I keep seeing Return to Office (RTO) news in the tech industry and the cultural divide it is causing. For example, see Amazon’s recent news here and Apple’s here. Meta doesn’t seem far away from adopting a similar policy. In general, people fall into one of two camps:
- Everyone should return to the office full-time to maximize collaboration, brainstorming, and morale.
- Everyone should be permanently remote forever; we’ve proven we can do this during the pandemic.
The compromise then assumed by companies is that a mandatory RTO 2-3 days/week strikes the balance between the two sides. But this is a bad compromise that comes out of a false dichotomy. As there is a third option, one I argue most people want: to be permanently remote, but have optional office space to be used when needed. This isn’t just a compromise, but a legitimate third option above. Instead of pretending to be remote for half the week and pretending to be in-office half the week, you leave it to the discretion of your (highly compensated) employees. In effect, you enable a decentralized decision making process. Before continuing, I must provide a disclaimer: yes, this is Zillow’s structure; I simply do not understand why it is not considered the universal definition of “hybrid.”1
The reality is that one day in the office, one day out, is not the same as consecutive days in the office together. If only it took but a day to solve hard problems! No, often you need 3-5 consecutive days to truly make progress. And that’s OK! I bet such a problem is really tough and thus is worth solving.
But couldn’t you just spread this out over a couple of weeks while in the office? Technically, yes. But you just (ironically) slowed the process down, and the reality is human brains aren’t so continuous. Picking up where you left off after a weekend is a challenging thing to do! The reality is that any strict policy is not flexible enough to solve the problems it is aiming to solve.
But couldn’t you just choose to come in more often one week? Sure, but then do I get “credit” for the following week(s)? Or must I come in again 2-3 days next week despite coming in 5 days this week? As if I don’t, I’m probably not going to come in 5 days this week in the first place. And if I do, this policy is getting awfully complicated…
And this is on top of the fact that such a policy creates logistical hurdles to overcome. Good luck trying to find a conference room in the office for your meetings if everyone is in that day – there aren’t enough in the offices for all meetings at once, let alone adhoc meetings (a well known fact from everyone in the tech industry). Ironic, isn’t it? You’re in the office to collaborate, yet there’s no office space to do so without bothering others at their cramped desks. And does anybody remember the lack of male restrooms in offices 💩? While both humorous and sad, yes, this is a real issue in the tech industry, even in less male-dominated companies than Amazon. And no, this was never really “solved.”
By keeping the offices and encouraging flexible use of them, you can still minimize office space to save money but gain the value of in-person brainstorming and collaboration. And no, you won’t be worried about conference room or bathroom availability 😂.
Here’s a guiding principle that I believe:
Brainstorming remotely is hard, but execution remotely is easy.
-me
If you live by that motto, then your remote/in-office policy should fit to match it. Now, there are some things to note about this flexible setup.
In-person Onboarding
I actually quite like Zuck’s latest memo regarding their “year of efficiency.”2 Specifically:
Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely.
This makes intuitive sense to many. I can say this as I know it made sense to Lakshmi Dixit, who began organizing a weeklong in-person onboarding event for all new hires at Zillow every month (before Zuck posted his memo 😉). Why? Because relationships at a company have intrinsic value! I have always made friends with people I onboarded with at companies – in fact, that’s how I met one of the groomsmen in my wedding (and yes, I was in his, too 🤵)! While this had immense personal benefit, there was work benefit too. We formed a bond, and then went to our separate organizations (orgs). But then every time we needed something from our respective orgs, we never hesitated to reach out to one another. While I am talking about one specific anecdote, I have many of these anecdotes at all companies I’ve worked at. While we don’t all end up as close friends, I still value these relationships, both personally and professionally.
Thus, creating “cohorts” of new hires in a manner that they too can form this bond is incredibly important. And besides, imagine not meeting your manager for months if not years after you joined a company. That’s not the most welcoming experience, is it? While Zoom can cover a lot of things, it is simply not the same. I personally have been pleasantly surprised by many of my first in-person meetings with folk who I thought I knew over Zoom (and no, it’s not just because they’re taller or shorter than I expected 📏). In group settings, Zoom creates a one-at-a-time speaking dynamic, always waiting for someone to finish, before then being “quick on the draw” to be the next to speak. Some may use the hand raise 🖐 feature to help avoid the need to be quick on the draw, but this is also not how natural in-person discourse goes (and can lead to a very ineffective brainstorming process as you bounce around from idea to idea rather than staying focused on an idea and driving an outcome from it). The point is that personalities in person may be very different than what you expect from Zoom, and this is to be expected. So, onboarding isn’t just for new hires to form relationships with other new hires, but their managers as well. This can be done effectively by having managers present topics to the entire new hire cohort and then also being present to 1:1 in person with their new hires!
Pay Attention to the Needs of Junior vs Senior Folk
I have a hypothesis: the more senior your company is on average, the less you need to come into the office. I am surprised that this hypothesis hasn’t been shared in more discussion I’ve read on the values of remote vs in-office work. Although of course, Zuck now seems to be on to it:
This analysis also shows that engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week. This requires further study, but our hypothesis is that it is still easier to build trust in person and that those relationships help us work more effectively.
Do you remember being a junior in your position? What were some of the things you found most valuable? For me, there is a far-and-away #1 answer: access to senior+ people. I learned so much from these folk that I used to say:
I learned more in the first four months on the job than I did in four years of college.
And here’s the kicker: I don’t think I’m the only one. My philosophy above, that execution remotely is easy? That comes with the privilege I had already developing years of experience in the office. If I were a brand new, fresh-out-of-college hire though? I’m not sure the onboarding experience described above would be enough. Maybe, but maybe not. And what’s interesting is many FAANG3 companies do have a lot of college hires. Zillow, on the other hand, doesn’t. We have some, but its nothing like my past experience at Facebook or Amazon, which is literally built on the backs of college hires.
Thus, I am not surprised that these companies see more value in the traditional office environment.
Conclusion
In general, there are multiple options for companies at their disposal, and I don’t believe there is a “one size fits all” solution here. So, let’s stop acting like it! Apple saying remote doesn’t work for them holds no bearing on if it works for another company or not. That said, let’s not call a mandatory number of days in the office each week “hybrid.” When I worked at Facebook, we had Work from home (WFH) Wednesdays – this is just a second WFH day in an in-office environment. Calling them “in-office with WFH days” may be longer, but it’s more accurate given how different some other companies’ definition of hybrid is.
Footnotes
- It is for this reason I didn’t just call them “hybrid onsites” in
my previous blog post. - I know, I know – he announced more layoffs in this memo, so saying I like it can be interpreted as incredibly insensitive. While I am not a fan of the over-hiring that led to layoffs in the first place, I argue the rest of the content in this memo is a good read.
- I know, I know, it’s not FAANG anymore. What is it now? MANGA? Old habits die hard. This is the first time I’ve actually written “Meta” in an article instead of “the company formerly known as Facebook,” so give me some credit here 😅!
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