If you are reading this post, you either feel offended by the headline or you are curious about my extremist opinion. In both cases, welcome, and thank you for your attention!
Hybrid, What?
I was once in talks with a company about a position and we got quite far in our negotiations. At a certain point, I asked if the company was either remote-first or office-first. Their answer: “We are running a hybrid model which gets us the best of both worlds. People who live in the same city, are supposed to come to the office at least 3 days a week and everyone who is remote, stays remote”.
Please allow me to explain why hearing about this policy convinced me not to join the company.
I am Guilty of Making The Same Mistake
Each time I visit my parents’ house, I feel like a child again. Not in a calming re-visiting the nest way, but in a way that reflects my immaturity when I was living with them. I remember that I was a different person, seemingly less of a person than I am right now, and so going back feels like a regression. The same happens to me when I see companies repeating my mistakes. In one of my start-ups, I tried to mix the remote and office worlds while trying to sell the concept as progress.
Burning Time and Someone Else’s Money
The usage of the word ‘hybrid’ creates more harm than good. Employees are told that they should be at the office ‘some’ days of the week. But which days? They might vary, depending on the department or even on the topic which they are working on. Now your employees will start talking one on one and trying to organize meetings around their in-person availability. This will, of course, happen during their most productive hours. You will literally see their time running down the drain due to the organizational overhead.
If your team was fully remote before, due to health and safety reasons (don’t forget it’s 2021 when I am writing this), some of them might have adapted to working completely remotely. Declaring yourself a ‘hybrid’ company and forcing them back into office time will inevitably make them quit. This goes especially for developers. We have worked remotely for ages now. A company-wide policy that calls itself ‘hybrid’ just implies by default that it is not remote. As a developer, I would ask myself: “What will happen in the future? Will somebody force me to change the way I work and deliver value just because they want to cozy up occasionally? Nah, I’d rather look for some other place where they offer me a remote-first position”. Funnily enough, developers are usually those who are being granted ‘fully remote’ positions as an exception, but this uncertainty regarding working locations will still make them quit.
A Multi-Class Society Creates Frustration
These exceptions are not well received by the rest of the team. Remember, you have one company and everybody talks.
> ”So If I am not living in a different city or am not a developer, do I have to come to the office while the others don’t?”
> ”Um, actually, yes”.
In the past, it was hard enough to explain that not everybody needs a top-of-the-line MacBook for their work, but now we are adding another value-diminishing factor to the envy pile. Do you believe that off-sites, or other team-building activities, will compensate for that? I don’t.
Be Brave, Be Consistent
Just be brave and embrace the ‘remote-first’ movement. It is the clearest message you can send. For those who like to cozy up, add ‘office welcome’. I had to learn the hard way that being remote is not the most important thing about this policy. It is about (striving for)
- Equal treatment of all employees, independently of their location.
- Streamlining an onboarding process.
- Documentation, especially when it comes to meetings and decision-making.
- The reduction of informal meetings.
- The widening of your talent pool.
- Asynchronous communication (even though it’s something I with struggled the most)
Do We Now Stop Being Social Creatures?
Remote-first companies as I see them can absolutely have people meeting up in person. In fact, I would highly recommend having off-site meetings each quarter. Raising awareness among the team that the person on their computer is not just an avatar is one of the most important missions for you to complete as a manager. Having a physical office is great if you can afford it as it gives your employees a forum to meet up when they want to recharge their social batteries.
Do I Need To Change Now?
If you are reading this and still think that your company cannot and should not work remotely, let me assure you that it is totally cool to be office-first. Maybe you are producing physical goods or your team just works best when everyone is on-site. Just communicate clearly what your policy is. I am definitely not advocating for fixing something that’s not broken.
