Bosses Question Eagerness Of Remote Employees BY VANESSA FUHRMANS
More than a year into the U.S.’s great work-from-home experiment, many companies have hailed it largely as a success. So why do some bosses think remote workers aren’t as committed as office dwellers?
Recent remarks of numerous chief executives suggest the culture of workplace face time remains alive and well. At The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit this month, JP Morgan Chase & Co.’s James Dimon said remote work doesn’t work well “for those who want to hustle.” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has called it “an aberration that we are going to correct as soon as possible.”
WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani—whose business relies on office space—sparked an uproar on social media and beyond after he said employees who are “uberly engaged” with their companies would want to go to the office at least two-thirds of the time. So did Cathy Merrill, the CEO of Washingtonian Media, which publishes Washingtonian magazine, when she wrote in an opinion piece that business leaders had a strong incentive to change the status of staffers who are rarely in the office from full-time to contractor.
Both later apologized for the way their comments came across and said their intent wasn’t to devalue any worker. Yet those public comments reflect some managers’ private feelings and raise the question of whether those who choose to work from home as colleagues head back to the office will have to fight stigmas associated with remote work.
Many more employees will work remotely, at least part-time, than did before Covid-19, providing a nationwide test of how remote workers perform, and are perceived, when a public-health crisis isn’t keeping them at home.
Companies are trying out hybrid models in which people divide their week between the office and home. Some are giving workers the option to work remotely full-time, as with Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. Yet plenty of bosses view five days in the office as proof that employees are ambitious and productive, suggesting that, in some workplaces, two classes of workers could emerge.
As homebound employees juggled caregiving, online schooling and other issues alongside their regular workloads in the past year, many companies reported that their workforces were productive and engaged.
Using an array of metrics for 7,000 workers, such as email and cloud-based tools, productivity software company Prodoscore Inc. found employees were overall more productive and worked longer hours in 2020 than in 2019.
Many employees agree, with caveats. In a Gartner Inc. study this year of more than 3,000 professionals, 75% of fully remote workers and 70% in a hybrid setting said they and their teams were able to adjust to shifting priorities, compared with 64% of fully on-site workers. Remote and hybrid workers also reported in larger numbers feeling comfortable taking risks and testing ideas. Junior employees and self-described extroverts, however, were more likely than others to say a physical office space was important for learning and brainstorming.
“The idea that you’re sacrificing your career mobility for remote work—it’s a false trade-off,” said Kris Lescinsky, who works from her Austin, Texas, home as a senior enterprise transformation manager at Mural, a visual-collaboration platform with staff around the world. Her setup at the San Francisco-based company lets her run calls with international clients, be in instant touch with colleagues, and—as with her last remote job, where she was pro- moted—she said she is focused on advancement.
But companies with largely remote workforces aren’t the norm. Research suggests remote workers lag behind office- dwellers in some kinds of career advancement. A February 2020 study of more than 400 tech workers by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Northeastern University found that while remote and nonremote workers won about the same number of promotions, salaries of remote workers grew more slowly. At companies where remote work was less common, telecommuters won fewer promotions.
Many bosses said they want people in the office because they worry about losing the creativity and spontaneous collaboration that comes with physical proximity. Some also fear a too-remote workforce won’t be able to put in the face time with clients to win business and be competitive.
Another reason some bosses have doubts about remote workers’ dedication lies with just how difficult managing far-flung teams can be, research suggests. In survey findings published last summer in the Harvard Business Review, 40% of 215 managers from around the world said they struggled to lead remote teams in the pandemic.
Still, leaders who look askance at remote work might be setting themselves up for some turnover. In an Ernst & Young survey of 16,000 employees this month, 90% said they wanted flexibility post-pandemic. More than half said they would consider quitting if they didn’t have that flexibility. —Chip Cutter contributed to this article.
Research suggests office-dwellers hold an advantage on career advancement.