Back in the dimly remembered history of the business community, strange rituals would be performed daily. Workers would rise a few hours before the start of their workday. They would bathe, prepare, and then, believe it or not, and this is hard to accept, they would commute, do you believe it, commute to their place of employment. We have actual videos of people going to offices! Outrageous! Thankfully, the intercession of a global pandemic ended this cruel practice of making people actually go to work.
Yeah, remote work. Personally, I am not a fan. I think there is some place for hybrid formats. I know this is unpopular with many of the “cool kid” HR leaders who say remote work is “cool.” So why did Amazon, one of the world’s largest employers, decide to mandate a return to the office for a five-day work week? Because remote work doesn’t work for every industry or employee.
I will get hate mail for attacking another of the new sacred cows of the “cool kids,” but there are so many fallacies in the studies that support remote work, it would take way too much time to literally shred all of them and way too much fun for me. But here is the biggest problem: The policy of having everyone work from home says all workers are the same. Some people should never be out of your sight, some lose energy after some time deprived of the social engagement of work, and some—the minority—are fine working from home. To assume work from home will work well for everyone because it worked during the pandemic when there was literally no other choice is a fallacy.
Early on after the pandemic, I said remote work would continue for a bit, but, eventually, the pendulum would swing back. I also said that pendulum swing might not happen until the ultra-hot 2021 job market cooled off. Why was the market down swing necessary? Because employers have, frankly, lost the resolve to manage. They were unwilling to push employees for the return to work as if the employees could mandate all the terms of employment. Moreover, they lacked the will to keep looking for people who would accept a location-bound position. To be fair, there are so many studies showing remote workers get less mentorship, advance more slowly, and have less loyalty that one questions the career orientation of those who stubbornly insist they need to work from home so they can walk their schnauzers in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon when they should be working.
Amazon’s explanation to the business press has to do with layering of bureaucracy, loss of innovation, and need to manage a “get it done” culture. Let me translate that from corporate relations speak into plain English: REMOTE WORK WAS LESS PRODUCTIVE.
HR leaders need to recognize as well that CEOs for the most part dislike remote work. A few CHROs stuck by the policy and, in one case, is rumored to have been asked to resign due to stalwart support of a broad-based remote work policy. Ultimately, remote work does have merit in the right industry, in the right job family, for the right employee. However, it has been overly broadly applied to vast sectors of the workforce. It needs to be rolled back and now, it seems, the tide is beginning to turn, as years of data are beginning to demonstrate that it has been a less effective and therefore not sustainable model.
If you are reading this in a bathrobe, on the patio, while your schnauzer is wandering your backyard, I am not sure this opinion column will resonate with you, but for the sake of the rest of us, please get dressed and get to work.
Elliot S. Clark
CEO
