Some Things You Can’t Mandate
Return-to-office mandates are nothing new. They’ve been happening since the early days of the pandemic. For those lucky enough to be in remote or hybrid work arrangements, each announcement undoubtedly sends a wave of a panic through your body. I know that’s how it was for me as a hybrid employee.
Then the RTO mandate came for me.
It was a total gut punch. Why now? Where is the data supporting this move? We’ve been touting the great success that is our hybrid model for years! We have data to back its effectiveness! This sucks!
At the end of the day, I work where I work, the job market isn’t what it was a few short years ago, and I, like many, have to carefully weigh my options. I’m not happy about a full return to downtown office life in a city that quite simply cannot handle the number of people it’s leaders want here during the week. Scrambling for parking, leaving for work more than an hour before my day starts because of traffic, parking expense and scarcity, the sheer time it takes to get to my skyscraper office building, wait on elevators that always seem to be in some state of disrepair, and then get to my grey, drab office is awful. All of that to then repeat the cycle in reverse at the end of the day. It’s madness. But the overlords have spoken and thus, here we are.
So now what?
Leaders have the power in the employee/employer relationship and always have. Sure, blips on the radar make it seem like things may be shifting. Remember quiet quitting? Remember when it seemed like employees could force remote work because employers were so desperate for talent? Ah, days gone by. But in the end, it always comes back to who holds the purse strings.
Like it or not, we are at the mercy of cruel feckless thugs, spineless bureaucrats who would run over their own mothers if it meant a 0.01% increase in profits, politicians who cave to the will of an infantile tyrant, and companies that see us as nothing more than easily replaceable cogs in the machine.
Ok, so that seems glum. Chalk it up to me knowing I have two weeks left of my hybrid arrangement. It may seem and feel glum for many of us. But we might be able to effect change from the inside. We may be able to help change the culture.
Leaders ultimately need employees to be happy and productive.
Even the seemingly immune-to-feelings Jamie Dimon issued a bit of a recanting this week following his anti-everything tirade during an all staff meeting. The backlash to his comments was immediate. Following the JPMorgan Chase RTO mandate, things were so bad the company had to disable its internal message boards.
People like Jamie Dimon are quick to say something like “if you don’t like it here, find the door.” They want you to feel like you are replaceable. Powerless. Stuck. But they also want (and need) you to feel motivated to perform. Some do this with power, some do it with leverage, some do it with motivation.
It’s all about positioning and power. Jobs aren’t as plentiful now, so you’re seeing employers flex their muscles. Notice how the biggest wave of RTO mandates has come during a time when the job market isn’t nearly as hot? That’s not an accident. At the same time, leaders might be a little more willing to listen on matters of culture now, given the way people feel about returning to a full-time in-office schedule.
A new ping-pong table isn’t culture.
Here is a short list of things that AREN’T culture: ping-pong tables, free snacks, flexible schedules, rules for meetings, casual Friday (catch me later on dress codes, I have some hot takes).
None of the above items represent culture. And yet, they do.
Conversations about the employee experience while in the office focused more on what the employer can do for the employee to help them enjoy their time at work. Happy employees tend to be more productive, stay with companies longer, and build stronger work relationships.
So why aren’t the items listed at the top of this article culture? Because they’re add-ons, features, and benefits. No one is accepting a job because you have a ping-pong table. But lots of people might be delighted to work for you if your culture is good. Good culture can mean different things based on a number of factors like industry, geographical location, diversity of the workforce, and the size of the organization. It’s far easier for the CEO of a 50 person company to have their finger on the pulse when compared to the CEO of a company with 5,000 employees.
Making culture even more complicated, you have five generations in the workplace:
Baby Boomers. Born between 1946 and 1964. Broken into two distinct groups, Golden/Early Boomers (194–1954) and the Hippies (1956–1964).
Generation X. Born between 1965 and 1976).
Xennials (look it up…). Born between 1977 and 1983.
Millennials. Born between 1984 and 1996.
GenZ. Born between 1997 and 2012.
Think about that for a second…it would not be uncommon to have someone aged 65 (born in 1959) in the same office as someone aged 25 (born in 1999). There are three generations BETWEEN these two colleagues. How on earth do you address culture when you have five distinctly different generations with varying ideas of what it even means to work?
The answer is frustratingly simple; communication and empathy.
Employees are often willing to tell leaders exactly what they need to know to create a great culture. Leaders I work with often complain that culture is too difficult to manage because people are so different. It’s a valid concern. However, challenging doesn’t mean impossible or ignorable.
Leaders need to be thoughtful about what their employee experience is. For example, I have completely overhauled/am in the process of overhauling the orientation experience at two different agencies. At first, I didn’t get everything I wanted, but I got a lot of it. I harped on my HR colleagues, told them we needed to make it great. We can’t just check things off a list. That’s no way to create a truly great experience for someone.
We have to consider all the “touch points.” This is a phrase I learned when I attended one of the best professional development programs of my entire life — the Disney Institute. Love Disney or not, their customer service development programs are best in class. There’s a reason major retailers like Target adopted the Disney philosophy decades ago. Ever wonder why Target calls customers “guests?”
Touch points are everything someone encounters. When I worked in a museum this meant the website, phone, parking lot, entrances, front desk, museum floor, experiences, staff, restrooms, vending machines, temperature, and even the trash cans. Literally anything a visitor/guest/customer encounters, interacts with, or experiences, is a touch point. And ALL of them must be considered and accounted for if the experience is to be truly great.
Office life is no different! How long would it take for employees to complain if the restrooms were dirty? If the internet didn’t work consistently? If the elevators were broken, causing delays in moving around the building? Leadership responsiveness to employee concerns can make or break the sense of culture.
The disconnect.
There’s often a disconnect between what leadership thinks is culture and what employees see as culture. Look no further than the space we work in. When was the last time your leaders (or you if you are a leader) toured the work area of employees and gave honest consideration to what employees experience on a daily basis? What is the temperature, how comfortable are the chairs, is the open floor plan or walled offices conducive to the type of work being done? What is the general condition of the workspace? Would the leader want to work in this space?
Showing empathy and consideration for employees, their work and their environment is the foundation of good culture. Without a thorough and honest evaluation of all the touch points, no leader can hope to build a great culture. Any effort at creating or changing the culture will seem superficial at best and cruel at worst. And if you want to get a ping-pong table, go for it!
Just remember you need to do a whole lot more.
What do you think? Comment below and let’s talk about it. You can also listen to my conversations on topics like this on my weekly podcast Born to Yap, Forced to Work (available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify).
I’m a workforce development, culture, and leadership coach who has a decade of experience helping to build amazing teams and leaders. If you’re interested in working with me, visit my website to learn more: Longview Collaborative.
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