New Book Argues Hybrid Schedules 'Don't Work', Return-to-Office Brings Motivation and Learning

Yahoo Finance interviews Peter Cappelli, a Wharton professor of management, on 'the business case for employers pushing for workers to get back to the office.' (Cappelli has co-written a new book with workplace strategist Ranya Nehmeh titled In Praise of the Office: The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work...)

Yahoo Finance: What's wrong with a hybrid work arrangement?
Cappelli: People just don't come in. That's maybe the single biggest factor. There is a growing awareness that people are really never there on their anchor days. If you want that for your company, you have to manage that attendance...
Yahoo Finance: What's the compelling advantage of in-person work?
Cappelli: There's value in human interaction, what we learn from each other, the cooperation that we can get in solving problems, and the motivation and commitment that comes from being around other people... When you first began your career, imagine what it would've been like if no one was in the office. You'd be completely lost.

If you think about how we learn about office work, we learn by watching. You learn what the values of the organization are. You learn it from the conversations in the office. You can see how the boss reacts to different requests and different problems. As you advance, you've got your ear to the ground, and you've got the opportunity to raise your hand and pitch in and have some influence. You can catch the boss between meetings and pass along a little tidbit of information, and you develop relationships with people where you can solve problems... Those are the kind of things that we miss when we move to remote — in addition to the general fact that people are energized by working with people.

With remote work, people also spend more time in meetings that are worthless. A lot of those things could be fixed, but the problem is they're not.
He argues remote work isn't as widespread as it seems. ('In Europe, for example, where employees have always had more power, I figured remote work would stay. It hasn't. Most everybody's gone back to the office.') Even in the U.S., 70% of employers are in-office, all the time. ('[M]ost employers are small. Remote work and hybrid work, in particular, is largely a big city, big company phenomenon... It's only white-collar jobs.')

And fewer jobs offered are being offered with remote-working options, he believes, now that the labor market has softened. 'CEOs are now thinking we're losing something, and the employee resistance to return to the office has weakened.... The longer you wait, the harder it is to ever get people to come back without a big fight. '

Cappelli: Right now, people might be saying, 'I will quit if I have to go back to the office,' but it turns out they don't mean it. The reason, of course, is it's one thing to say that you will quit; it's another to actually walk away from a paycheck...

If you opt for remote or hybrid, good outcomes don't happen by themselves. You can make it work, but it requires more time and effort for management, more rules, more practices, more leadership.

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