DH’s company is hybrid. They considered ft RTO but life had moved on for some staff members after the lock downs (children, dogs, elderly relatives) and the fact that their needs changed meant that in a non-covid world they would likely have left the company to find alternative jobs to accommodate where they are now. However, his industry relies on the technical expertise of his colleagues as well as the relationships they’ve fostered and when they factored in the costs of recruitment and rehiring it was felt to be in the company’s interests to adopt strategies that would more likely retain staff.
What DH has seen is that both office based and WFH strategies encourage productivity in different ways - when he’s ITO, you can model those professional relationships and practices to new/younger staff, build those relationships, mentor them. Yes you can also organically speak to people so there is an immediacy and a pace of in person working that simply cannot be replicated with WFH in a global company and yes in a 8-6 day staff are more productive per minute/hour than they are at home, himself included. This is really crucial if you have complex and time sensitive projects/issues.
However… people who do not commute log on earlier, work later, and are more likely to respond to messages ‘out of hours’. Ie, although they no longer have the 2-3hrs commute each day, they will work on average at least an hour longer, more in my DH’s case. This hour makes up on productivity meaning that the productivity per work day is about the same, just over a longer period and probably qualitatively different. In a global business it often means that connectivity between sites around the world is more fluid/organic as they are not sitting looking at the world clock page on ipads working out when best to contact Singapore/Texas/Australia - they can simply message ‘when can you speak about x? An issue has cropped up’ and 75% of the time someone will have reached out within 30mins, even if it is preceded by a ‘can it wait 20mins, just walking the dogs and reception is poor?’
The culture in his company has, as a result, become more family friendly, as colleagues are (after a brief post-covid period of expecting immediate responses and 24/7 reactivity) surprisingly empathetic and considerate of the myriad of complex multi generational family needs. The few that really were taking the P were quickly reeducated or ‘managed out’. DH says that MH indices seem, on the whole, to have improved as have working relationships. His staff/colleagues are required to do 40-60% in the office (the exact percentage is agreed with each person on an individual basis and that stat may be fluid - ie 80% in office term time; 80% WFH over school holidays to facilitate childcare for instance). The only priviso is that they must include 2 days tues-thurs (I think), to ensure the staff do actually interact and team briefings/trainings can be arranged.
So, I think a nuanced approach to WFT/hybrid/RTO policies is needed. Industry obviously matters, but so does the age and expertise of staff and the cost to the company of recruiting. I think a gung-ho approach to insisting all staff RTO FT by x date is a recipe for disaster, whereas stating that ‘the company would like to move to a more office-based manner of working but will consult with each individual staff member to explore what that would look like and whether some percentage of WFH can be accommodated’ is a more rational one and, long term, could save the company money and improve morale/productivity.