By Vanessa Fuhrmans
More than a year into America's great work-from-home experiment,
many companies have hailed it largely as a success. So why do some
bosses think remote workers aren't as committed as office
dwellers?
Recent remarks of numerous chief executives suggest the culture
of workplace face time remains alive and well. At The Wall Street
Journal's CEO Council Summit this month, JP Morgan Chase &
Co.'s Jamie Dimon said remote work doesn't work well "for those who
want to hustle." Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has called it " an
aberration that we are going to correct as soon as possible."
WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani -- whose business relies on office
space -- sparked an uproar on social media and beyond after he said
employees who are "uber-ly engaged" with their companies would want
to go to the office at least two-thirds of the time. So did the CEO
of Washingtonian Media, which publishes Washingtonian magazine,
when she wrote in an opinion piece that business leaders had a
strong incentive to change the status of staffers who are rarely in
the office from full-time to contractor.
Both later apologized for the way their comments came across and
said their intent wasn't to devalue any worker. Yet those public
comments reflect some managers' private feelings and raise the
question of whether those who choose to work from home as
colleagues head back to the office will have to fight long-held
stigmas associated with remote work.
Many more employees will work remotely, at least part-time, than
did before Covid-19, providing a nationwide test of how remote
workers perform, and are perceived, when a public-health crisis
isn't keeping them at home.
Companies are trying out hybrid models, in which people divide
their week between the office and home. Some are giving workers the
option to work remotely full-time, as with Facebook Inc. and
Twitter Inc. Yet plenty of bosses view five days in the office as
proof that employees are ambitious and productive, suggesting that,
in some workplaces, two classes of workers could emerge.
As homebound employees juggled caregiving, online schooling and
other issues alongside their regular workloads in the past year,
many companies reported that their workforces were productive and
engaged. Using an array of metrics for 7,000 workers, such as use
of email and other cloud-based tools, productivity software company
Prodoscore Inc., for instance, found employees were overall more
productive and worked longer hours in 2020 than in 2019.
Many employees agree, with caveats. In a Gartner Inc. study this
year of more than 3,000 professionals, 75% of fully remote workers
and 70% in a hybrid setting said they and their teams were able to
adjust to shifting priorities, compared with 64% of fully on-site
workers. Remote and hybrid workers also reported in larger numbers
feeling comfortable taking risks and testing ideas. Junior
employees and self-described extroverts, however, were more likely
than others to say a physical office space was important for
learning and brainstorming.
"The idea that you're sacrificing your career mobility for
remote work -- it's a false trade-off," said Kris Lescinsky, who
works from her Austin, Texas, home as a senior enterprise
transformation manager at Mural, a visual-collaboration platform
with staff around the world. Her setup at the San Francisco-based
company lets her run calls with international clients, be in
instant touch with colleagues, and -- as with her last remote job,
where she was promoted -- she said she is focused on
advancement.
But companies with largely remote workforces aren't the norm.
Research suggests remote workers lag behind office-dwellers in some
kinds of career advancement. A February 2020 study of more than 400
tech workers by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and
Northeastern University found that while remote and nonremote
workers won roughly the same number of promotions, the salaries of
remote workers grew more slowly. At companies where remote work was
less common, telecommuters won fewer promotions.
Many bosses said they want people in the office -- and thus
prize workers who feel the same -- because they worry about losing
the creativity and spontaneous collaboration that comes with
physical proximity. Some also fear a too-remote workforce won't be
able to put in the face time with clients to win business and be
competitive. Washingtonian CEO Cathy Merrill noted in her
Washington Post op-ed that a fair part of what office-based workers
do is help newer and more junior employees develop and assimilate
to the company culture, something bosses fear gets lost when people
aren't in the same workspace.
Another reason some bosses have doubts about remote workers'
dedication lies with just how difficult managing far-flung teams
can be, research suggests. In survey findings published last summer
in the Harvard Business Review, 40% of 215 managers from around the
world said they struggled to lead remote teams in the pandemic. In
turn, roughly as many said they believed remote workers usually
perform worse than those in offices and doubted remote workers
could stay motivated long term.
Likewise, in a KRC Research and BCG survey of 9,000 managers and
workers -- conducted last fall on behalf of Microsoft Corp. -- more
than one-third of bosses said it was hard to keep teams engaged
under remote-work conditions. Some homebound workers have
struggled, too. On Ask a Manager, an online discussion board for
workers hosted by Alison Green, a thread about missing the office
garnered hundreds of posts, many lamenting the loneliness of
at-home life, along with the lack of energy and tech support.
Still, returning to the office as it was circa 2019, and acting
as if 2020 didn't happen, might be a missed opportunity. People may
feel something has been lost if things just revert to the way they
were, many executives said.
After moving several years ago from Seattle to Denver, where her
husband has his law practice, Cecilia Retelle Zywicki went remote
as a senior executive at the company that acquired her software
startup. She then was recruited as a remote chief operating officer
at another. Now she is vying for a new leadership role that she
anticipates also will be remote.
Of bosses who think it takes office face time to be a go-getter,
she said: "They have only known one way, and it is just an
old-school way of managing." Such managers, she said, often believe
they need eyes on workers to trust they are working. "Remote
managing is more a finesse game."
Leaders who look askance at remote work may be setting
themselves up for some turnover. In an Ernst & Young survey of
more than 16,000 employees this month, 90% said they wanted
flexibility in when and where they work post-pandemic. More than
half said they would consider quitting their jobs if they didn't
have that flexibility. Many have already made choices that would
entail at least some remote work: A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey
of 1,505 workers this spring found nearly one-quarter were
considering or planning to move more than 50 miles from their
office base -- on top of 12% who had already done so.
Soon after Ms. Merrill's op-ed was published, the Washington
Media CEO sent her magazine staff a memo assuring them their
employee status and benefits were safe and that her intent had been
only to write about concerns that she and other CEOs have about
preserving company culture. Washingtonian staffers staged a one-day
strike in protest.
Mary Green, who works from her home in Oneida, N.Y., and helps
build online communities around business products, services and
events, is currently interviewing with several companies for a new
job. As a mother of four, working from home is important, and the
demand for her skills and experience is so high, she said, "I'm
only talking to companies open to remote work."
She's confident she'll land a role. "The results I'm showing
every day give them confidence I'm very capable at what I'm doing,"
Ms. Green said.
--Chip Cutter contributed to this article.
Write to Vanessa Fuhrmans at vanessa.fuhrmans@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 23, 2021 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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