Goldman Sachs announced earlier this week that they would require all of their employees to be back in the office starting June. "We know from experience that our culture of collaboration, innovation, and apprenticeship thrives when our people come together," the Goldman Sachs executives wrote.
Good point. Perhaps everyone agrees to work from home on Fridays? But the problem with that, I suppose, is that people will just treat it as a three day weekend...
Prof Allon, a timely and relevant post. What are your thoughts on short vs long term efficiency? Taking your example a step further, some people might not agree with Wed being the ‘in office’ day in the short term (hence unfair) but over the long term it becomes the new normal (just like Sat and Sun being weekend days is normal today). So yes, efficiency might suffer for say 6-12 months but the next year everyone will get used to it and Google will add a billion dollars to their bottom line.
1. For globally distributed teams, over half of their meetings might be video meetings. Even in the Bay Area, teams that are only a few miles from each other meet over video due to the hassle of commuting and parking to get to other offices. I am the only person who does my type of job in my timezone, so 100% of my meetings were via video pre-COVID.
1A. Even with all of my meetings being via video, I loved coming into the office (and can't wait to get back).
2. Proposal: instead of pushing the full hybrid model down to each team, take a "barbell" approach (ala Taleb) and have some teams/orgs that are full remote others that are full in-office. Employees could then choose teams based on their preferences.
Hi Gad, I recent completed a huge research study on remote work, and analyzed things like how the # of remote jobs has been trending the past year, whether remote jobs are more common among senior leaders vs lower level workers, and how remote work culture correlates with work satisfaction.
Great post, Gad. FWIW, the conversations I'm privy to RE: Remote work have high degrees of variance based on function. Functions that require disproportionate amounts of
a) Creative Design Thinking (e.g. product, engineering, marketing) seem to be trending towards greater in-office requirements
b) Social/Cultural Currency (e.g. Sales, Customer Success, Consulting) seem to be trending to the once a week or once a month office visits for team building or training events.
I've done most of my career as a sales person remotely, working for companies taht value client facing time in lieu of office time. When I started managing a sales team for a social media company however (Simpler products, fewer SKUs, strong internal culture), I found they prefer to have sales people in the office for hands on monitoring and coaching. I am hoping that COVID will help, over time, build a culture of consultative/client-facing selling in my sales organization which has really grown as a transactional sales team. Some silver linings to be found, I hope!
Excellent points. Agree completely on the division of role/location. I am concerned about issues of fairness though. But you make a great point about the sales team.
Good point. Perhaps everyone agrees to work from home on Fridays? But the problem with that, I suppose, is that people will just treat it as a three day weekend...
Prof Allon, a timely and relevant post. What are your thoughts on short vs long term efficiency? Taking your example a step further, some people might not agree with Wed being the ‘in office’ day in the short term (hence unfair) but over the long term it becomes the new normal (just like Sat and Sun being weekend days is normal today). So yes, efficiency might suffer for say 6-12 months but the next year everyone will get used to it and Google will add a billion dollars to their bottom line.
Some other considerations:
1. For globally distributed teams, over half of their meetings might be video meetings. Even in the Bay Area, teams that are only a few miles from each other meet over video due to the hassle of commuting and parking to get to other offices. I am the only person who does my type of job in my timezone, so 100% of my meetings were via video pre-COVID.
1A. Even with all of my meetings being via video, I loved coming into the office (and can't wait to get back).
2. Proposal: instead of pushing the full hybrid model down to each team, take a "barbell" approach (ala Taleb) and have some teams/orgs that are full remote others that are full in-office. Employees could then choose teams based on their preferences.
I like the barbell approach. It addresses my concerns above.
Hi Gad, I recent completed a huge research study on remote work, and analyzed things like how the # of remote jobs has been trending the past year, whether remote jobs are more common among senior leaders vs lower level workers, and how remote work culture correlates with work satisfaction.
I thought you might find some of the findings interesting: https://bloomberry.com/the-state-of-remote-work/ . Feel free to share/cite it if you feel it'd be useful to your readers
Great post, Gad. FWIW, the conversations I'm privy to RE: Remote work have high degrees of variance based on function. Functions that require disproportionate amounts of
a) Creative Design Thinking (e.g. product, engineering, marketing) seem to be trending towards greater in-office requirements
b) Social/Cultural Currency (e.g. Sales, Customer Success, Consulting) seem to be trending to the once a week or once a month office visits for team building or training events.
I've done most of my career as a sales person remotely, working for companies taht value client facing time in lieu of office time. When I started managing a sales team for a social media company however (Simpler products, fewer SKUs, strong internal culture), I found they prefer to have sales people in the office for hands on monitoring and coaching. I am hoping that COVID will help, over time, build a culture of consultative/client-facing selling in my sales organization which has really grown as a transactional sales team. Some silver linings to be found, I hope!
Excellent points. Agree completely on the division of role/location. I am concerned about issues of fairness though. But you make a great point about the sales team.