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[Music]
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I think the most likely scenario is one
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where we continue to see lots of
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different people doing different things
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that you know for some companies will
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decide it's so important to their
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culture to have people in person a lot
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of other companies are going to say you
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know we quite like having people in
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person but the benefits of being able to
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recruit broadly are the benefits of
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really being able to meet our employees
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needs outweigh the advantages of
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bringing them back welcome to the ripple
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effect the podcast that takes you on a
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journey through the minds of work and
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faculty I'm your host Dan Loney and in
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each episode we'll be diving deep into
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the inspiration behind the
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groundbreaking research that Wharton
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professors have conducted and exploring
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how their findings resonate with the
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world today well great to be joined here
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on our show by Matthew Bidwell and
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Matthew is the management Professor here
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at the Wharton School he is also a
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faculty director of the Wharton people
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analytics initiative Matthew always
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great to get your Insight thanks very
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much much great to see you again thank
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you all right so we're kind of now in
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this unique new world of remote work I
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mean obviously we've had it for a couple
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of years now because of the pandemic I I
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guess though the question now is as
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we're coming out of that
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it still seems like remote work has this
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level of resilience and
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let me start there by asking you should
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I be surprised that it does seem to have
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this resilience this longer staying
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period that appears it's going to be
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around like
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I don't know if you should but I
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certainly am
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um you know one of the things I've been
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saying lately is I came into this field
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I started being
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um so let's go through a PhD and study
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work so the sense that work was changing
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really rapidly
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um this is in the late 1990s and
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slightly the conclusion I came to is
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that work was changing less between
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about between about 1990 and 2020 work
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changed I think less than in pretty much
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any other period in the last hundred
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years which says it all about my perfect
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timing
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um but I think with the growth of remote
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work what it means to work what it means
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to be employed or kind of date that
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experience has changed more in the last
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three years than at any time I can
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remember it has been dramatic and yeah
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I'm surprised I mean it was obviously
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hugely impactful when everybody went
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home right kind of coming when I was
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around mid to late March 2020
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everybody goes home and there's a sense
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okay we're going to try and do this
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um try and do this remotely
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I can't remember how long it was before
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we realized that actually this was going
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to be a semi-permanent thing there are
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some wonderful figures I mean that
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the person who's done the most research
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on this is um professor at Stanford
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called Nick Bloom
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um so he'd already done a little bit of
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work on remote work pre-pandemic and
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when the pandemic started he realized
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wow this is a big deal we should study
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it so he started kind of studying doing
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a running a survey month by month to see
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where are people working those sorts of
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things
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it looks like pre-pandemic about five
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percent of all days were being worked
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um from home so you know you had some
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people working with my anyway how did
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the pandemic that goes up to about 60
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because everybody gets sent home and
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frankly if you can't get sent home
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chance you're being laid off for
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reasonably high so you
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it has come steadily back down since
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then but it hasn't got much below about
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30 percent
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um and I think over the last
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seven or eight months it's been static
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right I mean we hear a lot about how
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everybody's going back to the office and
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companies bringing people back in you
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really struggle to see that in the data
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um and so yes
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like I say we start off at five percent
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covert forces everybody to
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um go home it's hard to say when covert
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ended
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um I think for most of us covert ended
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at the point at which we got covered and
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stopped worrying about it quite so much
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um but I mean at this point it isn't
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really shaping much of people's
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day-to-day decisions but we haven't
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returned to where we are the technology
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hasn't changed right right nothing else
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has changed but we have fundamentally
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changed how we work so yeah I'm
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surprised I didn't see this coming so
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then what what do you what do you
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attribute then kind of the success of
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remote work and and as we know not
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everybody is going to realistically work
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remotely the rest of their careers it's
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and it's off on as well but they're
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probably elements whether it be
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productivity the want of the employee
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the one of the company that are the
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reasons why it has worked so well
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um I think it's probably a couple of
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things
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um
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I think the Big Driver is
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we've discovered how much we like it
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um that
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going to the office every day carries
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enormous costs one of the things you see
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remote work is much more common for
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people working in big cities because I
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mean that the huge driver here is
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commute
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you know if your commute is half an hour
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each way that's still an hour a day
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right that you're spending doing
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something that isn't productive and
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usually isn't Fun
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um you know you have a lot of people
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with hour long or even two-hour commutes
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where you're spending two to four hours
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a day commuting and so yeah I think a
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tremendous driver is just the ability to
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claw back that time to put that time to
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good use right and so
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it's a
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economists and academics and stuff like
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to talk about bounded rationality that
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idea that we're broadly sensible but
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often within a little box we don't
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necessarily think that hard about things
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there's some ways it's a great example
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right we're abandonedly rational it's
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like yeah we commuted because that's
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what we did and we didn't think too hard
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about do I really need to be doing this
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every day once you've gone through a
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period where you weren't commuting and
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you're still getting your work done
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suddenly that opens up as a question
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like before it's taken granted yeah
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you're in the office now that feels like
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a choice and so I think we're just
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looking at that and saying why would I
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spend that time commuting
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um and so you know particularly for
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employees now when the company says come
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back into the office you've got an
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hour-long commute each way it feels like
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the same we want two more hours of your
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time right now that can make sense that
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can't be justified but you have to ask
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why what's the point of that and I think
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that's the other side of it so I think
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one side is we started to question for
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the first time do we need to be doing
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this right the other side of it is I
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think we discovered it wasn't that bad
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like I think there had been this baked
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an assumption that we probably need to
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be in the office to get things done in
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some ways a profound mistrust of one
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another right it's like well I know I'll
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do my work if I go home but all those
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other people I'm not sure anything will
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get done right and we discovered that
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for the most part most people do a good
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job at home that we can work at home and
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so it's we discover the benefits of many
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people not having to commute or immense
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the costs of having them work at home
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are probably less than we expected up
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till that point and so I think that has
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fundamentally changed the way that
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everybody looks at this for the story
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well that component of of working from
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home and being successful and being
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productive realistically it feels like
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for a lot of those people it's changed
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the dynamic of what the work day is
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whether it was eight to four nine to
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five whatever it is we see more people
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now maybe breaking up their day working
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you know uh two four hour segments or
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four two hour segments or whatever it is
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with being able to get up and go outside
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and get some fresh air or you know run a
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couple of errands or whatever and that
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Dynamic it's interesting to have that in
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the mix of the overall work day
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and not only that it's successful for
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the employee but the management
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understands that that's kind of part of
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the new Norm now
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I think so I mean I do think when you
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look at service about why people want to
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work from home kind of commute is number
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one so I'm sticking to my guns on that
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but flexibility is is another big one
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because yes it is when you're in the
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office you can kind of do office things
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right when you're working from home yes
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if you like and your kids aren't
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teenagers you can spend some time with
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your kids when they um when they come
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home from school
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um you can work out during the middle of
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the day frankly most people the hours of
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about one till three p.m are not
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tremendous productivity hours right and
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so if you want to go do something
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different then get your errands run take
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a nap whatever and then come back to
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work later you're probably not only is
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that going to be better for your use of
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time it's going to be better for the
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organization as a whole so yes it does
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you know that other dimension it creates
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um more flexibility to integrate
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different parts of your life and kind of
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use your time more productively rather
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than having there's a bunch of my time
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where I'm only going to be doing work
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things and kind of even though it'd be
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good to kind of fit some of these other
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things in so yeah that flexibility I
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think is quite positive as well for most
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of us
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what do you say to those that people
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that also are concerned about the issue
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of office collaboration or of losing
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something because you have people
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working remotely yeah and I guess that
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and I guess that factors back in to the
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technology question as well
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I think it's really so I mean I I don't
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want to dismiss those concerns
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um
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I mean I think there are tremendous
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benefits to remote working in terms of
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kind of the efficiency of not commuting
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in terms of the flexibility some people
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just prefer it
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um frankly for all some companies as
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well
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um we can talk about this kind of the
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low real estate costs broader Community
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broader recruitment all sorts of
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benefits there are real costs like I
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think
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we don't have a strong evidence on this
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as we would like
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but I think the anecdotal evidence
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suggests that we don't collaborate as
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well we don't build networks as well we
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don't communicate quite as effectively
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as when we're in person
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um so yes I mean I think
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and
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and that's where I think the debate over
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this gets a little silly right you have
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some people who are only there are huge
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costs we can't do this and there are
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other people like huge benefits we must
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do this and the reality is there are
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costs and benefits right
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um
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the big costs so collaboration I think
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tends to be a little less effective
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um I think the other big concern is
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about developing people
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that I think particularly Junior
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employees tend to learn a lot through
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just watching the people around them
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through observation they're losing out
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on that then you get less mentoring when
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you're not around people so I think that
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you know some of the companies I think
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that have have taken a harder line on
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bringing people back in so say the
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investment Banks
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some of them they tend to have a lot of
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Junior people in place a really high
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emphasis on kind of skill building
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through working together
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it's not crazy that they kind of feel
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they need to bring people back so yes
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there are um there are real costs like I
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said I mean if you've got a two-hour
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commute
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you need some really high costs in order
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to kind of
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in order to outweigh kind of you know
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I'm Gonna Make You spend two hours a day
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coming in to do this but yeah you see
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both sides
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so going off of something you just said
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and and the the work you you said of
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Professor Bloom uh out at Stan Stanford
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this is still very much kind of an uh an
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area to focus on an area to research and
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to understand
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thinking about what we went through over
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that three-year window using that as the
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example of remote work and now how it is
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kind of developed into what we see right
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now correct
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yeah I mean it's a moving Target it's um
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some of the more fun things I get to do
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in my job we run an
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um online program for senior HR
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Executives a chief HR officer program so
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I was doing a webinar today with people
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around the world and we spent an hour
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talking about their experiences of
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remote work
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it's all over the place right I mean
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every company is doing something
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different everybody is wrestling with a
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kind of these same sort of Dynamics so
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our employees want the flexibility
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we feel like we need to get them
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collaborating
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um and everybody is trying different
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things in terms of you know you have
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some companies yeah everybody needs to
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be back in the office other companies we
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want to stay fully remote a lot of them
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kind of trying to do hybrid it's a
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moving Target and I think it's we don't
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yet know really what works well
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um
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and because of that it's hard to know
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where we're going so are we going to
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find a new normal so there's one
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scenario where the new normal is
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probably three days in the office a week
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and two days at home so most companies
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that starts to be what you expect for an
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office job
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um
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that wouldn't surprise me
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um
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there is a world where everybody does
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end up back in the office and you know
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there's a scenario where
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we get a big recession which we've been
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expecting for about the last two years
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but maybe it finally arrives and yeah I
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think a lot of this is being driven by
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this kind of push and pull between
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employer and employee you know yeah
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average CEO wishes everybody was back in
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the office
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um and so once they stop worrying about
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what this means for our recruitment
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what's once they stop worrying about
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whether bringing everybody back is going
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to drive attrition maybe they do bring
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everybody back
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um I think the most likely scenario is
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one where we continue to see lots of
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different people doing different things
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that you know for some companies will
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decide it's so important to their
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culture to have people in person
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a lot of other companies are going to
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say you know we quite like having people
00:14:00
in person but the benefits of being able
00:14:02
to recruit broadly the benefits of
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really being able to meet our employees
00:14:06
needs outweigh the advantages of
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bringing them back so you bring up an
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interesting dynamic because I think I
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have thought about this and I'm sure a
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lot of people have of this you know kind
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of back and forth of either
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uh employee to manager or employee to
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company and you just brought up an
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interesting suggestion about thinking
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about this kind of culture to culture
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and how it may be different here in the
00:14:32
United States compared to in Asia or
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Australia or or Europe
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yeah it is weird I mean you do see big
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differences across different countries I
00:14:42
was teaching in the Middle East in March
00:14:45
and I did a session on remote work and
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they were kind of stared at me it's like
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no we're back in the office what are you
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talking about you know even there I
00:14:51
think there was they were like well
00:14:52
we're formerly back in the office but in
00:14:54
practice we're spending a lot more time
00:14:55
working from home um but yes different
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cultures I think kind of the U.S UK
00:15:01
Canada have really embraced working from
00:15:04
home more than a bunch of other
00:15:05
countries
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um it will be interesting to see how
00:15:08
that evolves but yeah I think it's it's
00:15:10
proving hardest to put the toothpaste
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back in the tube um in the same
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countries you mentioned before about
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kind of the learning component for
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companies
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I would think that maybe there's
00:15:22
somewhat of a learning component for the
00:15:24
employees themselves as well in terms of
00:15:27
being home and doing work at home
00:15:29
remotely three days a week or four days
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a week whatever it is and kind of
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understanding the best way they can be
00:15:36
the best employee they can be
00:15:39
that's probably true
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um yeah I mean I think we're all kind of
00:15:42
we've all adjusted our schedules thought
00:15:45
about what makes us productive what
00:15:46
makes us less productive over the over
00:15:49
the time it is a big change and I think
00:15:52
I mean I've been most interested in kind
00:15:54
of how companies are learning about this
00:15:58
we've built a whole system you know this
00:16:00
is what culture is this is what
00:16:02
management is this is what training is
00:16:04
around the idea of people being the
00:16:07
office I mean you probably remember
00:16:08
previous talk about management by
00:16:10
walking around yes less useful in the
00:16:13
remote world right you just can't do
00:16:14
that so there's
00:16:15
how we onboard new employees there's a
00:16:18
whole bunch of things that we just have
00:16:20
to do differently
00:16:21
um and so I you know I think at least
00:16:23
part of it is kind of rethinking a lot
00:16:25
of how we manage people
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um
00:16:29
I hope we get away from this kind of
00:16:31
conversation about do we do remote do we
00:16:34
bring people back
00:16:36
um I hope that as we kind of say look we
00:16:38
need to find the best of both worlds
00:16:39
there are tremendous efficiencies to
00:16:41
allowing people
00:16:43
to work from home
00:16:44
um and it also occurs with you know so
00:16:46
you see that with small organizations
00:16:48
that find it hard often to recruit in
00:16:50
local areas what you see with very big
00:16:52
multinational organizations is now
00:16:54
everybody works in Virtual teams anyway
00:16:55
right I mean I work a lot with HR people
00:16:57
so HR they're all you know distributed
00:16:59
teams I'll speak to somebody who you
00:17:01
know they're in Detroit their manager is
00:17:04
in San Francisco other team members are
00:17:08
in New York and Frankfurt right and so
00:17:11
the way they work is already virtual so
00:17:13
it just doesn't bring back into the
00:17:15
office doesn't really achieve anything
00:17:16
and so I think you know I hope we get to
00:17:19
a world where we spend much more time
00:17:21
thinking about how do we make these
00:17:22
virtual collaborations as effective as
00:17:25
possible how do we build culture
00:17:28
successfully when we are in different
00:17:30
places
00:17:31
I'm convinced that there are not
00:17:34
necessarily technological solutions but
00:17:35
ways to use the technology better
00:17:37
another practice that will enable us to
00:17:40
to overcome some of the problems that we
00:17:42
have working remotely and make this a
00:17:45
good enough substitute that that we can
00:17:47
reap the benefits without the huge costs
00:17:49
of being in different places Matthew
00:17:50
always great to get your Insight thank
00:17:53
you for the time today very nice to talk
00:17:55
to you thank you Matthew Bidwell
00:17:57
management Professor here at the Wharton
00:17:59
School and also faculty director of the
00:18:01
Wharton people analytics initiative
00:18:04
thank you for listening to the ripple
00:18:05
effect we hope you found this episode
00:18:07
informative and engaging don't forget to
00:18:09
subscribe and leave us a review so that
00:18:12
we can continue to bring you the best
00:18:13
Insight from the warden School
