One of the more tedious aspects of the post-pandemic landscape has been the willingness of managers to go against the considerable evidence before them. Nowhere is this more evident than in the return to office mandates that companies like Dell and Amazon have recently introduced.
The mandates ignore the considerable evidence gained during the pandemic that remote working is not only pretty productive, but great for employee wellbeing, engagement, and retention.
Alienating talent
This is underlined by a recent study from CU Boulder, which examines over 100 studies looking into the role remote work plays across an array of areas.
For instance, the researchers found that remote work can be both beneficial and harmful for women. While it can be fantastic for helping women juggle the demands of their personal and professional lives, it can also have a negative impact on their professional development.
It’s a common refrain that remote working harms the formation of bonds between teams and that younger employees lack the mentoring opportunities that can occur in the workplace, although I explore some simple ways around these in another article.
The researchers explain that women often benefit in terms of their careers when they’re able to get a smaller number of contacts they forge a deep connection with. For men, a larger number of so-called weak ties have the same effect. They argue that creating this network of weak ties is perhaps easier online than the creation of a stronger network.
There are also obvious concerns around the impact on people at different stages of their careers. It has been well documented that more junior employees may struggle to access the kind of support and mentoring they need to advance and grow when they work remotely. This isn’t as much of a concern for more senior employees, who not only tend to have better facilities to work remotely but also often benefit from the ability to focus on their work.
A hybrid approach
As a result, the researchers advocate a hybrid approach rather than the all-or-nothing that seems to dominate much of the debate at the moment. Such an approach allows people to get the benefits of quiet spaces for focused work, more control over their work-life balance, and also opportunities to interact face-to-face with colleagues. Indeed, in a recent article, I highlighted how hybrid work tends to be a win-win for all concerned.
Instead, there seems to be a polarization of options, which the researchers believe will see employees actively selecting employers based upon this one issue. If you’re stuck in this situation, however, what can you do if you want to work in a hybrid way but your employer mandates a return to the office?
Having control over your day is key to reaching a “flow” state—a mental zone where work feels meaningful and creativity happens naturally. In this state, tasks become absorbing, and ideas come effortlessly. To get there, employees need to shape their work environment carefully, especially in settings where distractions are common.
Shared flow
When it comes to teamwork, achieving a shared flow—sometimes called “burstiness”—is just as valuable. In bursty teams, psychological safety is strong, so people feel free to speak up without fear of being judged. This sense of security allows ideas and discussions to move quickly and productively, creating a natural flow of collaboration.
For employees returning to the office, reaching these states of flow and burstiness requires more effort. Working from home has fewer interruptions, which makes finding flow easier. In the office, intentional planning is needed to create spaces that encourage focus and open teamwork. In both cases, nurturing these mindsets may be essential for productive and satisfying work in today’s flexible workplaces.
The analysis highlights how a hybrid approach allows people to show up in the way that works best for them and provides people with the best of both worlds, all while also giving them ownership and autonomy over their work.
Getting management right
Hybrid working inevitably requires a change in how managers operate, with research from EDHEC highlighting in particular the challenge around how much autonomy to grant and how closely to supervise workers when they’re operating remotely. I’ve written before about the challenges involved in monitoring remote workers.
A second study, from Reichman University’s Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, shows that managers often veer too far in the other direction, and respond to the autonomy by becoming too onerous in their monitoring of remote workers in a bid to retain control. This results in trust being eroded.
A better approach is to be more fluid and flexible, with managers taking on a more supportive than controlling role. This can help to underpin the autonomy of workers while also maintaining the cohesion of teams. It’s a more servant leadership approach that is founded on trust and empowerment.
It’s imperative that managers adapt to the changing needs of employees, but with return-to-office mandates becoming more and more commonplace, it seems that many managers are struggling to make this mindset shift. This mental rigidity serves only to miss out on the benefits of hybrid working while also potentially driving away talent.
