Demanding a certain level of presence in the office for your employees is like insisting on loyalty from your followers. The only leaders who insist on loyalty are those who can’t inspire it. Companies that require presence are those that haven’t figured out how to make being in the office valuable for their team members.
I don’t want my colleagues to be in the office. I want them to want to be in the office. I want to create an environment where when someone chooses to work from home on a given day, they do so knowing that, while it’s convenient, it’s the lesser option.
Advocates for remote work tout how much more efficient they are and how much more work gets done when they don’t have to commute. That’s undeniable. It’s also the wrong question. The more important question is whether efficiency in your role is the key driver of success for you and your organization.
Collaboration, creativity, brainstorming, coaching, and relationship-building have nothing to do with efficiency. Anyone who has ever developed a junior team member and felt, “This would be so much faster if I just did it myself,” knows that developing people is an investment in their organization’s future, as well as a long-term time-saving exercise for themselves. But in the moment, it’s a time suck. And yet, the value of the exchange is exponentially higher if the conversation happens in person, not just because of the deeper, more nuanced nature of the conversation, but because of the simple fact that the junior person knows that you took the time to meet with them in person. They know your time is precious, and that you invested it in them by being there in the room with them.
I love working from home on occasion. I value the extra time because I didn’t have to commute and the chance to feel a bit more relaxed. I also recognize that the conversations I have in the office, the spontaneous moments of laughter outside of the transactional exchanges, and the deeper level of trust that’s built when you interact with someone in person can’t be replicated over the phone or Zoom. And it’s not a matter of saying we just must work harder to make those exchanges as real. That’s disingenuous. There is no substitute for being in the same room with someone.
So how do you foster getting people to want to come to the office?
1. Make sure the more senior people are present. The value for your junior people to show up in the office is access to the veteran players. If a second-year consultant comes to the office and the only other people around are their immediate peers, they’re not growing, and when they interact with each other, they’re probably complaining about having to show up when the senior people aren’t present.
2. Make the rounds to check in with as many people as possible, even if only to say a quick hello. I’m disappointed in myself when I have to send an email to a colleague saying, “Saw you in the office today. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to say hello.” That’s my bad. I can do better. Figure out how to grab thirty seconds to check in. In that brief exchange, you’ll figure out if you’re interrupting their flow and need to give them their space or if they’re hungry for a longer conversation, in which case you can find some time.
Derek Thompson writes in The Anti-Social Century, in this month’s issue of The Atlantic, “Our smallest actions create norms. Our norms create values. Our values drive behavior. And our behaviors cascade.”
That small action of stopping by a colleague’s desk to check in, creates the norm of trying to be present to one another. That presence reflects that we value our relationships. Valuing our relationships causes us to not only be present, but to implement other ways to connect and support one another. (That’s the “cascade” part.)
3. Take advantage of unstructured time with the team. Even if you don’t have time to have a team lunch in the breakout room, the walk to get lunch provides a few minutes of catch-up time, or the simple chit-chat that builds relationships, or the quick exchange of what you were just working on that prompts a deeper conversation later in the day. The little exchanges themselves may not provide radical innovation or the next great idea, but they often spark the notion that we may have ideas or information that would benefit others, and prompt a follow-on, more substantive conversation. I don’t get the benefit of those lunch exchanges on the days when I am sitting at my desk at home licking a massive wad of peanut butter off a spoon, thinking, “I’m pwabably mithing out on thumthing.” I may be more efficient, but I’m not sharing or gaining the kind of insight that is the true value of working on a team.
4. Extend casual invitations to others to sit in on your meetings, if appropriate. We get precious little facetime with each other. Getting more faces in the room will result in a more robust conversation with viewpoints that would not normally have been expressed. If you’re the more junior person on the team, ask to be included in meetings. You’re there to learn.
5. Ask the junior members of your team what would make their in-office experience more worthwhile. They’ll have their own perspective and may suggest ideas you haven’t considered. Regardless, just asking the question shows your interest in creating an open, collaborative environment, and having a more substantive relationship with your team.
Of course, if you are a true solo contributor and the nature of what you do doesn’t rely on your connections, your creativity, or your ability to innovate, then coming in the office may not have enough up-side to warrant the commute. And some people have worked remotely for years, even pre-pandemic. If that’s your situation, you have probably already made peace with the idea and tacitly accepted the downside. That’s fine. You’ve determined that this works best and you’re good with the trade-off. For those whose success is tied to team creativity, collaboration, and trust, building relationships through in-person exchanges is essential. Being available to others in person requires more time in the short-run but leads to greater success in the long-run.