In PRAISE of the OFFICE! with Dr. Peter Cappilla & Ranya Nehmeh

In this episode of Leadership Bites, host Guy Bloom engages with Peter Cappilla & Ranya Nehmeh, authors of 'In Praise of the Office: The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work.' 

They discuss the evolving dynamics of work in the post-pandemic world, exploring the challenges and benefits of remote and hybrid work models. 

The conversation delves into the importance of social interactions, the generational divide in workplace culture, and the critical role of leadership in navigating these changes.

The episode emphasises the need for organisations to adapt and find a balance between remote flexibility and the inherent value of in-person collaboration.

Takeaways

• The pandemic forced a massive experiment in remote work.
• Social interactions are crucial for innovation and collaboration.
• There is a generational divide in workplace culture.
• Employees value flexibility but also miss in-person connections.
• Leadership must model the behaviors they want to see.
• The media often exaggerates the tension between employees and employers.
• Organizations need to create intentional connections in the office.
• Remote work can lead to social isolation and stress.
• Measuring productivity in remote work is complex and nuanced.
• The future of work requires a balance between remote and office environments.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Leadership Bytes
02:55 Meet the Guests: Peter and Ranya
05:54 The Concept of Office Work
08:54 The Impact of the Pandemic on Work Dynamics
11:41 Challenges of Remote Work
14:29 The Generational Divide in Workplace Culture
17:48 The Tug of War: Employees vs Employers
20:40 The Role of Leadership in Hybrid Work
23:34 The Importance of Social Interactions
26:39 Measuring Innovation and Collaboration
29:41 The Future of Work: Balancing Remote and Office
32:28 Conclusion and Key Takeaways

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Transcript

Guy Bloom (00:19)
it is fabulous to have the two of you on this episode of Leadership Bytes. Welcome.

Ranya (00:27)
Thank you so much.

Guy Bloom (00:29)
So I clearly know who you are. I start off every podcast like this. So if you are a listener and you've listened to 150 of these, you know exactly what I'm going to do, which is I'm not going to introduce you. I'm going to get you to introduce yourselves. And what would be brilliant is if you're at a social gathering and somebody said, what do you do for a living? If they saw the two of you chatting and you were thick as thieves because you're talking about your favorite topics and all that sounds interesting. What do you two do?

What would you do? I'll let you offer in order of perceived intelligence.

Ranya (01:05)
Peter, please. Peter, please start.

Peter (01:06)
No. So

I'm a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where I've been for 40 years. But at cocktail parties, you know, people always ask, what do you do in the summer? Because they think we don't do anything in the summer. So I say I lifeguard in the summer.

Guy Bloom (01:21)
See what you did there. Walk away.

Peter (01:22)
And they either think it's funny or they really are...

No, they think it's really cool that I live-guard and so on and so forth.

Guy Bloom (01:29)
And do you lifeguard in the summer?

Peter (01:32)
Do I know? No. I do yard work in the summer is really what I do.

Guy Bloom (01:33)
No, okay, that would have been double brilliant if you did. Yeah,

yeah. Right, thank you, thank you, Peter.

Ranya (01:42)
Well, I mean, I would say that I talk about HR, I write about HR, I consult now ⁓ about HR. So as you see, I'm very much in the HR space. ⁓ And yes, well, I mean, I have 20 years of experience in international organizations, mainly working in HR. ⁓ But now I am moving towards more teaching, writing.

⁓ talking about HR.

Guy Bloom (02:14)
and you're both US based.

or no? Peter, you're based US and Rene? You're actually, that's your, okay. Boom. So how did the two of you come to be partners in this space? Of course, you swiped left, could have, yeah, mental note to self. I had a chance, I blew it.

Ranya (02:17)
Nope. I'm in Vienna in Austria.

Peter (02:23)
Mm-hmm.

know, match.com. just.

Ranya (02:31)
Yeah.

Peter (02:38)
We were together at an executive ⁓ education program ⁓ for a week or so. ⁓ Rania doesn't tell people this, but she is a PhD, but she also was an executive in one of these international organizations. And ⁓ then we swapped. She had written a book, sent me the book. And ⁓ we had to, or I was asked to do a little chapter about some remote work.

stuff. I had written a book a while ago about remote work before the, well, about issues before the pandemic. And she contributed the kind of European perspective. And then my publisher asked if I wanted to do a second book on this effectively. And I didn't want to do it by myself. So I asked her she wanted to do it. So poof, there she is.

Guy Bloom (03:30)
Randi, why don't you tell people you're a PhD?

Ranya (03:34)
No, it's not that I actually omit it. It's just, you know, when you work in these international organizations, to be honest, it's just, we don't even write it in the titles usually. So it's just something, because it's not, yeah, it's not something that we really ⁓ talk about when we're talking about like workplace strategies and things. So I don't bother saying it.

Guy Bloom (03:56)
I'd put it on the side of my car. There we go. That tells a lot more about me than it does about you. listen, thank you just for giving me a sense of things and everybody else. I'd like to really just jump into, I think the essence of what jumped out at me and why I sort of asked the 2B to come on.

Ranya (03:59)
You

Yeah

Peter (04:05)
it

Guy Bloom (04:20)
And there'll be links to the two of you as well, so if people want to do a deeper dive, they absolutely can do. So you have a book, ⁓ In Praise of the Office, The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work. My understanding is that it's out, ⁓ is it even tomorrow? Wow, okay, so awesome. So I might be a few days behind you on getting this out, so, but...

Ranya (04:38)
tomorrow.

Guy Bloom (04:46)
sure it jumps to the top of the top of the list. let's just get into ⁓ why that, I know you were asked Peter, but you can be asked to do a thing and go, yeah, you might be asking me but I don't know if I want to do it. So why did it feel worthy of your time and your effort? That would be maybe just worth understanding.

Peter (05:10)
Why don't I take a shot and then Rania can chime in? ⁓ Well, you know, the idea of office work is something we think we know an awful lot about. ⁓ One of the conceptual issues that didn't strike me till we started working on this is that we've never really been able to understand how office work might be separate from an office physical location.

And if you think about factory work, it's pretty obvious why you don't think of assembly line work independent from an assembly line at a factory. But there's nothing about office work that says it couldn't physically be done someplace else. So, how much of the way in which work gets done in offices is a function of the fact that we are all sitting near each other and that we largely know each other and that we sometimes are friends?

with each other or at least kind of acquaintances with each other. How does that change the way work gets, office work gets done? And of course, during the pandemic, we ran this massive unprepared for experiment by sending everybody out of the office to see if we could get anything done. And so it's, you know, it's kind of an interesting academic question. ⁓ And then of course, it became an incredibly practical question.

And I'd like to say we knew that it would be a hot topic again. And that was, I don't think we knew that, but you know, mainly in the US, the fact that employers decided this last year to start pushing people back to the office made it a very practical topic. You know, it's one that many people feel very passionate about because lots of people have.

⁓ In the US and the UK, you we're the sort of outliers on this in the world. Most countries people have gone back to the office. Rania can tell you what's happening in Europe, in the center of Europe. So that, you know, that made it a hot topic. And we hadn't really had a chance to condense what have we learned about remote work since the hybrid, where we ran this, again, big experiment.

So we'd been studying it in the US anyway since the 1970s, but there the story was you're remote but your colleagues are in the office. And that's quite a different context from saying, all right, everybody is remote or now more typically everybody is remote for a while and then you're kind of coming back and forth. So it turns out to be a practical question that really does matter. ⁓

and also this conceptual question.

Guy Bloom (07:59)
I just picking up, I think you're right, a great unplanned experiment is a pretty fantastic way of looking at it. We didn't know it was going to happen, it did, so actually there's some things of note here. Ran you anything to add to that?

Ranya (08:16)
I think also I just wanted to add to what Peter said is that also he already has a book called The Future of the Office, which he wrote, I think, 2021, which was published in 2021. So the topic was not new. don't think it didn't just come from nowhere. You know, this is also something that was done, he was working on before. And it's kind of like a kind of a continuation from that in a sense.

Guy Bloom (08:42)
So it felt like a natural flow. mean, it's one of these ones that I'm fascinated by, which is just the inherent value of, in some people's minds, I guess they go, know, I've got to go into the office. But actually there are things about an office that are inherently valuable. And there's probably some things about working at home that give inherent value.

So I'm just very intrigued. Maybe not ask the question, but maybe get you talking about maybe what people thought about this before the great experiment.

Peter (09:20)
Anyway.

Guy Bloom (09:20)
And then

actually, you know, what was the spectrum of thinking that probably prevailed? I mean, always outliers, but most people probably looked at it like this. To maybe what you then, I'll let you comment as to what the spectrum is now or what the shift is now. ⁓ Cause I mean, there's a lot of...

perspectives to be brought into account but maybe yeah the before and probably where it's gone or going or that would be interesting just to start talking about.

Peter (09:52)
Ryan, you want to talk about where it was or where it is now? What do you prefer? I'll do the other one.

Ranya (09:58)
I will talk about where it is now, if that's okay.

Peter (10:01)
Okay, so I'll do the, it was. ⁓ I think the ⁓ sense before was that it's just almost impossible for it to work, right? And we had these experiments with people who were remote and their colleagues were in the office and there've been a fair number of studies of those. None of them worked out well for the person who was remote. They didn't get.

They got ignored basically, they got cut out of the social groups, promotions lagged for them, pay increases lagged. Their work-related outcomes were not great. They may have appreciated it and liked it for their life outside of work, but in the office, I mean the work context, everything was pretty much negative for them frankly. ⁓ And I think when the pandemic came, one of the reasons why we have the reaction we had,

to remote work since the pandemic, because we expected it to be kind of a mess, a complete disaster, you know? we did. Yeah, and, you know, ⁓ companies weren't prepared for it. They didn't have any plans in place. They didn't do very much. They just sort of sent everybody home for what in many places we thought would be a temporary thing, a couple of weeks or so, you know, maybe. And it worked incredibly better.

Guy Bloom (11:03)
I can multiply it of that truth.

Peter (11:26)
than they expected. I think that's part of the problem is because it was so much better than expected, that didn't necessarily mean that it was perfect, right? It was just better than expected. were, expectations were low and employers managed differently. You know, they asked people for help. They said, look, we need your help to keep not only your job, but also the whole economy's going, you know, keep the country going.

We talked about people who were able to work as heroes, particularly the frontline people who were able to work. And employees were really, really grateful to not have to be in the office, not get risk dying, we thought, right, was the risk. And also to have a paycheck. So the situation after the pandemic was really unusual in a way that was probably difficult to sustain, right?

So I think, you know, we thought it was going to be a disaster. It was not a disaster. It was way better than we thought. ⁓ And that's kind of where things stood, you know, through the first couple of years or so.

Ranya (12:31)
Yeah, and then I think with time we saw, we started to see really some of the challenges that appeared. ⁓ Because as Peter said at the beginning, know, employees, had autonomy, they had their flexibility. ⁓ Organizations, for them it was also in a sense working because there was a business continuity, so their operations did not stop, right? They kept on doing things. ⁓ Even as there were surprising levels of productivity in some areas as well.

But then later, like down the line, we started to see the real challenges. ⁓ And these are things like the effect that social interactions, these informal spontaneous interactions that you have with your colleagues, which are not scheduled, which you cannot recreate on Zoom, you know, the water cooler conversations, the meeting in the hallway, let's have a quick chat conversation, ⁓ which are not just about catching up, but it's also

sometimes ⁓ it's about innovation and brainstorming. Sometimes when you see somebody in the hallway, ⁓ I have an idea, and then you start talking about something that leads to something else, maybe it sparks another idea or innovation. So I think all of these that perhaps you don't see on our productivity dashboard, but they really make up the social fabric of an organization. So I think this is one of the challenges that we...

that we saw as well, in addition to course, collaboration. ⁓ And then there's a host, like a whole other, there's mentoring, especially for young professionals and early career professionals.

Peter (14:13)
Yeah, that can just pause on that last one because that really seems to strike home for people in terms of seeing the problems and that most everybody who is arguing for remote began their careers in an office. So they understood how offices work, they know their colleagues, that sort of stuff. We have a generation of people in remote offices who don't know their colleagues. They came in sense. They don't really understand how offices work because they've never seen one right there.

Guy Bloom (14:26)
you

Peter (14:42)
just in these kind of quasi remote arrangements. And that's where you really start seeing the issues, right? The differences between people who have come in since the pandemic when things are remote. I can tell you even in a university, the differences between my current colleagues who have been there maybe three years, who I think are largely lost, they don't know each other, they don't seem to have much interaction with each other. And those who were there before, who know people, know their colleagues.

But the organization is starting to erode, right? Over time, you get more and more people who know less and less about each other in the organization, right? The place really starts to change.

Guy Bloom (15:17)
Yes.

I think that is the one thing that I notice that I'm 56, so I know the game, I know the politics, I know the people, I know how to engage in that. I have my confidence to ask or call or what I've been writing if you're coming in young and it's your first entry point. Well, even if you're not coming in young actually, if you're just of an age, but it's your first week in the organization, then you're right. I think there is something about where does that just for the want of a better word, exposure to all.

the things that you've said come in. yeah, so I'm interested in a couple of things. Is there an observation that goes both ways, as in an older demographic can see the difference and a younger one can too? Is there a lamenting from the younger?

group but who have no frame of reference for what good may look like but do they recognize that something's not quite right? I'd just be interested in that kind of you know they don't know what they don't know well actually no they do know they have a sense of they can see dynamics and go well how do I get there how do I get that level of compatibility or integration well back in our day well how do I do that then so I'm just I'm intrigued as to whether or not it's self-perceived

Ranya (16:42)
I mean, maybe I don't know if this answers your question, but what we also are mentioning is that now we see kind of two cultures emerging, two different cultures within an organization. So you have the pre-pandemic and then kind of the post-pandemic. And as you said, the pre-pandemic is more the people who knew each other, who were working together, who have a strong cultural, maybe ties together. And then the ones...

For the people who joined either during or after, and these are also typically the younger professionals, ⁓ they have a different kind of ⁓ set up and the way of thinking. ⁓ That's why we're seeing two different cultures emerge. So there are some differences.

Peter (17:31)
Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know what to what extent the new people coming in have a perspective on what they don't know. I think they do have a sense, I think, of these two cultures, you know, that they have to go to somebody older, who basically been there longer to figure out how to do stuff that maybe 10 years before you would not have had to do. And I saw saw that in some focus groups I had done with a colleague.

before this book, ⁓ where, you you could see that in a group, you know, if we're in a team and we're on Zoom all day with each other, which is another problem of remote work, ⁓ we kind of know each other pretty well. But once you get outside of that, and there's pretty good evidence on this, the networks have shrunk, the contact communication networks have shrunk down a lot. So if I need something from over there,

I don't know how to get it and I have to go inside my team to somebody who's been there longer and they still know somebody in that other team over there and that's how things get done, right? But that's shrinking down, you know, because as with turnover, there's fewer people here who know people over there. You know, this person leaves or that person leaves, right? And then the networks fall apart, right? So I think, I think they,

Maybe they can see it, but as you say, part of the problem is if you have been in an other office before and you move to a new one that is remote, you've grown up in an office, you can see the problem. If you've never been in an office where people are face to face, you probably can't see it, ⁓ except you would notice these two cultures.

Guy Bloom (19:21)
Yeah, there's just no frame of reference for what you don't know. So that's quite interesting, that knowledge culture, as you say, is people just move on, may not be retired, they just go to a different job or whatever it may be. Then that pool, which was historically then being constantly replaced by the fact that at least you'd had a year or something getting used to the place, that knowledge base restricts. Is there anything... ⁓

Because I seem to see looking, and again, I look at these things from a distance, particularly in the US, which is that there seems to be a media offering that says, you know.

the bad bosses want you all back in, know, let's ruin your lives and get you back in the office because we just want to squeeze the last pound of flesh from you. May or may not be true, that's, you know, let's take that as the caricature versus the workforce going, no, you know, I bought a puppy now, you know, or whatever it is, but I've adjusted my life and proved to me, proved to me that this isn't working because I think I'm getting all my work done.

Peter (20:14)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

Guy Bloom (20:35)
And

I wonder if there's a... has it created a tension? Has it... or well, no, God, the media's over-focusing on a very small percentage as it tends to do, or no, actually that is a thing. And I just wonder if it's created a tension.

Peter (20:53)
it is for sure ⁓ attention. I think, you know, I think you've sort of described it right. We have a group of employees who are in remote or hybrid organizations and they have built their lives around that flexibility. ⁓ And the problem, you know, at least in the U.S. and less so in the U.K., I think the employers have all the control, right? I mean, you do whatever they want. They can make people come back tomorrow. They can push them out.

And they just didn't manage this very well at all, right? So there was a survey I was reminded of recently that think, Ron, you may remember it or having seen it someplace. But I think it was like a year into the pandemic or maybe in 2022. And the survey found that employees, 88%, I think was the figure, understood the need to return to the office. But if you wait five years to tell them to come back, right, it's 2025 now.

You wait five years and you haven't told them along the way, look, the goal is we got to get back. ⁓ And then if you don't make the case, so your viewers and listeners who know management understand the difficulty in organizational change, right? And taking things away from people is really, really ⁓ unpleasant and they resist it deeply. And you have to make the case, you know, this is why we have to come back.

You can't just say general stuff like, you ⁓ we work better together. OK, well, as you say, prove it. Right. ⁓ And I don't think they have done a good job of that. I don't think they've really tried, which is really bad. Right. So I think our book is largely about trying to explain ⁓ how if you wanted to do hybrid.

since nobody, almost no employers in the US anyway, are thinking about, you know, let's just get rid of offices altogether. The question is, if you really wanted to do hybrid, could you make it work? Could you deal with these problems we're describing? The answer is yes, you could, but it does require a lot of management attention and work. And I mean, this is me personally, I just, you know, This is a management problem. They could do it if they wanted. I don't see them really trying, I think.

You know, they're just kind of ordering people back. And so it is very much as you describe This story of employees wanting to remain home, employers wanting them back in the office. And, you know, it's an unpleasant tug of war. I'd say there is one little argument against the view that employers, the bosses are just trying to squeeze employees. If you really were just focused on costs, you'd get rid of your offices.

Guy Bloom (23:47)
Yeah.

Peter (23:48)
You know, they

say, and in fact, that is one of the surprising things I think we point out, and that is on the management side, there was a lot of support for remote work. It came from the CFOs who early on in the pandemic started cutting office space to save money. ⁓

Guy Bloom (24:06)
Well, that's an interesting counterpoint, isn't

it? Yes. If it was the big bad kind of owners trying to get their pound of flash shut the offices, everybody works at home, money saved, bingo.

So I'm then intrigued as to, and Randy, you spoke about that, you know, the office cooler conversation, which is, you know, I run, I do leadership development, and one of the exercises, I have many exercises, and on most of those exercises, actually, without getting into a description of one of them, it's very hard to solve any of them by yourself. Otherwise, why do them, right? So you run an exercise, and if I often say, if I locked all of you in a cupboard and didn't let you out until you personally solved it, you know.

how many of you will probably never come out the cupboard? At least half the hands go up. Because it's not that somebody may come up with the answer, it's just that you said a thing that made me think about and then half of the answer came from that, etc. That's how most things at least goes off. it's, and we're pretty au fait with that. But it's a little bit untangible, isn't it? It's less evidential. And I'm wondering, but but...

How would you disagree with it? If I'm young I don't get exposure to how the politic works. Well how do you measure that? You know, so I'm just interested in is there something here that...

says well look common sense would tell us is that the argument or actually how do you potentially bring evidence to the slightly more intangible no we can see that this is getting worse we are not able to recruit internally as much as we used to be able to we're having to bring the outside in because we can't grow you know are the things that we're actually physically able to look at that helps that discussion

Ranya (25:58)
Well, I think if we if we look at something like innovation, for example, if we assume that to come up with innovative ideas, you you need to collaborate together. Then I think we also listed a figure in the book that says that during during the period, the covid period, like patent generation, which is a proxy for innovation, it decreased by I can't remember now, perhaps 30, 40 percent. So there are some figures.

⁓ that show, example, specifically for innovation, how it was affected.

Guy Bloom (26:34)
So that would just be a tangible that would say it's not that it's just one person sitting there trying to come up with the next best idea which they could do at home. It's without that kind of community, even of silly ideas or don't be daft Bob, but actually now that you've said that it's made me think about that that's had its effect.

Peter (26:34)
Yeah, there's a fear.

Ranya (26:52)
Yeah,

because most great ideas, they don't come individually. I they do come when you are working in a team, working together, collaborating together. So I think that is part of that.

Peter (27:06)
Yeah, there is. The other reason for writing this book and doing an update is there's actually a ton of research on these topics. ⁓ And some of it goes back a long time. And so in engineering, for example, there were studies through the 1980s. Basically, the conclusion was the more physical distance between people, the less knowledge transfer. And, you know, there's a lot of studies showing it was true.

And more recently since the pandemic, which is quite a different context, right? We do have a sense, ⁓ we do have evidence in some of these studies showing that there are all kinds of productivity effects which are bad. There were a couple of studies of individual contributors before the pandemic that showed that it was pretty good. And you could imagine if you were an individual contributor, it probably doesn't matter very much where you were.

But if you're working on things that require interaction with other people, then of course it does.

Guy Bloom (28:04)
It's a funny little period isn't it, because if I think of myself as a standalone entity, I might generate, let's just say 80 % of what I'm valuable for is guy just getting on and generating whatever guy needs to generate. And it's that bit that is maybe, there isn't a percentage on it, but we're all probably in a team of some sort. There's the team I'm in that's mine, there's the team I contribute to, know, so you're all touching these other...

of places and spaces. And it's a very interesting thing that we all seem to sense is true. But again, it's not such a, you know, The evidence might be there for it, but actually it's getting that across of it may be feeling like we're getting things done, but maybe, you know, it's the losses in the margin. We're still having those teams calls. We're still getting through things, of course. Yes, but it's the...

I don't want call it the cherry on top, but actually maybe we're losing an edge that is very fine, but it's that little bit of that extra bit of sharpness, that extra little bit of reflection. So it's, you know, It feels probably inverted commas, "OKAY" but we sense that something's missing. And that's what I kind of hear a little bit.

Peter (29:25)
Well, think, yeah, I think

we can we can tell you what it is, you know, so, for example, in a typical job, if you were in a corporation or you would see your job description, what it doesn't say anything about is when a new person comes in, will you take them under your wing and show them what to do? And if somebody asks you for help, would you give it to them? It doesn't say any of that stuff. So one of the things that happened during the pandemic is supervisors were encouraged, maybe rightly.

with their remote workers to really focus on what it is you want them to do, their own individual KPIs, you know, and those are all about my own work, okay? And in that context, driving that down, I focus on my work, helping you is not my work, right? Looking after the new hire, that's not my work. So those things which got done because of...

interpersonal and social relations. see you struggling. I go over if I'm a reasonable person, see if I can help you, right? I never see you. I don't know that you're struggling, right? New person comes in. I don't know. There's a new person there. I never see them. You ask me for help. Do I help you? Even if you ping me on Slack or some communication channel? Yeah, I probably do, but I get my own KPIs gotta come first, right?

And if I get a lot of these pings and I don't know you, why am I bothering, right? It's actually getting in the way of my own work, right? ⁓ So that is what's happening. ⁓ And, you know, I think you can point to that, but I think, again, the problem on the employer's side is that they have to make the case. I mean, it is true, certainly in the US, that employers...

since the pandemic, you we had a couple of years where they were really being nice and wages were going up here and now it's reversed here, right? We're cutting, we're pushing harder. Story in the paper today is about the introduction of these nine, nine, six norms from China, you know, nine hours a day, starting at nine, at nine, six days a week sort of thing, the new norm, you know. ⁓ We're being pretty rough on employees, stress levels are going up ⁓ and...

you know this is one thing employees like is being able to work from home even though hours of work are longer when they're working from home it starts earlier runs later they still like it and now we're gonna take it away and we're not gonna tell you why i mean it's you know other than it's we work better you know so this is really an employer problem they could do something about it they just don't seem engaged

Guy Bloom (32:02)
What is that?

If you're listening to this as an employee or an HR director at some level or an ops director, whatever it might be, or even if you're listening to this as employee thinking, well, I'd have to hear this to convince me. What is the tone? What is the approach? I everybody will have their own context, actually, look, generally speaking, people would need to hear the following to feel as if, even though I may not...

internally want to, I can't really argue with that logic. So I just wonder what that messaging would have to probably be.

Ranya (32:41)
Well, I think it is important for the message to be you should come into the office to do things that you cannot do at home. I think having employees come into the office and then sit on Zoom calls with their other colleagues sitting next door in another Zoom call completely defeats why they should come to the office. It has to be for reasons that they cannot replicate at home.

⁓ Things like, again, we're working on a project together, maybe there's a mentoring, maybe there's some kind of brainstorming. So you have to, I think, create intentional ⁓ connections and that's part of it. I think that could be one reason that would encourage employees to come in. Another one would maybe be like, this is better for your career, for visibility with your manager, because one of the challenges that we saw

is that when you're working from home, there's a proximity bias potentially, there is the out of sight, out of mind, especially when it comes to promotions. So at least maybe you could also put the argument like it is better for your career development, for movement, for promotions to be in office as well. So I mean, I think that's a couple of things ⁓ perhaps, Peter.

Peter (34:00)
Yeah, and

one more. think, you know, we don't want to tell people that they're wrong on this, but social isolation is a real issue, right? And the fact that your working day used to be one where you were with other people and now you're just moving from one room in your house to another ⁓ increases social isolation. Now, I mean, people will say, I'm fine with that, you know, but we know that the ⁓

You know, you can see it in the statistics on stress and on social isolation. It's going up and up and up, right, continuing to rise. So that is something that, you know, you do get when you're back in the office. And certainly we hear this anecdotally in the news from organizations that brought people back that at least many of them report that they're glad to see their colleagues again and, you know, participate in the office, social life of the office and things, all of which largely stopped, you know.

During the pandemic, we used to hear about virtual water coolers ⁓ and you don't really hear it anymore. I don't think people who are working remotely really are even doing that. So I think there's lots of benefits, but it is true that for many people, they have built their lives around hybrid and remote work schedules and to undo that now is super hard, right?

Guy Bloom (35:27)
I love, I mean you've said something there Ranjha as well which I thought was you know it's sometimes the most obvious thing is the most obvious thing you know which is that.

you know, let's not do stuff in the office that we can do at home. Let's do stuff in the office that needs to be done in the office. And of course there'll always be a little overlap, but in essence, yeah, how bonkers I've driven or it'd take me an hour and a half to get here to sit on a call, which I could have done at home, not speaking to a person who's literally over there. So why am I here? That will drive people crackers. So that's interesting, isn't it? I think there's something about, I do think the social interaction, even if you're not really alert to it, actually as a sort of social value.

Ranya (35:41)
Mm.

Guy Bloom (36:05)
you know if you talk about corporate social responsibility actually that CSR might not be just building something for a kids school which is a beautiful thing but actually not letting social interactivity die and us you know recognizing that we have a part to play in that but I think there's something about the craft of people and I just think like anything like any hobby or any skill if you don't practice it

Peter (36:20)
Okay. Yeah.

Guy Bloom (36:30)
it gets, you know, it goes down and actually if you're not in rooms with people you just lose that connection, that connectivity, that reading the room, that sense of alertness. So I do delivery and if I don't do delivery for, you know, even after 10 days, you know, if I just have a, if I'm pitching and proposing and developing and then I haven't delivered for nearly two weeks, it just takes me a little bit to get back into it.

And you know, but if I'm delivering regularly, a couple of days in a row, guess what? The flow's there, the interactions are there. So I think there are things that ⁓ if you're talking maybe, like your point, you know, you've got to paint the picture of the value. And it may not stop things getting done, but it loses value. And that feels very strong.

Peter (37:18)
Yeah. You know, one of the things that,

yeah, on that, one of the things that has struck me anyway since writing the book is seeing these surveys about ⁓ attendance in hybrid offices and that basically people are just not coming in. So could you get a lot of that if you were in three days a week? Yeah, you probably could. I mean, you know, it's not that there's anything magical about being in five days a week. You get more of it with four. You get less of it with three. But

The evidence seems to be that people aren't coming in much at all, even when they are required to come in. So this is a pretty obvious management failure, right? And it does strike me as bizarre. I mean, not that I am in favor of management being heavy-handed on anything, but if you've got a rule that is fundamental like that, you have to enforce it. And they haven't been. And why not is really an interesting question, right? I think...

Guy Bloom (38:15)
So

why not?

Peter (38:17)
Well, I can tell you my sense of this in a few places is that what leaders have done and whether they actually believe this or they're just being lazy, I don't know. They say, we're going to decentralize this down to the local level. And they do that in part because there are some differences. There are some teams where, excuse me, you really do have to be all the time.

face-to-face, if you're doing agile projects, software stuff, you know, it just doesn't work well remotely, and others where maybe you don't have to be quite so much. So what they say is, we'll just let the local teams execute. But as soon as you do that, the pressure on the local supervisors from their own employees is so great that everything erodes. So for example, I say, you you require us to be in three days a week and...

Then I say, but know, Rania's folks are only in twice a week, you know. And then I say, well, you know, I understand our anchor days are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, but you know, Tuesday really doesn't work for me. My kids have this standing doctor's appointment. How about I come in on Monday and then the whole thing falls apart. And that seems to be what's happened. You know, we see the same thing with my other favorite awful practice and that is remote meetings with cameras off.

Ranya (39:18)
Bye.

Peter (39:42)
which seems to be, you know, it has to be enforced.

Guy Bloom (39:45)
That makes my heart twitch. I gotta be honest.

Peter (39:47)
Yes, right.

And you know, the latest thing I've started to hear is that not only your camera's off, but it turns out people are sending their AI agents. They're not even there. They log in. They just have their agent there to take notes. Right. And then you have these big meetings where there's actually nobody there, but it's on your calendar. And then you have to have post meeting meetings because nobody knew what was going on and nobody was involved. And I mean, you know, it's just dumb, right?

Guy Bloom (40:16)
So

let's just dive into that one a little bit because you know the rhetoric would be that you know organizations are faceless they don't mind taking you they'll sack you as soon as look at you and all this kind of stuff and that's that often is a narrative and then we have this you know and another end of course we have organizations that are trying to be to make themselves great places to work there's a whole push on making the environment

just you know an employer of choice and on all and nothing's wrong with any of those kind of places and spaces so there's the consistent battle isn't it profit versus people right that just at its most simplistic we've got to push in a certain way but we've got to bring our people with us and not use them like a resource right blah blah blah blah is this I wonder and let me be bold is this that actually there has been an over

Peter (40:49)
You

Guy Bloom (41:12)
and I'm smiling as I say it because it already, it'll make certain people twitch. There's been an over-woking, an over kind of, the pendulum has swung to this over-engagement where actually what we need to do is to understand that there is a forthrightness to our expectations.

And it may have to be set at a group level because actually when you are at a local level and you know people, maybe you go around their house for dinner and you've got to work with them on a daily basis, actually maybe I help you by saying it's okay to blame me, but actually to put it on you is actually very, very hard because you know them, you go around their house, you've known them for five years, you might be quite friends with them and actually you're going to break a social dynamic. So I'll give you, if it's a management thing,

Blame Guy Bloom at Right, because to sit it with you now means you've got to potentially fracture social relationships that you may not have the confidence or the craft or the wherewithal to do. I'm just intrigued, you know, by your kind of who's, because somebody, if you're going to change it, somebody's got to own it.

I wonder if there's a way of thinking that I've just offered there that you go, don't know if that sits quite right with me guy, or, oh yeah, there might be something there, who knows, but I'll throw that one out there.

Peter (42:36)
I think that you're right. But the problem is that it is coming from these folks up here. They are making the decisions. The problem is they're not owning them, right? ⁓ In the sense that they don't want to push and say, really mean it. mean, there are some famous examples, the people who are famously pushing people back in the office like Jamie Dimon, right, in New York, in the banking world, right? And they are saying, you

I'm saying you gotta come back. But they're not executing on that in many places, right? So they have a policy, anchor day, but then they just, you know, they're just leaving it to everybody else to kind of own. And the problem is you can't, if you're down here, you don't own it. It's not your policy. you know, having to execute it without support from above is really difficult. So support from above means, you know, the CEO or the leaders,

come in and say it is really important we really mean this we're gonna start taking it seriously if you don't show up rather than me at the bottom level here frontline supervisor just trying to say no guy we really have to do this and you say what they don't do it over there and then so it has to be from

Ranya (43:53)
I think we really need to overemphasize the role of leaders as well here, you know, because at the end of the day, again, as we said, they are responsible for communicating, for communicating the why to everyone, because that will trickle down. ⁓ They are also responsible for being role models to everybody, right? So if you really want people to come into the office, then you have to model that as well.

You as a leader cannot sit remotely and mandate everybody else to come in. There is lot of things I think that leaders, ⁓ it is their responsibility to do that as well.

Guy Bloom (44:34)
So the jigsaw pieces all have to line up. There has to be, you can say it, but then you've got to role model it. Now, if you're going to expect it of me, you've got to support me. And maybe even, you may have to help me, but you may also have to hold me to account. You may have to show me the, et cetera. And I wonder if it shows an inherent weakness in some organizations where I imagine somewhere the C-suite say, this is how it will be.

business kicks in. ⁓

it is. And then I wonder, maybe, I don't know if it's in larger organisations, but I wonder if it's a truth where actually there is an inherent weakness that has been allowed to creep in, where people haven't been taking ownership and responsibility, the machine itself has had so much momentum that it never really highlights itself. Then we get this individual expectation from somebody in C-suite who in his mind thinks, I pulled that lever, therefore that will be so, because that's all going to be linked to all these other people that operate

in kind tier one capability like I do, but he's pulling that lever and unfortunately it's going to people that maybe don't have the confidence, don't have the craft, don't have the same intellectual position, so they understand what's being said but they don't really bind to themselves because they don't really want to do it, they don't want to take issue with their mates. And actually I wonder if it highlights a little break.

in actually training your people, leading your people, having expectations for them and now that this is like trying windscreen wipers when it rains you only really find out what the problem is when you need them and I wonder if this kind of highlights that a little bit.

Peter (46:08)
Mm-hmm.

Well, think you're absolutely onto something and it is a bigger conversation, of course. But I think, at least looking at the US leaders, there are some CEOs who I think really buy the idea that you should take care of your employees. And there are others who think they should say it but don't completely buy it. And then they have pressure from outside telling them, the pressure is largely don't do it. Don't invest in your employees.

The pressure comes from the investor community. So see this in clear is look at the IT industry in the US and companies like Google and Microsoft, know, where they used to really embrace their employees are they meant it most important asset, really look after them, a great big social exchange experiment. And then they flipped the switch, you know, about a year or so ago, the investors pushed and they said, okay, we got to lay off. Now we got to get tough. And now we got to, you know, bring everybody back to.

So, you know, do they really mean it at the top? Well, I think some kind of do, some kind of don't. But they also flip pretty quickly, you know. And so some of what's going on in remote work is probably this view from the investors that you have to get tough with your employees and it was a mistake not to be tough. So, you know, the lack of consistency in the organization is a real issue. Another thing we're seeing right now, you probably saw these.

stories at least in the US where the investors have now pushed companies to get rid of middle management. So cut more layers out. So rather than in some organizations now spans of control are doubling. So rather than 15 direct reports you got 30. And now we want the lower levels to execute. There's no lower level there. You you've pushed everybody out. So if the people at the top won't drive this,

won't drive it as round you saying by being models where you can see them doing it, that they're in the office. You can see through the culture of the place and the physical changes and things and managers walking around, leaders walking around and talking to people. You don't see any of that and then it doesn't happen. It's not a big surprise why it doesn't happen, right? So it is a kind of, I mean, I've been worried about this for a while. I management's gotten worse in all kinds of dimensions.

And largely because of this increasing push to just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut people, cut management, cut layers, cut programs, just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, right? Down to nothing. By the way, I'm noticing just to apologize to your viewers, I have this weird camera which apparently is supposed to be tracking my face and it's decided to hold itself at a strange angle. So I don't want them to think my room is suddenly this way or I'm inside.

Ranya (48:56)
haha

You

Guy Bloom (49:05)
Or you've got one

leg shorter than the other. know? Blame. That's always the way, isn't it? Don't worry about it. Well, this is, you know, listen, I think I consistently say, you know, with a bottle of wine and a pizza, these conversations could go on and I'd never let you, I'd never let you go.

Peter (49:06)
Yeah, it's the camera. I don't know why it's doing this, but it's a very fancy camera, but it's been very weird. Yeah, very weird.

Ranya (49:07)
Yeah

Guy Bloom (49:27)
If you were going to just answer maybe one or two things and we'll start to bring us to a close, who do you want to read the book? Who do you think, you know what, I think that's the kind of person that should be reading this. And so who do you want to read it and what do you want them to get from it? That would be that reason maybe for somebody to press that link button and go and buy it.

Ranya (49:52)
Peter, who do you want to read the book?

Peter (49:53)
I think

every super important person. I think, know, it is a book about it is not about the benefits to individuals from having being able to work remotely. We understand that. Right. This is really about, you know, the organization's stories and the people who we really want to read this or the leaders, you know, and it's not

Ranya (49:57)
I was just about to say that.

Peter (50:22)
You know, we've already gotten yelled at by people who are very pro remote work, right, who think this just gives evidence to the bad employers, as you say, who just want to bring everybody back. I mean, I think our view, though, is facts matter. You know, just look at the facts here. And we're not saying you have to bring everybody back to the office. That's not the book, right?

The book is, you want to be remote, here's what you have to do. But you can't ignore these things, right? You can't ignore the fact that social relationships matter and they affect how work, office work gets done. And we're seeing this now. So, you know, I think we want those folks to really read this and pay attention. And it's not just an argument. It's not an argument about bringing people back per se. It is an argument about social relationships mattering.

Guy Bloom (51:18)
So actually if you do want to work remotely and you have a case for that, read the book because then that's what, if you understand that, then you can fulfill that fear requirement by going, it may not look like this, but I can do it by doing that or whatever.

Ranya (51:27)
Absolutely.

Peter (51:33)
Right,

Ranya (51:33)
Absolutely.

Peter (51:34)
right, that's the idea.

Ranya (51:35)
I think people read the title and already they thought, my God, they want everybody to come back to the office. So, you know, what we want is please read the book and understand what we're saying and that there's two sides to every story. Right.

Peter (51:50)
Yeah, so we had a, there was a Harvard Business Review article we did on this that came out a couple of months ago and they choose the titles and the title there was, ⁓ hybrid is still, hybrid is not, still not working. That's the title. Still isn't working. ⁓ And actually the title, they picked the titles, but the title that we had tried to swing in there was to say, still not working well.

Ranya (52:04)
hybrid still isn't working.

Peter (52:17)
which would have conveyed something different and that got whacked off. So the title is much more aggressive than the story we're telling, but you know.

Guy Bloom (52:19)
Yeah.

Well having spoken to the two of you and having a sense of things, I think I have a strong sense of this book isn't necessarily taking a position, it's offering you information with a reflection that allows you to, ⁓ if you're an employee, understand this, but if you're an employee also and understand the same thing, and if you're trying to validate your position.

validate your position but if you're trying to take into account I want you back in the office but this is why well I'd like to stay not working in the office as much but I can achieve that for you by you know if you understand what it is then you'll be a lot better off for doing so.

Peter (52:59)
Yep.

Yeah, and I think that's more to Rania's credit because I'm always very much a, well, it's this, it could be this, it could be this, know. you know, making the case more aggressively about here's what you should do is a little more her inclination. Slightly more bossy than I am.

Ranya (53:08)
you

Guy Bloom (53:20)
Fourth right, I'd have said, but that's okay.

Ranya (53:22)
Thank you. Thank you.

Guy Bloom (53:25)
So listen, I'm going to bring this to a close. I'm going to put links to both of you for LinkedIn and all relevant sort of connections to you just to reach out to you around your OTP to output the link to the book. So people can have a look at that. In praise of the office, the limits to hybrid and remote work. So... ⁓

That's, I can see it now on Amazon, so it's there for people. So, you know, just for me, I think it's, you know, when you've only got a short space of time with a topic that is relatively, I wouldn't say it's immense, but everybody's got an opinion. Every one of these could be an investigation. Every avenue could be an investigation of thought.

be here but I think it gives a lovely oversight and I think there's a nice balance to the way that you've talked about things and I think the book is definitely you know ⁓ going to be worth people reading. I hesitate to say read a book because it's an investment or it feels like an investment of time.

Peter (54:22)
It's super short.

It's super short.

Guy Bloom (54:25)
Bingo, I'm in then. So that's fabulous. So listen, on that note, thank you both so much. Stay on for a few moments just to make sure everything uploads, but thank you so much for your time and just the ease of the conversation. I've appreciated