We’re seeing it on the highways, in the line at Starbucks, and in the renewed struggle to find an empty conference room—offices are coming back to life post-COVID. But what’s less seen—but out there if you listen closely—is a large group of people who are not ready to head back into the office like they did before. And they are starting to quit when asked to return.
We’re in a unique position at Hearty, working with both the employee and senior leader sides. Very strong, specialized talent—the kind recruiters call “unicorns”—are quietly asking about new openings because of a forced return to in-person work. Meanwhile, executives are asking for advice on what policies to implement. And both sides seem to be eyeing September as the crucial point, when summer vacations are done, school is back in session, and vaccinations are near a tipping point.
There’s going to be a LOT of turnover this Fall, mainly because too few executives are working to understand the mentality of their teams. Sure, there’s plenty of employee surveys and best practices being implemented—maybe even a few extra mental health days for good measure. But what’s mostly missed is a deep understanding of human motivation.
A Story on What NOT to Do
I recently had a conversation with a friend who is in the center of a typical company controversy. He leads a team of 15 people within a moderately-sized business. Over the past few months, he had discussions with his team about their return-to-work preferences. There was general agreement that they wanted to get back to the office together, while maintaining some of the new work-from-home flexibility, especially due to the convenience and enjoyment of spending more time with their children. They decided to do Tuesdays and Thursdays at the office. It’s been going well for a few months, and the team is ahead of their numbers for the year.
But the CEO decided this isn’t enough. She asked my friend to have his team come into the office more often, “because it might be good for morale of others.” It was just her gut instinct. By the way, the CEO is spending her summer in a vacation home thousands of miles away from the office.
People Crave Autonomy
Managing organization behavior comes down to understanding human behavior. Yet it seems very little research and discussion about human behavior is used in company decision-making today. It’s one person’s gut versus another, with the most senior leader making the final call. This happens in many company decisions, but working by “executive gut” happens more frequently on the people side because of the lack of data.
Well, actually, the data is out there. One of many sources is a book I read recently is The Art of the Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer. Author Steven Kotler presents a brain-science-based manual for how we are programmed. One key point is that humans crave autonomy. We want to captain our own ship—to have some free will and agency, especially in areas where we as individuals have the most responsibility and closest knowledge.
And the positive feelings of autonomy can come from very small things. Patagonia, for example, lets people set their own schedules. Google provides 20% time for work outside of your core responsibility.
COVID proved that we could make work-at-home work. While it wasn’t perfect, it provided people with new freedoms and flexibilities that they did not have before. And a funny thing happens when people get freedom and use it well: They damn sure aren’t going to be happy losing it.
Beyond the loss of freedom, employees feel a loss of mutual trust. When you are forced back to work it sends a message that the company wants to keep you close, to look over your shoulder.
What’s Worked for My Companies
Through trial and error, I’ve come up with a few ways to thinking about organizational behavior that have worked pretty well:
Your primary job is organizational design - Once your business is off the ground and you have a team doing the actual work, your job as a leader shifts into helping make sure they have the tools, training and guidance they need. Are people happy? Are they performing well? Will this new growth plan have unintended consequences on teamwork? Is this new manager fitting in? This is the unique work only you can do.
Get into their shoes - Stop thinking about what you would do in a situation, and start having direct discussions with the people who are impacted by your organizational directives. You are in a position of power and privilege, so any view you have is tainted. Do fewer surveys and a lot more individual 1-on-1s across the company—and spend that time listening.
Give accountability and responsibility - Freedom isn’t free, it comes with a requirement that employees actually get the work done. Look at the numbers and the work output. If that’s strong, leave people to their own devices. If there’s issues, then you can clearly address them and there’s no excuses like company policy to get in the way.
At our last company, which we started in 2012, our policy was to give people the flexibility to work from places and at times they saw fit, as long as they met their obligations and worked through processes within their teams. People moved to different cities, arranged to take 3-week vacations at once, and worked from home to mind a new puppy. They appreciated the freedom, and the vast majority worked well within it. The few people that couldn’t sync with their peers or handle this level of freedom got direct feedback and coaching.
From time to time our executive team would certainly get a bit frustrated by a lack of in-person office time that came from freedom. For example, we wrestled with declining attendance at our Friday afternoon all-hands meetings. But we didn’t jump to setting new policies or punishments. Instead, we said to ourselves,:“Hmm, people don’t see enough value in these meetings, so we need to either make them more useful or cut them back.” See what we did there?
Combining autonomy with responsibility and accountability worked wonders for our company’s product and business results. And our model became an advantage when recruiting new hires to keep feeding our growth.
That’s the greater point here: If you don’t adjust to how people want to work today, your business is in trouble. The era of command and control is over. Thanks to global markets and the spread of software, the best-run companies are taking more of the market pie. These best-run companies are powered by the best talent—which wants to be self-run. When you create that kind of company, your talent performs even better, stays longer, and encourages their other top people to join in the fun.