This week Andy & Brian talk about recent studies looking at remote work.  Are in-office workers getting more promotions than those who work remotely?  Are people who work in the office actually more productive than those who work at home?  And does that distinction even matter?

Brian Beck: Happy Friday, welcome to Friday 15, My name is Brian Beck, I’m here with Andy Hoar. Andy, great to be here with you this week. Action packed week, lots of breaking news, we’re gonna get into that in a minute, but happy Friday, Andy.

Andy Hoar: Yeah, this is a really good topic. When we’ve talked about a few times before, but now there’s some new research as we wanna talk about. So I say we jump right in.

Brian Beck: Absolutely, Andy, so here we go. Let’s start with our breaking news. So, Andy, are in-office employees favored to over-remote workers – new research shows that maybe that’s the case as Elon Musk says, go pretend to work somewhere else. Is this coming to pass? Wall Street Journal says remote workers are losing out on promotions. So, what’s the data telling us, Andy?

Andy Hoar: Well, there’s always been this kind of bias toward you, feel closer to people you see more frequently, either in person or in Zoom, but out of sight out of mind is the old saying goes. And I think what we’re finding is post-pandemic people who’ve returned to the office as a part of their job versus stayed remote are getting more opportunities for promotions, they’re getting more favorable treatment, et cetera. The question is, is that legitimate? Does the data bear out that they’re more effective, they’re more productive if they come into the office? Because that’s how you should be promoting, right? The more effective, more productive people, not just if you’ve seen more often.

Brian Beck: Well, look, I mean, this I read through this article from the Wall Street Journal and this one of the things that stood out to me, Andy, was this stat, a Gartner survey in 2021 found that 68% of executives and managers believe that in office workers were higher performers than remote workers. That to me says it all.S o, you’re going to line yourself up for a promotion by going to the office, are we going to end up with people in the office, all the people who have any kind of aspiration of advancing their career, going to the office, everyone else staying at home, is this like a dichotomy? I mean, it’s fascinating. Are we going to have two different types of workers and those that go in and the ones who actually want to succeed in life? I don’t know. Well, that’s a big number.

Andy Hoar: There’s a problem with this too, which is in B2B, you have a particular issue because you have a lot of people who work in factories, manufacturing plants, and then you have a kind of a political problem where you’ve got the white collar workers who can work from home because that’s their job, makes that possible. We’re going to talk about this one in a moment. And then you’ve got more of the blue collar workers who were working in the factories and distribution warehouses, et cetera. What do you have a two-tiered company where all the white collar workers worked from home, all the blue collar workers work in the office? I was told at a conference, but two years ago,that was just not viable. But I want to come back to one thing you said, that piece of research that you quoted. There was one word there that mattered more than any other word. It’s the word ‘believed’. They said they believed they were more affected. They were more productive.

Brian Beck: This is the most important thing.

Andy Hoar: I don’t know.I’m kind of a reality guy. No, you’re a data jockey. You’re a data perception. But certainly the perception is of this. But it’s the old perception about the first person in the office is the most effective. Well, it’s interesting. We had this Wall Street Journal article that came out a couple of weeks ago. Now, we had another one that just came out very recently, which is also fascinating, because not only on the positive side are the people going to the office getting the promotions from the negative side, they’re also the ones avoiding the layoffs. Once again, bosses are saying, if I don’t see you, you’re more likely to be rift. Are they basing that on data in the silence?

Brian Beck: It’s happening.I think the stat was what? 31– I was looking at the article yesterday. It was 31%. There’s something like that, or more likely to be laid off.Is that the number? I think it is.

Andy Hoar: But do you want to be one of these companies that keeps all of the extraverted go-getter types? You don’t necessarily do better work or any work. We’ve met people like this before. Oh, come on. They come in, they hang out, they make everybody feel good, they talk about the game, and they don’t do any work.

Brian Beck: Don’t pretend to work somewhere else, Elon Musk.I like it. I mean, come on. You are one third less likely to succeed in life if you don’t go to the office. That’s what this is saying.You’re more likely to get a promotion. Come on.

Andy Hoar: Yeah, I mean, that’s clearly what a lot of bosses are doing,a lot of senior managers are doing.T he question is, is that smart? I would argue it’s not. There’s got to be a more objective methodology other than I see the guy in the office more, therefore, he gets the promotion. But hey, look, you know what? We saw another article recently around this. IBM, this was kind of a big deal just a couple of days ago, announced that they told their managers. Not their employees yet, but I think the managers are the first step along the way. Move close to an office or quit. Whoa. So this is IBM, which by the way, a lot of people are knowledge workers. IBM, most people are talking about here, not working in factories. These are white collar workers. But again, it starts with the managers. So this is how this went down. I’m sure they have all this real estate that nobody’s using. They’re getting criticized by investors for not hitting their numbers. Somebody goes, huh, if we got people back into the office, we could kill two birds with one stone, ostensibly one. We put them in the office, which means we’re maximizing the investment we made in that. OK, fine. But then the other one is we can tell investors that everybody’s back in the office, therefore, because we see them more, they’re more productive. I don’t know.That’s what they’re doing. And you know what’s happening here is lots of employees are pushing back.

Brian Beck: Well, here’s the other stat that’s interesting that was in these articles. People that work remotely are more likely to quit, Andy, they’re more likely to quit. If you’re– it was about third more likely, with some data from–

Andy Hoar: But Brian, couldn’t that also be because they’re more productive? And there’s more–No, it’s because–There’s more demand for their skills. These are higher quality people. Look, it goes both ways.

Brian Beck: That’s a huge assumption, Andy. Come on.Give me a–

Andy Hoar: But not assuming that you see them more often.They’re further more effective, isn’t?

Brian Beck: Well, I mean, there is some data–There is some data that supports your discussion, which is versus this. This new research from University of Pittsburgh that suggests that office mandates may not help companies’ financial performance, but they can make workers less satisfied with their jobs – interesting. So what this is saying is there’s no financial benefit. That having companies– people come back to the office. Interesting.

Andy Hoar: And there’s a financial cost, which we’ll get to in a moment. You know, a lot of people will stop calling this return to office and they’re starting to call it return to the past, which is interesting because that’s what it is. There’s no evidence that return to the office is actually makes the company more effective. In fact, this data actually disproves the whole idea. I think the jury is out. I think it depends on the job, depends on the person, et cetera. But there’s a real risk here that people, especially I think, stay at home moms– I’ve said this for a long time now– who can get a lot more work done at home. And they don’t have to go get dressed up, commute, pay for the commute, pack lunches, all that kind of–this is a far better circumstance. Our company is willing to sacrifice highly effective, say, stay at home moms is a very kind and narrow group– at the altar of we need everybody in the office because that’s what we’ve always done.

Brian Beck: Well, the interesting thing too, and these are–reading these articles, Andy, one of the things that came out is that people are willing to accept–they’re cognizant of the fact that if we’re not in the relationship, they’re not there sitting with the manager or the boss. There’s no face time there. That there’s in fact some risk- -they’re at some higher risk of layoff of not getting a promotion. But they’re willing to accept that. And they had a bunch of quotes in these articles talked about, the interviewed people. And they said that, listen, I know I’m at greater risk here, but I am willing to sacrifice that potential, quote unquote, intangible opportunity or now tangible with data for the fact that it gives me flexibility to be with my family, et cetera. So I think people are cognizant of that there is value in that relationship. I agree with you, though, Andy. I think the jury is still somewhat out on this. I’m not 100% convinced there isn’t going to be some– in some industries and categories of workers, some impact, some financial impact of not having people together in a team. And I think that’s why you see companies like IBM, so a lot of tech companies, you see it with Amazon. These are all roles that can be done for the most part, obviously not their warehouses, but they can be done remotely.

Andy Hoar: Where’s this office going to be? Where’s this magical office that everybody can commute to? Because the reality is, too, when the pandemic hit Google and the rest of these companies resisted this whole idea, they were famous for telling a bunch of people creating technology tools to work remotely that they had to be in the office to do that, which is ironic. But what they found was that the pandemic forced them to look elsewhere and guess what it did? It enabled them to hire people in the Czech Republic and people in Ireland who were less expensive, just as effective. And that’s what they’re sacrificing here. When you force people to come into a physical office, they have to physically be near an office, like the IBM article said, what if IBM doesn’t have an office in the UK? What? They can’t hire anybody from the UK? I mean, I’m making that up, obviously, but that doesn’t seem smart.

Brian Beck: Well, just keep you going.The other dynamic is we’ve got–it’s kind of a new normal that people do this remote sort of Zoom-based or Teams-based meetings and things. So I was talking to someone at Amazon recently. I talked to folks at Amazon all the time. And he was telling me that the return office made a– he lives three hours from the office .But he has to go to the office. He moved during the pandemic. So he goes to the office three days a week. He’s like, I get to the office. I turn on my computer. I spend the entire time on virtual meetings and I go back home for three hours.That’s right. It’s ridiculous. Why am I doing this?

Andy Hoar: Yeah, but the boss saw him, therefore, he was effective .I mean, you just see this somebody left a note here. They had a comment. New leadership is tuned into empowerment and balancing personal quality of life versus rewarding people who are acting busy. That’s the term acting busy.

Brian Beck: Thank you, Ben, for your comment there. That’s awesome.Y eah, no, it’s crazy. Thanks, Ben. Appreciate that. It’s really an interesting, almost, change in culture. But the data is proving that people are–people are a shock provider and giving up some things that if they don’t get to the office. So there’s some real cost, though, to doing it. Andy, look at this Fortune article. Employees are spending the equivalent of a month’s grocery bill in the return of the office and growing more resentful than ever in a survey finds. I mean, there’s real cost to people doing this. So again, if I’m forced to go to the office,I may resent my– start resenting my employer.

Andy Hoar: Well, think about this. So the number they asked me was $561 per month that people spend more who have to return to the pastor the office. They spend on transportation, additional child and pet care and domestic assistance. These are real burdens that people have to pay all in the name of what? Face time? Literally? To be there in front of a boss? I mean, again, I’m not discounting face-to-face interaction. But the question is, is it worth it? And they sit in the surveys to finding people who have to do this return to office thing, have higher levels of stress and burnout and turnover, et cetera? So I don’t know. I’m not sure this makes a whole lot of sense.

Brian Beck: Yeah. And I think as we think about this, Andy ,for B2B e-commerce leaders, which is most of our audience here, this but I hear consistently from B2B leaders that they are, in fact, hiring remotely. They are– they will and are willing to and have figured out how to manage people remotely. And I don’t get the impression, again, this is anecdotal, but I don’t get the impression that they’re going to hold back on promoting someone because they’re not sitting there in front of them. That’s because largely a lot of these heads of e-commerce are also remote, right? They may go to the office a week a month or something, but they’re mostly–a lot of them are, in fact, remote. So fascinating. And then this whole degree of this gets to this next point about the degree of teleworkability. There are some functions that you just can’t do remotely, right? Speak to this, little Andy.

Andy Hoar: Yeah, so just quickly at the top, obviously, data processing, internet publications, that kind of thing, 80%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, that is to make 80% of those jobs can be done remotely. But as you go front of that on the list, obviously, working in a grocery store, you can’t do that remotely, so that’s a lot more willing. A lot of B2B is kind of in this middle area, but which does tend to huge toward people being in the office, that said, it kind of depends on what you do. Because if you’re working in digital in B2B that’s a kind of a knowledge worker role. You can work remotely, but you do have a tier two–you do risk a two tiered system. That’s a real problem where you’re working in digital for a distributor, and you’ve got guys working in the warehouse who have to go there every day. And then you’ve got people working from home. I don’t know, that creates maybe the wrong political environment.

Brian Beck: Well, I think we’re still– the jury’s still out, but at the end of the day, we polled our LinkedIn audience. We got quite a few folks weighing in on this comments, but we asked the question, are in office workers favored for promotions and other benefits over remote employees? 65% said, hey, in office is favored. So there’s a recognition amongst people working that it benefits me to go to the office and get in front of people. Relationships still matter, Andy, some ways that gives me hope. That it’s not all just AI and virtual. But at the end of the day, people recognize this, and I think they’re acting on it.

Andy Hoar: So–I think we’re going to see the water finds its own equilibrium. We’re going to see how this pans out. I think really talented people, right now, even though companies like Apple and Amazon is an extreme example, they’re very much interested in forcing people back into the office while the West Coast companies are.But you know that for really talented people who don’t want to do it, what do they do? They look the other way. And so there’s going to be a lot of look in the other way, but at some point, when is looking the other way, become a policy? It’s going to have to, because there are talented people who are just not going to want to be a part of this environment. And so what do you do? Just walk away from talent? I don’t think so.