the data is in return to office mandates aren't worth the talent risks I am going to throw something out there right away before even reading this article that I somehow doubt it okay I'm just going to throw this out here I think that right now at the time being I think that this take is a very ephemeral take okay I'm just I this is what I think is I think that this makes way more sense in a world in which still offers tons of remote work if the world starts going towards less and less remote work I think this whole return to office mandates are going to become less and less of a talent risk I think right now while the world still is in a huge amount of flux and maybe maybe remote Remains the the deao standard maybe it doesn't then I think there's an argument here but I don't think we know what the next while is going to be all right I'm just that's I'm just letting you know my base take when I'm going to read this article because that's kind of the platform I'm working off of which is I don't know if we even know what's going to be the world in five years all right uh anyways nearly three quarters of Executives say return to office mandates are a source of leadership conflict crazy I can't believe that lack of work life balance ranks among the top five reasons employees quit what do you think is worse work life balance or having a bad manager one in the chat for bad manager two for work life balance I see a lot more twos than I was expecting I was I was seeing a lot more twos than I was expecting I actually thought it would uh I actually thought it'd be more exclusively ones than twos and what I mean by that is that a bad manager can ruin like every part of your day whereas work life balance can ruin parts of your day A bad manager guarantee work life balance issues yeah it can most certainly bad manager ruins the job for sure for me a bad manager is like number one reason why I'd want to leave work life balance seems like something you could potentially change right I feel like with a good manager and bad work life balance I could turn that job into a good work life balance pull it it's not that interesting I just wanted to see some Z ones and twos just to see I just want to generally gauge where people are there's by far more ones than big picture return to office mandates carry a steep cost over the last 12 months 63% of HR leaders report an increase in uh expectations for employees to return to uh the office many organizations who have encouraged on-site work but see low compliance are resorting to RTO mandates RTO returned to office but 74% of HR leaders cite these mandates as a sort of source of conflicts I am not trying to be mean to this article but this is what I would call a no Sherlock moment it's kind of like Hey we're going to make a massive change to policy my goodness people find this to be unsettling it's just like really yeah I can also agree that if you were to change things it would it would most certainly cause problems right all right the benefits prove to be modest at best and amid a rising well-being crisis waning trust between employees and their employers a competitive Talent Market it's high time to ask whether the benefits of RTO mandates are worth the risk all right let's see factors that contribute to lower intent to stay in a job average employees discretionary effort Employee Engagement intent to stay I'm having a hard time raing this thing uh gen Z employees just all of them high performing employees intend to stay goes down with no changes in these two gen Z employees are they saying return to office mandates cause this change intent to stay doesn't change and gen Z because gen Z never intended to stay anyways they're just completely stoked about leaving no matter what so it's just like e they didn't even change anything they still want to get the hell out of the office uh Millennial employees down 10% I could see that I could see that uh what an absolutely worthless way to cut date I'm having a very hard time reading this I assume this means when you do RTO this is what it what it means and I'm not sure what discretionary effort means also and I'm not sure how you measure employee engagement right why is there separate to one for just women well the hard part is is that I would assume that women genz don't have a change versus women Millennials seem to line up what like what I mean the problem is is this type of cut section with these type of cut sections show that right now looks like there's a generational problem so cutting it this way might be a bit confusing though I am curious about that I wonder if there is a difference here I i' actually I'd want to hear more reasonings why there's a difference and I wish if they would have cut it on women they should have cut it on men too and so that way we could have seen is there an actual difference on the other side cuz then it would have been it would have been a more interesting cut to see if there is a is if there's a difference between those two but we don't actually know the other we don't actually know the other cut which makes it impossible to know if there is a real if there's a if there's some sort of bodal nature or not I don't know not enough data managers managers want to leave which is also kind of confusing on that one they need better data scientists they need a data scientist does D I assume Dash means no change really bad data analysis on this one I agree with with that um all right okay okay return to office mandates are high risk issues with work life balance ranks among top five reasons employees uh give uh give for leaving an employer on average employees at organizations that Implement RTO mandates report lower intent to stay compared to those who organiz organizations who did not I mean again this is such a this is such an obvious thing to point out and what I mean by that is that if you have company structure around being remote people will develop a life around being remote you then say You must return to office of course this is going to cause people who have developed a life around and actually enjoy being remote the desire to leave like I don't I don't really understand how this is how this is not just like okay this is obvious article was written by Ai and was fed some stats I I don't think so high performers women and Millennials three groups that prize let's see high performers women and Millennials three groups that priz flexibility okay you've actually now this this one right here has now just convinced me that this is written by an AI cuz it does suggest that average employees don't value flexibility or gen Z doesn't value flexibility because women aren't High performers or Millennials classic classic she's correct she's absolutely correct she is neither a millennial nor a highper performer it's just not a it's not a thing Vin diagrams don't even touch each other are you sure about that is this am I really getting am I getting burned Again by by AI articles all right well let's keep going and see where this AI article is going high performers by the way guys how is this getting higher ranked on this I need more people participating in the primen react okay so I know which articles are actually good I need somebody out there we need a vetting system for these articles if only there was a vetting system for these articles if only there was a vetting system for these articles no one reads beyond the title I know it's fair no reads beyond the title so okay that I mean Fair um I don't get paid enough for that fair fair bisco bisco you actually pay me you don't pay enough I've been posting to the prime gen yeah I don't I don't read the prime gen um High performers may feel especially resentful about mandates particularly if they maintain performance O Let's see or overd delivered during the pandemic they may perceive RTO mandates as a signal of mistrust from management I don't care what anyone says being in person is always going to have better collaboration results I know people say it's not true I hear you okay I I get it but when you're talking to somebody in person just things happen that are different than if you try to it doesn't of course it does absolutely it does because there's all these things that happen that aren't in meetings they just don't they just don't have you ever had that thing where you're working on a project and you're typing along and all a sudden something comes up and you're really pissed about and you go oh God and then literally your your cube mate goes yo what's up you weren't going to talk to that person to begin with they just simply happen to be near you hear you express some sort of frustration and then just start talking to you about it that cannot happen remote there's just a difference working in uh working in office versus remote and I understand that not all offices maintained this some offices are probably awful right some offices are probably absolutely awful at this and remote is actually probably better because the people you work with is probably awful right you good fam you good fam but there's always going to be something about working in person body language is hugely important have you ever talked to somebody on the phone or especially over text and realize that they meant something different after you talked to them in person or you don't realize how upset somebody was until you talk to them in person versus not in person like all these things are very very real here bro try this algo it's just like in person communication contains a whole range of things uh I watched a video essay about this there's there's a lot of study that shows that you cannot there's some things you cannot do there studies showing parts of your brain aren't active when talking over the phone versus in person there's a whole bunch of stuff that just simply does not exist when you don't interact with the real world I understand that we don't want this to be true okay we have reflective neurons in our brain that make us act like the other person when one person starts getting uncomfortable you can start feeling the uncomfortableness unless if you of course are a bit acoustic which a lot of us are acoustic so we probably don't really feel that but this is real okay I know this might be hard Frosty balls you're like oh my gosh this doesn't exist of course it exists there's all sorts of things that exist that you cannot have in re in in video conversation right like I know you want a video call to work but a video call is not going to be the same as in person and if you don't believe me I want you to solve your next 10 fights with your significant other via video call I want I I want you just to rate how well that goes just why why don't you just go solve all your problems by the video calls everyone here is single right good luck like it's just it's going to be really hard because somehow in person just works a little bit better I personally don't want to have a divorce so I'm going to actually call I'm going to actually be with my wife in person that's a horrible idea why would it be a horrible idea there's no difference I do cuz I can communicate I can tell right away you can't communicate by the words you're using if you think your communication's perfect it's not just like my communication's not perfect written communication is literally Impossibles okay because the problem with written communication is that you the writer may not have the same emotions as the reader the reader May simply read it different because of what just happened 5 minutes before this you don't even know right that's why inperson again makes such a big difference I let's see I've worked remote for the Last 5 Years and enjoyed it yeah I'm not even I'm not arguing with I like remote work I'm just not a fool to what remote the where I lose on remote work okay I know that I lose certain things you will be probably passed up on more promotions if you have a 90% in office work and a 10% out of office work you will probably be passed up on more promotions and things simply cuz you're remote because there's a huge part of work that's just being Chums with people this is a very big thing for some people some people just feel they just they're you're not as happy being away from people some people are more happy being away from people it's sadly true networking is just a just an a is just an awful part of real life neither performance nor inclusion improves in office certain Talent segments women and Millennials whose organizations had implemented mandates were actually negatively impacted compared to those at organizations that had not not nearly two-thirds of employees report they work best in remote environments they also report higher feelings of inclusion in remote environments versus onsite I I mean I feel like no shot on this one I feel I mean I I personally feel that this has to be no shot how do you feel more included being remote I I have to understand that and by the way this whole the women in Millennials question is kind of interesting in the sense that Millennials are probably the most likely age to have young kids and so would they feel more resentful about the mandates probably right something about that says that they probably align very well on that here's here's actually kind of a weird observation is that when you're in office you get questions like want to go to lunch right this is just a non-work question altogether when you are remote you almost exclusively get questions related to work and what I mean by that is like hey X isn't working you work on X I feel like you get much more kind of like you get much more workon responses at least that's what I found I got a lot more workon responses when I when I was AC when I was remote while when I was in office I'd get a lot less workon things and now some people could say that's a positive I'm not saying it's not a positive because some people don't want to go to lunch it's good though I think that's a very that's a very personal question whether it's good or bad that's good and bad I like I like being asked to go to lunch I like asking people to go to lunch every interaction was a meeting while working remote yes that's see for me it was all meetings casual chat can be very toxic I don't know what that even means to tell you the honest truth I don't believe Gartner I don't know what Gartner does or what they do but I I I truly do not believe believe this statement I don't know if two-thirds of employees work best in remote environments I don't know if I think what if anything it probably says 2third of employees hate commuting right that's probably what we really are hearing right now is commuting absolutely sucks and maybe like 20% don't want to be asked to lunch and they just want to do work and leave or maybe 30% too maybe 40% too but somehow I just doubt some of these and and the whole like feeling more included in remote I just I'm just calling pure BS on that one uh High performing employees report a 16% lower intent to stay in the face of on-site work requirements um I'd love to see how much data they use to get this but I would just simply assume that it has everything to do with the availability right now okay RTO mandates carry us some small positive impacts employees may put in more effort in office where they feel more closely monitored well I mean do don't destroy your own arguments against remote work what it's like you you design this entire thing and there's an entire culture around people don't slack and then you're like like oh but also people tend to be uh more on the ball when they're in the office than out of the than out of the office you're just like which one is it which one are we talking about uh others may be more inclined to help colleagues with their workloads as their struggles are more visible or because closer Pro proximity makes it easier to ask for support I personally did find uh that I would take more time to ask a question because even just the thought of formulating my question into text was really really difficult as opposed to like grabbing a whiteboard and trying to draw it out I always found that I always found that I had a higher a higher barrier to ask questions out of office than in office I'm not sure if that's just you know likely how I you know being at Netflix it was kind of like one of the requirements is to be willing to ask questions and to be and to answer questions so you're not a hey messenger then dude no F that dude I ban people non-stop for that how many of those times would you say you rubber duct an answer I mean eventually I rubber duck an answer just because I'm purely willing to just spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out my own problems and then often during an during a what's it called during a code review they're like oh why don't you just use this it's like well I didn't ask and they're like oh you should have just asked you know I had a hard personally I have a hard time reaching out via text I find that it's very hard to really formulate my question well I have the same disease yeah get the hell out what who did flip ban some of us have hobbies and friends outside of work Prime get the hell out of here can you believe what this guy just said he's saying that this isn't his family okay if the startup is not your family then what the hell are you doing at the multi-billion dollar startup you think I'm just going to not give you stock for any reason no I want you in here every day so I said that to the guy and then I kid you not flip jump kicked his laptop like literally left off the ground feet flying in air did some sort of like scissor kick I think he I think they call scissoring he scissored their laptop I'm not really sure knocked the clean out of his hand it was incredible [Music] is this article for Tech or all professionals I'm not really sure managers who have arguably experienced the most significant change in their day-to-day work with the shift to hybrid or remote work and likely and likely the most anxiety saw the greatest benefits from RTO mandates yeah this chart doesn't make any sense much like this article I don't I don't know what he just said and I don't think he does either um I would assume that managers actually potentially have one of the greatest remote benefits ever and here's why is that all managers do are meetings or write docs I would just assume that if you're always if your life is just scheduled meeting to scheduled meeting to scheduled meeting video call or not video call yeah you probably have better communication you probably have better established relationships there's probably a bit more small talk but nonetheless it it feels like you'd be impacted a little bit less because this is already what you do anyways they just wander around and bug people then your job is probably not real it's probably not real it can be draining I can imagine to be draining this is why I never want to be a manager I never want to be a manager I don't blame you play games all day and say the zoom camera is broken absolutely more time in the office likely provides managers with a sense of familiarity with their employees and gives them greater visibility into to direct reports workflows ah hello fellow humans all right flexible approach uh yields the best results uh the benefits of in office times are real after all in-person connection can be energized however flexible human Centric Hybrid models yield more positive results than one siiz fits-all approach gner recommends HR leaders co-develop policies not mandates best practices include consider focusing or focusing employees on-site attendance around specific regular activities brainstorming and occasional events offsites organizations that took this approach saw the best talent outcomes all employees to in let's see allow employees to influence the policy employees who had opportunity to shape their team's hybrid work arrangement demonstrated higher engagement and effort provide a clear why for the requirements to work onsite companies that did that saw positive impacts on engagement effort and retention why because I said so overall the great conclusion is remote work is great for work life balance people are more happy when they feel happier with their life facts many might be more productive if they are happy I don't know the problem is is I don't know if number one is true I've seen seen remote work also be very destructive for some people because remote work especially if you live in a city your life your house your everything becomes the place you work and i' I've seen a lot of people talk a lot about being unable to disconnect from the job that actually by not having an office job they find themselves working more that they're unable to disconnect from from job this is not like I I I don't I I don't know if this is necessarily like a one for one so I can't say that your your first Point's true your second point is obviously true people are more happy when they feel happier like un like literally unarguable okay I cannot un argue that one it's actually real true a in fact does equal a for all A's and then many might be more productive if they are happy probably true I would assume that your productivity is probably proportional to your happiness like generally speaking when um like my wife and I are fighting I am probably less productive just because I am less happy when I'm less happy my my mind's distracted I'm kind of you know I I'm all I'm all over the place so I I could see I could see point two and three point 2 is obviously correct point three could very well be true as well if true then return true else return false I I do think well yes yes I think what you're trying to say too many avocados is isolation makes things worse this might be a us problem because as soon as my 8 hours are up I I disconnect from work and I don't care about a thing yeah it could be a us problem but I think it could also be a person problem I've met plenty of people in the US that also have the same thing when their time is up their time's up Co remote work felt different than remote work from now yep I would say I would assume there's a lot of differences right now um I don't know I can't the hard part is that you can't have an AB test okay let me say it this way there's a couple reasons why remote work is so specifically difficult to measure whether it's good or bad one you cannot a tested meaning we can't create the same company twice one in office and one out of office like that just does not happen because minimally you'd have to have different people working on it which means you're going to have to have a huge variation of this right you'd actually have to have many many many many many thousands of companies started in which two companies are actually started one in office one out of office just to even know if productivity really is better in office or out of office you can't like I don't think we can even say there's some sort of productivity gain or loss uh but second I think one thing that's really been hard on measurements is that we have this whole enchi ification process right like nidification is real nidification is absolutely real like everything feels shittier over the last four years is this because of remote work is this because of covid is this because of just us with the ever progressing desire to make more money from VCS constantly pushing products to be released early is it because people are burnt out is it because of what I don't know I I have no idea I know people say greed but I think that whenever you just blame it on one single thing I think you're just simply being dimwitted okay I think it's a lot more difficult consumerism because consumerism is the other side of the coin to Greed right and ification is a real real problem and so it's like why are things just generally getting shittier I don't know why things are generally getting shittier and ification is just a Non-Stop thing that's been marching forward constantly it got to be the vaccines it's probably the vaccines I think the covid vaccines clearly causing enh ification corporate greed has and is a bigger problem postco I don't believe you I think they are greedy AF beforehand and I think the greedy AF afterwards right that's a hell of a clip it's still the same I think that if you would have measure I think it's the corporate greed is something that looks like this if this is time this is levels of greed this is zero this is one I think corporate operates like this okay it's just a straight line okay I think before it was greedy I think afterward it's greedy of course there is always going to be some company that doesn't operate this way as much and treats their employees significantly better but you know that's a rarity okay I don't know like I think it's exceptionally impossible to really understand if remote work is actually better I think that this is a problem that we can argue about forever and I think that if you just truly think one is better than the other I know I feel like you're just being too onedimensional about it and I think it's also a generational question I think some people will find certain ways better like you know like I I don't like VR that much okay there's a lot of people that can just sit and VR all day like I'm just not that person I'm just not VR guy right I I mean I like it it's cool oh it's super cool but I also do you know I also might throw up I you know it's just like I'm old man my little my little brain my little ear my little ear has a lot of bubbles in it okay I'm just going to throw up now okay VR causes headaches also if you're young and you use VR apparently it's extremely bad for long-term eyesight like you know there's a lot of very tricky things it gets better over time I'm sure it does but I'm going to have to actually lean into it over time right uh but again I just think that these these arguments overall are one-dimensional because there's aspects that are going to be better in one than the other and you just have to choose what aspects you wish to maximize and which aspects you wish to minimize like me personally I'm kind of pretty much up to the point where if you said I had to move to San Francisco I would say no if you told me that I had to commute for an hour a day I'd say no but that also means that I might have to get paid less I may have less job opportunity I may have less you know less specific opportunities that's fine but that's a that's that's a choice I'm willing to make anyways the name is the primagen