40] We may learn that in the short term, because we had to keep people safe.

[00:29:45] It made sense. But the long term, not so much.

[00:29:48] And I think it has directly impacted the bottom lines,

[00:29:52] the valuations of these companies.

[00:29:53] I fundamentally believe that.

[00:29:55] Now, over time, we'll be able to collect data and determine if that's true.

[00:29:59] But we already see the CEO community moving back toward

[00:30:03] I got to get you back in here to get this business back on track.

[00:30:06] Yeah. So it's kind of a different a different track.

[00:30:09] I think that that is one of the important factors of a multifactorial

[00:30:14] kind of course, right?

[00:30:16] Only simplify it, right?

[00:30:17] You know, but but yeah, I mean,

[00:30:20] tech went on a hiring binge.

[00:30:22] They were flush with cash.

[00:30:24] It was basically a talent land grab that they were on.

[00:30:28] And back to your point about but it's so called

[00:30:32] and I'm still the employer, just to be clear.

[00:30:35] And the balance in this and this is tradeoffs

[00:30:38] is employer brand, the competition for talent.

[00:30:43] And, you know, in the same way that you want me,

[00:30:45] Jamie Dimon, to be in the office all the time.

[00:30:48] I don't really want to be in the cool.

[00:30:49] Don't work at JPMorgan Chase. That's OK.

[00:30:52] OK, there's also tradeoffs where you are going to go work.

[00:30:57] And do they have the same financial wherewithal that JPMorgan Chase does?

[00:31:01] You know, is they're going to go out of business in two years?

[00:31:04] You don't know.

[00:31:05] So the regional bank that all sudden got turned around.

[00:31:08] So everything is a tradeoff.

[00:31:10] Everything is a choice.

[00:31:12] And there's like so many things.

[00:31:14] There's it's like you always say with culture.

[00:31:16] It's not right or wrong.

[00:31:18] It doesn't fit you.

[00:31:19] And if it doesn't, there's 10 million other places you can go work at.

[00:31:24] It's OK.

[00:31:25] And that's what, you know, as we wrap this up, that's what

[00:31:29] employees have to understand.

[00:31:30] And it's not intended to be threatening.

[00:31:32] I've said that to people.

[00:31:33] I said, listen, you owe it to yourself to be in a place

[00:31:37] where it's culturally aligned, where the rules work for you

[00:31:40] and or at least are acceptable to you, et cetera.

[00:31:43] At such point that you decide that this doesn't work for you.

[00:31:47] I'm not bad. You're not bad.

[00:31:49] No one's judging here.

[00:31:50] It just doesn't work for you.

[00:31:51] And I'll let's do this the right way.

[00:31:54] What happens, you see more and more is when a CEO

[00:31:58] and I got to point this out.

[00:31:59] So the CEO who announces

[00:32:02] you can work from anywhere and period, that person is a hero.

[00:32:07] The person who says, I want you to come into the office is a villain.

[00:32:13] How that like it doesn't work.

[00:32:16] First of all, neither one of these people is right in the

[00:32:21] in like the sense of what is right and wrong in life. Right.

[00:32:25] They're right because they've said this is the way I'm going to operate here.

[00:32:29] Jack Dorsey said this is the way Twitter is going to work.

[00:32:31] Good check. We can or X as they call it now.

[00:32:35] OK. Jamie Dimon said this is the way the bank is going to work.

[00:32:39] Neither one of them is bad.

[00:32:40] They're just different.

[00:32:41] And that's the beautiful thing about the workforce is you got

[00:32:45] all sorts of options.

[00:32:47] You as an employee, you have to decide

[00:32:51] which one of these ways of work work best for me.

[00:32:55] The idea that you're going to go to one and make that CEO

[00:32:59] him or her change their minds because you don't like it is naive.

[00:33:03] It's misplaced.

[00:33:05] And I think counterproductive.

[00:33:07] It just I think OK.

[00:33:08] So I think that, you know, having an open and honest dialogue,

[00:33:13] Jamie, I understand what you want.

[00:33:14] I just want to also offer up.

[00:33:17] This is a potential trade off.

[00:33:18] You've probably considered it, but I want to voice it.

[00:33:21] But to demand that you really don't your demand to make him change his mind

[00:33:26] doesn't really hold water.

[00:33:27] It's then you probably want to work somewhere else.

[00:33:31] And he, by the way, isn't demanding.

[00:33:33] I hate the headlines.

[00:33:35] CEO demands that you come back to work.

[00:33:36] No, no, no. What they said is this is how we're going to show up to work.

[00:33:40] If you want to come join us.

[00:33:41] If you don't, that's OK, too. That's not a demand.

[00:33:44] That's not a demand.

[00:33:45] And you can't be demanded to show up to work and they can't.

[00:33:50] This is not the military.

[00:33:52] Right. It is what it is.

[00:33:53] And you show up voluntarily.

[00:33:55] Both sides do.

[00:33:56] And that's why in 49 of the 50 states or so in the US,

[00:33:59] there's something called employment at will.

[00:34:00] You can leave. They can leave.

[00:34:02] Nobody's tied together.

[00:34:04] And that's why, you know, you don't want to be glib about it.

[00:34:06] I don't intend to be flippant about it.

[00:34:08] But at the end of the day, that is what it comes down to.

[00:34:11] And what I am feeling more and more comfortable with is

[00:34:14] CEOs now are saying this is the way I want us to work.

[00:34:19] The next CEO might work differently.

[00:34:21] That's OK. But while I'm here and ultimately accountable

[00:34:25] for the outcomes of this business, this is how we're going to work.

[00:34:28] And to that last point is as companies change, people change, too.

[00:34:34] That's right. My life circumstances, my values,

[00:34:38] what's important to me are also open to changing.

[00:34:41] And again, nobody did anything right or wrong in that moral sense.

[00:34:47] It's just things have changed and that used to work for me.

[00:34:49] It doesn't work for me anymore. OK, no problem.

[00:34:52] Hey, before I probably wouldn't have wanted to do that.

[00:34:54] I'm OK with doing that.

[00:34:56] You made the point about older people wanting to go back

[00:34:58] to the office because of loneliness.

[00:35:01] Maybe they really liked the pandemic.

[00:35:08] All right. People change and that's all OK.

[00:35:10] So again, continues to be a grand experiment.

[00:35:13] The good news is, is we have limitless data points

[00:35:17] and kind of live live experiments going on.

[00:35:21] And people are learning from each other.

[00:35:22] Shurm is a great resource for people to get outside

[00:35:26] their own four walls and see what else is working in the wacky world.

[00:35:29] So I think it's great.

[00:35:32] Let me tell you, be open to it.

[00:35:34] I hope everyone listening will say, I don't you shouldn't walk away and say,

[00:35:37] Oh, Johnny, felt this way about remote or Bob felt this.

[00:35:39] It's not about that.

[00:35:41] What we're saying is the biggest takeaway to me is

[00:35:44] be open to listening and following the data.

[00:35:48] And don't make the data which say what you want it to say.

[00:35:51] Listen to it.

[00:35:52] It could be that in your particular culture,

[00:35:56] your sector, your geography, that remote work works.

[00:36:02] You could also find that it doesn't.

[00:36:03] But let the data, honest brokering of that data tell you.

[00:36:08] And we have now three, almost four years of experience.

[00:36:11] March of 24 will be four years since.

[00:36:14] Wow, I can't believe that.

[00:36:15] That's crazy, right?

[00:36:17] So we have the we can now look back and we can see how things graphed

[00:36:22] be honest about what the data says.

[00:36:24] I find a lot of times that if the data if the data says

[00:36:27] and I actually know this happened with an HR practitioner

[00:36:30] who felt very strongly about remote work,

[00:36:33] mostly because that's the way she wanted to work.

[00:36:36] And I asked her, I said, have you collected the data?

[00:36:38] And when the data came back, notwithstanding the fact that a majority

[00:36:42] of her employees said they preferred working hybrid,

[00:36:45] not fully remote, but not in the office full time either.

[00:36:48] And she said, that's insane.

[00:36:51] I said, oh, so this was never about the data.

[00:36:54] This was actually never about the employees.

[00:36:56] It was about you and your preferred style of work.

[00:36:59] That's a problem.

[00:37:00] We as business people, you got a ton of data now.

[00:37:03] We should follow the data and go from there and remember flexibility is the answer.

[00:37:08] We talked about that word a lot.

[00:37:10] That is the way of work going forward.

[00:37:12] Amen. All right.

[00:37:13] Well, this has been another

[00:37:16] amazing episode, Johnny.

[00:37:17] I know we will come back to this topic on future episodes

[00:37:20] because we just have to have more data.

[00:37:24] We'll have more data. There you go.

[00:37:25] So thank you for your time, your expertise, listeners and viewers.

[00:37:29] Thank you guys so much for investing a few minutes

[00:37:32] of your day with us here on the work wire.

[00:37:34] We appreciate comments on LinkedIn, on YouTube, on your favorite podcast platform,

[00:37:40] wherever it is that you're able to see us or listen to us.

[00:37:43] We appreciate you engaging with us.

[00:37:46] We would love to know topics that would be of interest to you on future episodes.

[00:37:50] But in the meantime, Johnny, I like what you do here with Redubbia.

[00:37:54] The work wire.

[00:37:55] See you next time on the work wire.

[00:37:56] Thanks, Darren. Bye bye.

[00:37:58] Bye bye. Check out Career Dot Club for personalized help with your job

[00:38:01] search. Visit shrm.org to become part of the largest human resources

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