Performance Management Blog

Return to The Office drives Productivity Decrease
Replacing a broken Square Wheel with a new Round Wheel represents continuous improvement

Mar 18, 2023 | Uncategorized

A return to the office drives a productivity decrease in US organizations, reports a Fortune Magazine article. So here are some thoughts on involving and engaging workers to counteract this problem.


COVID drove a number of things, most of which were pretty horrific. But there were also a few opportunities for positive change in workplaces. Global deaths and huge decreases in the production of needed goods and services. Every country suffered. Tourism, the prime driver of economies like The Philippines or Bali or The Galapagos fell through the roof and into the basement. Whole countries shut down and isolated themselves from international travelers. I witnessed this clearly comparing a trip to Santa Cruz, the main island in The Galapagos between my October 2021 trip, where the city was shut down and depressing, to my recent trip of February, 2023 where the downtown was booming and the people were happy.

Thankfully, many places have recovered their tourism and their local economies are improving. In some ways, the break in tourism allowed growth in certain populations of endangered animals. 

In workplaces, the pandemic forced a global initiative to push people into remote working situations. This was problematic in the beginning but companies and people quickly figured out ways to make it work, to be productive and responsive, decreasing travel time and related costs and allowing more time with families. There were productivity improvements and lifestyle changes.

With COVID decreasing pressures on societies, some companies started forcing people back to the office with little oversight of the issues and benefits and many workers are paying a real price for that misguided belief that this would generate improvements. Working from home drove technology changes of many types and changed how managers communicated with their people. They generally figured out how to make this remote worker framework work.

Many workers DO want to keep at least a hybrid work situation for themselves. A survey by the job search site Monster found that 95% of workers who had been working remotely during the pandemic would prefer to have the option to work remotely at least part-time, and 92% said that they would consider leaving their current job if their employer did not offer some level of remote work flexibility. According to research by Owl Labs and Global Workplace Analytics, 74% of employees feel happier when they work remotely. According to Buffer, 97% of people recommend remote work to others. According to research conducted by Harvard and Stanford, the average business can save up to $11,000 per year per employee just by switching to a hybrid model and reducing a variety of costs. (See article here.)

This February article in Fortune Magazine points to the data suggesting that productivity is now in a slump for a variety of factors associated with this forced return to the office:

U.S. productivity jumped in the second quarter of 2020 as offices closed, and stayed at a heightened level through 2021. Then, when companies started mandating a return to the office in early 2022, productivity dropped sharply in Q1 and Q2 of that year. Productivity recovered slightly in Q3 and Q4 as the productivity loss associated with the return to office mandate was absorbed by companies – but it never got back to the period when remote-capable employees worked from home.

Forcing employees to come to the office under the threat of discipline leads to disengagement, fear, and distrust, according to the director of research and strategy for workplace management, Ben Wigert at Gallup. Gallup finds that “the optimal engagement boost occurs when employees spend 60% to 80% of their time–or three to four days in a five-day workweek–working off-site.”


What is The Solution for long term improvements in productivity and organizational culture?

It is hard to know and there is a LOT of research (much of it ignored, it seems). There is probably only ONE silver bullet, which is asking people what works best for them and designing a working solution to encompass those desires. Keeping high performing people is an obvious desired outcome. Keeping them engaged and performing is certainly an obvious goal. Generating productivity and quality is absolutely a key to customer retention and growth. 

A PwC study surveyed over 1,200 office workers in the US and found that more than half of the respondents said that they would prefer to have the option to work remotely at least part of the time. The study also found that workers who were offered the option to work remotely were more likely to report job satisfaction and were less likely to leave their jobs than those who were not offered this option.Overall, the finding of “Improved talent retention” from the PwC study highlights the potential benefits of hybrid work arrangements for employers who are looking to retain their employees and create a more satisfied and engaged workforce.

John LeCarre appropriately said, “A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.”

And we know that isolation does not make for good understanding or good communications, as you might see below:

Sometimes, leaders pull with a very long rope and isolate them from the wagon and their people

My simple suggestions are for every manager to dialog with their work teams and try to identify the optimal workplace solutions for their people, rather than demanding changes that people will resist for a wide variety of personal reasons. Work to keep the best producers and work to create an attractive workplace environment for new hires. Focus on optimizing engagement and innovation. Help your people to implement round wheels and to see the horses that exist that could help your team make some profound changes in how things really work.

A round wheel solution tends to exist for most Square Wheels problems

The data clearly suggest that there are many many things that Supervisors and managers can choose to do differently to positively impact people and performance. The key is to generate some changes in how things really work when managers are communicating with their people.

Square Wheels - Sometimes managers are too busy to listen to new ideas for improvement

For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools.
Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant who is trying to retire!! He now lives in Cuenca, Ecuador and he continues to play with his Square Wheels illustrations and his team building game, The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine.

You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

Learn more about Scott at his LinkedIn site.

 

Square Wheels® is a registered trademark of Performance Management Company
The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine is a trademark of Performance Management Company
Square Wheels images © Performance Management Company, 1993 – 2023. All rights reserved.

Dr. Scott Simmerman

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of the amazing Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine team building game and the Square Wheels facilitation and engagement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced global presenter. -- You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com and a detailed profile is here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottsimmerman/ -- Scott is the original designer of The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine teambuilding game and the Square Wheels® images for organizational development.

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