00:00:00
[Music] I think the most likely scenario is one where we continue to see lots of
00:00:06
different people doing different things that you know for some companies will decide it's so important to their
00:00:10
culture to have people in person a lot of other companies are going to say you know we quite like having people in
00:00:18
person but the benefits of being able to recruit broadly are the benefits of really being able to meet our employees
00:00:24
needs outweigh the advantages of bringing them back welcome to the ripple effect the podcast that takes you on a
00:00:31
journey through the minds of work and faculty I'm your host Dan Loney and in
00:00:35
each episode we'll be diving deep into the inspiration behind the groundbreaking research that Wharton
00:00:41
professors have conducted and exploring how their findings resonate with the world today well great to be joined here
00:00:47
on our show by Matthew Bidwell and Matthew is the management Professor here at the Wharton School he is also a
00:00:54
faculty director of the Wharton people analytics initiative Matthew always great to get your Insight thanks very
00:01:00
much much great to see you again thank you all right so we're kind of now in
00:01:05
this unique new world of remote work I mean obviously we've had it for a couple
00:01:09
of years now because of the pandemic I I guess though the question now is as we're coming out of that
00:01:16
it still seems like remote work has this level of resilience and let me start there by asking you should
00:01:24
I be surprised that it does seem to have this resilience this longer staying period that appears it's going to be
00:01:31
around like I don't know if you should but I certainly am um you know one of the things I've been
00:01:36
saying lately is I came into this field I started being um so let's go through a PhD and study
00:01:41
work so the sense that work was changing really rapidly um this is in the late 1990s and
00:01:47
slightly the conclusion I came to is that work was changing less between about between about 1990 and 2020 work
00:01:53
changed I think less than in pretty much any other period in the last hundred years which says it all about my perfect
00:01:59
timing um but I think with the growth of remote work what it means to work what it means
00:02:05
to be employed or kind of date that experience has changed more in the last three years than at any time I can
00:02:12
remember it has been dramatic and yeah I'm surprised I mean it was obviously
00:02:15
hugely impactful when everybody went home right kind of coming when I was around mid to late March 2020
00:02:23
everybody goes home and there's a sense okay we're going to try and do this
00:02:27
um try and do this remotely I can't remember how long it was before we realized that actually this was going
00:02:35
to be a semi-permanent thing there are some wonderful figures I mean that the person who's done the most research
00:02:41
on this is um professor at Stanford called Nick Bloom um so he'd already done a little bit of
00:02:47
work on remote work pre-pandemic and when the pandemic started he realized wow this is a big deal we should study
00:02:56
it so he started kind of studying doing a running a survey month by month to see
00:03:02
where are people working those sorts of things it looks like pre-pandemic about five
00:03:08
percent of all days were being worked um from home so you know you had some people working with my anyway how did
00:03:15
the pandemic that goes up to about 60 because everybody gets sent home and frankly if you can't get sent home
00:03:20
chance you're being laid off for reasonably high so you it has come steadily back down since
00:03:27
then but it hasn't got much below about 30 percent um and I think over the last
00:03:34
seven or eight months it's been static right I mean we hear a lot about how everybody's going back to the office and
00:03:41
companies bringing people back in you really struggle to see that in the data um and so yes
00:03:47
like I say we start off at five percent covert forces everybody to um go home it's hard to say when covert
00:03:56
ended um I think for most of us covert ended at the point at which we got covered and
00:04:00
stopped worrying about it quite so much um but I mean at this point it isn't
00:04:05
really shaping much of people's day-to-day decisions but we haven't returned to where we are the technology
00:04:10
hasn't changed right right nothing else has changed but we have fundamentally
00:04:15
changed how we work so yeah I'm surprised I didn't see this coming so then what what do you what do you
00:04:21
attribute then kind of the success of remote work and and as we know not everybody is going to realistically work
00:04:31
remotely the rest of their careers it's and it's off on as well but they're
00:04:35
probably elements whether it be productivity the want of the employee the one of the company that are the
00:04:42
reasons why it has worked so well um I think it's probably a couple of things
00:04:49
um I think the Big Driver is we've discovered how much we like it um that going to the office every day carries
00:05:01
enormous costs one of the things you see remote work is much more common for people working in big cities because I
00:05:06
mean that the huge driver here is commute you know if your commute is half an hour
00:05:12
each way that's still an hour a day right that you're spending doing something that isn't productive and
00:05:17
usually isn't Fun um you know you have a lot of people with hour long or even two-hour commutes
00:05:24
where you're spending two to four hours a day commuting and so yeah I think a
00:05:29
tremendous driver is just the ability to claw back that time to put that time to
00:05:34
good use right and so it's a economists and academics and stuff like to talk about bounded rationality that
00:05:43
idea that we're broadly sensible but often within a little box we don't necessarily think that hard about things
00:05:49
there's some ways it's a great example right we're abandonedly rational it's
00:05:52
like yeah we commuted because that's what we did and we didn't think too hard
00:05:55
about do I really need to be doing this every day once you've gone through a
00:05:59
period where you weren't commuting and you're still getting your work done
00:06:02
suddenly that opens up as a question like before it's taken granted yeah you're in the office now that feels like
00:06:09
a choice and so I think we're just looking at that and saying why would I spend that time commuting
00:06:16
um and so you know particularly for employees now when the company says come back into the office you've got an
00:06:22
hour-long commute each way it feels like the same we want two more hours of your
00:06:26
time right now that can make sense that can't be justified but you have to ask
00:06:31
why what's the point of that and I think that's the other side of it so I think
00:06:35
one side is we started to question for the first time do we need to be doing this right the other side of it is I
00:06:41
think we discovered it wasn't that bad like I think there had been this baked
00:06:47
an assumption that we probably need to be in the office to get things done in some ways a profound mistrust of one
00:06:52
another right it's like well I know I'll do my work if I go home but all those
00:06:55
other people I'm not sure anything will get done right and we discovered that
00:07:00
for the most part most people do a good job at home that we can work at home and
00:07:05
so it's we discover the benefits of many people not having to commute or immense
00:07:09
the costs of having them work at home are probably less than we expected up till that point and so I think that has
00:07:17
fundamentally changed the way that everybody looks at this for the story well that component of of working from
00:07:23
home and being successful and being productive realistically it feels like for a lot of those people it's changed
00:07:30
the dynamic of what the work day is whether it was eight to four nine to five whatever it is we see more people
00:07:37
now maybe breaking up their day working you know uh two four hour segments or four two hour segments or whatever it is
00:07:45
with being able to get up and go outside and get some fresh air or you know run a
00:07:50
couple of errands or whatever and that Dynamic it's interesting to have that in
00:07:54
the mix of the overall work day and not only that it's successful for the employee but the management
00:08:03
understands that that's kind of part of the new Norm now I think so I mean I do think when you
00:08:10
look at service about why people want to work from home kind of commute is number
00:08:13
one so I'm sticking to my guns on that but flexibility is is another big one
00:08:17
because yes it is when you're in the office you can kind of do office things
00:08:20
right when you're working from home yes if you like and your kids aren't
00:08:24
teenagers you can spend some time with your kids when they um when they come home from school
00:08:29
um you can work out during the middle of the day frankly most people the hours of
00:08:34
about one till three p.m are not tremendous productivity hours right and so if you want to go do something
00:08:41
different then get your errands run take a nap whatever and then come back to work later you're probably not only is
00:08:47
that going to be better for your use of time it's going to be better for the
00:08:50
organization as a whole so yes it does you know that other dimension it creates um more flexibility to integrate
00:08:57
different parts of your life and kind of use your time more productively rather than having there's a bunch of my time
00:09:02
where I'm only going to be doing work things and kind of even though it'd be
00:09:05
good to kind of fit some of these other things in so yeah that flexibility I think is quite positive as well for most
00:09:10
of us what do you say to those that people that also are concerned about the issue
00:09:18
of office collaboration or of losing something because you have people working remotely yeah and I guess that
00:09:24
and I guess that factors back in to the technology question as well I think it's really so I mean I I don't
00:09:31
want to dismiss those concerns um I mean I think there are tremendous benefits to remote working in terms of
00:09:41
kind of the efficiency of not commuting in terms of the flexibility some people just prefer it
00:09:47
um frankly for all some companies as well um we can talk about this kind of the low real estate costs broader Community
00:09:53
broader recruitment all sorts of benefits there are real costs like I think we don't have a strong evidence on this
00:10:02
as we would like but I think the anecdotal evidence suggests that we don't collaborate as
00:10:09
well we don't build networks as well we don't communicate quite as effectively
00:10:14
as when we're in person um so yes I mean I think and and that's where I think the debate over
00:10:22
this gets a little silly right you have some people who are only there are huge costs we can't do this and there are
00:10:27
other people like huge benefits we must do this and the reality is there are costs and benefits right
00:10:33
um the big costs so collaboration I think tends to be a little less effective um I think the other big concern is
00:10:42
about developing people that I think particularly Junior employees tend to learn a lot through
00:10:48
just watching the people around them through observation they're losing out on that then you get less mentoring when
00:10:54
you're not around people so I think that you know some of the companies I think
00:10:57
that have have taken a harder line on bringing people back in so say the investment Banks
00:11:03
some of them they tend to have a lot of Junior people in place a really high emphasis on kind of skill building
00:11:08
through working together it's not crazy that they kind of feel they need to bring people back so yes
00:11:15
there are um there are real costs like I said I mean if you've got a two-hour
00:11:18
commute you need some really high costs in order to kind of in order to outweigh kind of you know
00:11:26
I'm Gonna Make You spend two hours a day coming in to do this but yeah you see
00:11:29
both sides so going off of something you just said and and the the work you you said of
00:11:36
Professor Bloom uh out at Stan Stanford this is still very much kind of an uh an
00:11:42
area to focus on an area to research and to understand thinking about what we went through over
00:11:48
that three-year window using that as the example of remote work and now how it is
00:11:55
kind of developed into what we see right now correct yeah I mean it's a moving Target it's um
00:12:01
some of the more fun things I get to do in my job we run an um online program for senior HR
00:12:06
Executives a chief HR officer program so I was doing a webinar today with people
00:12:11
around the world and we spent an hour talking about their experiences of remote work
00:12:15
it's all over the place right I mean every company is doing something different everybody is wrestling with a
00:12:22
kind of these same sort of Dynamics so our employees want the flexibility we feel like we need to get them
00:12:29
collaborating um and everybody is trying different things in terms of you know you have
00:12:35
some companies yeah everybody needs to be back in the office other companies we want to stay fully remote a lot of them
00:12:40
kind of trying to do hybrid it's a moving Target and I think it's we don't
00:12:45
yet know really what works well um and because of that it's hard to know where we're going so are we going to
00:12:53
find a new normal so there's one scenario where the new normal is probably three days in the office a week
00:13:00
and two days at home so most companies that starts to be what you expect for an office job
00:13:07
um that wouldn't surprise me um there is a world where everybody does end up back in the office and you know
00:13:15
there's a scenario where we get a big recession which we've been expecting for about the last two years
00:13:21
but maybe it finally arrives and yeah I think a lot of this is being driven by this kind of push and pull between
00:13:27
employer and employee you know yeah average CEO wishes everybody was back in the office
00:13:32
um and so once they stop worrying about what this means for our recruitment what's once they stop worrying about
00:13:38
whether bringing everybody back is going to drive attrition maybe they do bring everybody back
00:13:42
um I think the most likely scenario is one where we continue to see lots of different people doing different things
00:13:49
that you know for some companies will decide it's so important to their culture to have people in person
00:13:55
a lot of other companies are going to say you know we quite like having people in person but the benefits of being able
00:14:02
to recruit broadly the benefits of really being able to meet our employees needs outweigh the advantages of
00:14:08
bringing them back so you bring up an interesting dynamic because I think I have thought about this and I'm sure a
00:14:15
lot of people have of this you know kind of back and forth of either uh employee to manager or employee to
00:14:24
company and you just brought up an interesting suggestion about thinking about this kind of culture to culture
00:14:29
and how it may be different here in the United States compared to in Asia or Australia or or Europe
00:14:37
yeah it is weird I mean you do see big differences across different countries I was teaching in the Middle East in March
00:14:45
and I did a session on remote work and they were kind of stared at me it's like
00:14:47
no we're back in the office what are you talking about you know even there I
00:14:51
think there was they were like well we're formerly back in the office but in
00:14:54
practice we're spending a lot more time working from home um but yes different
00:14:57
cultures I think kind of the U.S UK Canada have really embraced working from home more than a bunch of other
00:15:05
countries um it will be interesting to see how that evolves but yeah I think it's it's
00:15:10
proving hardest to put the toothpaste back in the tube um in the same countries you mentioned before about
00:15:16
kind of the learning component for companies I would think that maybe there's
00:15:22
somewhat of a learning component for the employees themselves as well in terms of
00:15:27
being home and doing work at home remotely three days a week or four days a week whatever it is and kind of
00:15:34
understanding the best way they can be the best employee they can be that's probably true
00:15:41
um yeah I mean I think we're all kind of we've all adjusted our schedules thought
00:15:45
about what makes us productive what makes us less productive over the over the time it is a big change and I think
00:15:52
I mean I've been most interested in kind of how companies are learning about this
00:15:58
we've built a whole system you know this is what culture is this is what management is this is what training is
00:16:04
around the idea of people being the office I mean you probably remember previous talk about management by
00:16:10
walking around yes less useful in the remote world right you just can't do that so there's
00:16:15
how we onboard new employees there's a whole bunch of things that we just have
00:16:20
to do differently um and so I you know I think at least part of it is kind of rethinking a lot
00:16:25
of how we manage people um I hope we get away from this kind of conversation about do we do remote do we
00:16:34
bring people back um I hope that as we kind of say look we need to find the best of both worlds
00:16:39
there are tremendous efficiencies to allowing people to work from home um and it also occurs with you know so
00:16:46
you see that with small organizations that find it hard often to recruit in local areas what you see with very big
00:16:52
multinational organizations is now everybody works in Virtual teams anyway right I mean I work a lot with HR people
00:16:57
so HR they're all you know distributed teams I'll speak to somebody who you
00:17:01
know they're in Detroit their manager is in San Francisco other team members are
00:17:08
in New York and Frankfurt right and so the way they work is already virtual so it just doesn't bring back into the
00:17:15
office doesn't really achieve anything and so I think you know I hope we get to
00:17:19
a world where we spend much more time thinking about how do we make these virtual collaborations as effective as
00:17:25
possible how do we build culture successfully when we are in different places I'm convinced that there are not
00:17:34
necessarily technological solutions but ways to use the technology better another practice that will enable us to
00:17:40
to overcome some of the problems that we have working remotely and make this a good enough substitute that that we can
00:17:47
reap the benefits without the huge costs of being in different places Matthew always great to get your Insight thank
00:17:53
you for the time today very nice to talk to you thank you Matthew Bidwell management Professor here at the Wharton
00:17:59
School and also faculty director of the Wharton people analytics initiative thank you for listening to the ripple
00:18:05
effect we hope you found this episode informative and engaging don't forget to
00:18:09
subscribe and leave us a review so that we can continue to bring you the best Insight from the warden School