Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people

With case counts dropping, mask mandates fading away, and businesses of all kinds reopening, the moment that many have been anticipating (with either enthusiasm or dread) is upon us: the return to working at the office.

While many essential workers aren’t “returning to the office” because they never left, folks who have been working from home for over a year are experiencing a wide variety of emotions, ranging from glee to panic. For some people, working at home has been an absolute nightmare of trying to keep work and home life balanced. For others, it’s the culmination of every dream they’ve ever had: no commute, no long hours away from family and pets – no need to wear real pants. A lot of people are living in the in-between space of not loving the isolation of working from home full-time, but still liking it enough that they want to keep doing it at some level.

It’s been fascinating to observe how things are supposedly going to change – or not – when companies bring people back to the office. Some employers are relaxing in-office dress codes but maybe just temporarily, until people “get used” to being back in the office. Pronouncements that flexible work schedules and regular work-from-home arrangements would endure past the pandemic seem fragile, as many employers are signaling that a return to the office means a return to the office – meaning not just that people will be back at their desks, but that everything will return to the way it was pre-pandemic.

What I think many employers aren’t recognizing is that it’s not just that times have changed. Workers have changed. People whose health improved, who achieved better work-life balance, who spent more time with their kids, or their elderly parents, or even their pets, or pursuing their hobbies, etc. while working from home aren’t going to just forget about all that now that the pandemic is receding. You know that saying, “you can’t un-ring that bell?” Many people got their bells rung (in more ways than one) during the pandemic, and it’s not so much that they’re going to be unhappy about employers trying to force people to go back to the way everything was before – it’s that employees flat-out won’t do it. I think most employers have recognized this, as a recent McKinsey study found that 9 out of 10 employers are going to offer remote work in the future. My personal opinion? That 10th organization is going to have some considerable difficulties in the future finding and retaining top talent, and may want to consider crossing over and joining their peers in embracing the new future of permanent remote work.

But hey, don’t take my word for it. I’ve been observing Microsoft during the pandemic, and the evolution of their attitude toward remote work – for themselves and for their clients’ employees – has been interesting. Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, has been pretty transparent about not loving the idea of remote work. However, the company is encouraging its customers to think about remote work as “the next great disruption” and to prepare for it the same way they’d prepare for any other major disruptive force in the marketplace (using Microsoft products, of course). A couple of Microsoft’s leaders have been pretty blunt in the press with their outlook, which is that employees have been fundamentally changed by the pandemic, and they’re not going to go back to the office full-time just because their employer wants them to. They’ll just leave for a company that offers what they’re looking for. I’ve told many employers over the years that “talented people always have options” and firmly believe that in the future, the best talent will likely want the most flexibility and work-life balance. Which includes the ability to work remotely, at least part of the time.

That’s why I titled this post “tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.” Because in so many organizations – especially when it comes to things like remote work – I see leaders falling back on tradition as a justification for denying the facts that are right in their face, which is that businesses can succeed with people working remotely. Oh, sure – I also see some feels-based pronouncements from leaders claiming that “people who want to work from home are less engaged” or other such nonsense that’s completely unsupported by research (side note, I imagine when your company’s success is predicated on people not working in their homes, it’s likely profitable and advantageous to circulate opinions like that).

Because both past research and recent experience doesn’t support the idea that people can’t be productive, and companies can’t be successful, with people working remotely, some leaders are falling back on the classic “but that’s how we’ve always done it” excuse. Which is no more, and no less, than allowing the decisions of people who are now dead (or at least no longer in the workforce) to dictate how an organization will operate in current conditions. It’s the same logic as, Aunt Hattie served fruitcake every Christmas dinner, and no one ate it because everyone hates fruitcake. But it’s “tradition” so we’ll continue to spend money buying a fruitcake that gets thrown in the garbage (eventually), because – well, we can’t really say why, except “because tradition.”

Now envision this analogy applied to a business considering whether to allow continued flexibility with remote work. Scale up the fruitcake (like the Twinkie in Ghostbusters) to the point that it’s now worth millions of dollars and could make or break the success of your company. Does making an emotional decision, or one based on “tradition,” make sense? It doesn’t to me. The people who set up the belief system that work has to be done in an office were working at a time when things like online collaboration tools, videoconferencing, and instant messaging – heck, maybe even the Internet – seemed futuristic, or weren’t in common use. They made the decision that made sense for them, in their time. You, as a leader, need to make decisions based on what makes sense for you, in your time. Screw tradition. Tradition is not a help to you in the new VUCA reality we are all living (and trying to succeed) in every day.

So before you, as a leader, chicken out and decide that you’re going to fall back on the Aunt Hattie’s Fruitcake justification for doing something, think again. Because the wrong decision is likely to cost you a lot. In my opinion, we’re at one of those great “precipice” moments in the history of work. Like the introduction of computers as a tool for everyday workers, or the Internet becoming a necessity for employers and employees everywhere, we’ll look back on the pandemic as a watershed moment where things really changed for American workers. There’s a tremendous opportunity for business leaders and owners to be on the right side of things, and not end up like the people in the 1990s who thought the Internet was a fad.

If you are having trouble envisioning a future for your company that includes permanent remote work, or you’re struggling to write common-sense, practical policies for permanent remote workers, let’s talk.