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Hueman Resources Podcast Channel
Real Talk on Talent | Work From Where? Navigating Return-to-Office Mandates
Return to office policies have become one of the most divisive workplace topics of the post-pandemic era. Dina and Hilary tackle this controversial subject by examining how companies are making drastically different choices – from Spotify's bold "our employees are not children" remote-first stance to organizations mandating full five-day office attendance.
Have you experienced a return-to-office mandate? Share your thoughts on whether companies are effectively communicating the "why" behind their policies and what's working (or not) in your workplace!
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Links & Mentions:
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➡︎ Spotify says employees "aren't children"
➡︎ How Employees Are Coffee Badging To Avoid Full Days At The Office
➡︎ Return-to-Office Mandates: The Talent Exodus CEOs Didn’t See Coming
➡︎ Forget the company car. Top earners want remote work.
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Connect with our Team of Huemans:
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➡︎ Website: https://www.hueman.com/
➡︎ Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@huemanps/podcasts
➡︎ LI: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hueman-people-solutions
Don't forget to subscribe to the Hueman Resources Podcast Channel for more valuable insights on talent acquisition, recruiting, and workforce planning and management.
Visit Hueman.com to learn more about our recruiting services.
Welcome to Real Talk on Talent, a human resources podcast where we talk about talent acquisition, recruiting and all things hiring.
Speaker 2:Hi Hilary, hi Dina, how are you? I'm good, good. Are you excited to be back today?
Speaker 1:I am. I'm having a hard time, though, keeping a straight face and actually thinking about what we're going to talk about. Okay, because you're hilarious.
Speaker 2:Why, thank you. Yeah, that's it Full stop. I would say I try, but it comes naturally to me Ba-dum-.
Speaker 1:I think what I love about you is it's so unexpected and yet so on brand, you know I Like the way that you mash up sayings and it's correct in the Dina way I got to tell you something Idioms is that what they're called?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I just I can't get them right. I personally, you can't even remember what they're called. Well, there we go. I think you're really funny, hilary. Thank you, I think you're a pretty funny person.
Speaker 1:Honestly, though, this is why we are sitting here today is because, unfortunately, we People think we're funny and, to be clear, we don't know if it's good or bad, I don't know if it's correct or not, but anyway, I just feel like, or maybe entertaining is probably like maybe funny is here, but entertaining Maybe it's because our shame levels are a little bit lower than everybody else it could be. It could be, yeah, and it's like hey, go dance in front of a camera.
Speaker 2:We're like sure, why not? When you've got moves like these, you shouldn't hide them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to say, actually this is going to sound like a weird pivot, but I'm going to bring us to our point. Okay, let's hear it. Good, we would not have this interaction if we were not sitting in the office today.
Speaker 2:Oh, hillary, you like that Dang, I'm not wrong. No, you are not wrong. I mean flawless transition.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say flawless, but thank you. I mean, I thought it was pretty good.
Speaker 2:It was pretty good. Are we talking about we're talking about return to office. Return to office, boom, boom, boom.
Speaker 1:This is a very controversial, yet brave topic for us it is, it is. Yeah, yeah, let's set the stage. Dina, will you set the stage for us Return to office in the world, return to office in the world, whatever that means to you set us up the world.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we all know COVID happened. Covid changed everything. Everybody went work from home. Slowly there were people coming back in the office. What we're finding right now is a lot of organizations are hybrid, hybrid, not hybrid.
Speaker 1:But what we're also finding Coming into the office would be a lot more fun if there was fresh bread every day. Totally concur, but continue.
Speaker 2:What we're finding most recently is a lot of organizations are mandating a return to office, and especially like a full five-day week.
Speaker 1:Full five-day week yeah.
Speaker 2:And then now there are other organizations pushing back against that, like Spotify, saying huh, we don't. No, we trust you guys, we're fully remote. Oh listen, I think remote first is their problem.
Speaker 1:Spotify didn't just say we're fine being remote, like they came out swinging. I mean I thought it was great they had like the largest billboard ever. Is that what I say? Our employees are not children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like well, that's one way to there we go. I want to say make a plug for employer branding on that. That was a very specific choice. Yes, because, honestly, spotify wasn't doing that to talk to their employees. Yeah, but they were doing that, so they were known as, like that kind of a company.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, good call.
Speaker 1:Good call. Return to office is an interesting one. It is. How do you want to approach this Pros and cons of in office remote. Coming back, in.
Speaker 2:You know what I would love to hear? Yeah, I would love to hear about your experiences working in the office, working remotely yes, and then kind of tell us that, because what I want to hear about is how that impacted your career journey.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's good. Okay, I'm going to make this really quick, okay. So my very first job out of college was a startup and in office, you know, totally standard, I am a pre COVID employee, meaning like my first job was pre COVID. Cause there is now this interesting cultural distinction of like if you have, if you got your first professional job after COVID completely different. So, anyway, so I was in the office and then this was back west and then my husband got into school here in Florida and, long story short, I was allowed to work remotely. I was the only remote employee.
Speaker 1:They put me on contractor status and I did that for a year and hated it. I didn't know anyone in Florida. I was working at home and they didn't know how to use me because I was not. It was like I was it wasn't a common thing, yeah, and it was like and I also realized I didn't set myself up correctly what I should have done is leaned in and gotten a bunch of projects to work on for people, but instead I just kind of was like all right, what am I doing for you guys? So just that's. One takeaway that I had is I should have leaned in more to say give me work that I can do, yeah, as opposed to just waiting for work to come my way, yeah, anyway. So it wasn't necessarily bad for my career, but it didn't do anything good for me, okay. And then, when the company started to struggle, my role was the first to be eliminated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know my role was the first to be eliminated, so it was a lot more at risk Then found a local job, went back into the office full time, did that and then my job after that I was there for about five or six years was fully remote, and this was before COVID. So this would have been, I think, 2017, 2018. And the company was primarily remote just to begin with. They were a global company, really leaned into it, and so they had a really good structure for building a remote culture. And I really struggled.
Speaker 1:I loved the people I worked with, I liked the work, but it was really hard for me to feel like I was building relationships despite the fact that I did. I didn't love it and did it for a year. And then that's when I came to human, because I was excited about being back in the office and seeing people again. And then, a year later or six months after I started, human COVID hit Okay. And then a year later or six months after I started, human COVID hit Okay, and then we did COVID and then I was remote. So I give that background because I think that for me, when I look at my career, I've learned a lot from the remote experience about how to engage teams about how to position myself, about how I work, about how I need my space, position myself about how I work, about how I need my space. But I also know that there are things I would not be in the position that I am today if I didn't have the in-office experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you said a couple of really important other things. So I think one of the biggest questions is are you set up for success in a remote role and is your organization built for remote?
Speaker 1:work? That, I think, is a really great question. No-transcript. I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that. Yeah, and I think it also is really contingent on what kind of work you're doing.
Speaker 2:So completely agree, Completely agree. So I think that some companies are more akin to working remotely, Such as Such as oh gosh technical companies, you know where maybe. Perhaps you have a lot of individual contributors who are kind of working on siloed projects, things like that.
Speaker 1:Or the projects are like okay, we collaborate on what needs to get done. Now people go do your part and we'll come back together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do think that if you are a person younger in your career or new to a particular career, I struggle to figure out how you can develop in that particular career if you're not in person with somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what I think is part of what's making return to office so controversial right now is because, is that the case? Are younger people struggling to get the mentorship and the growth and the exposure because of a remote workforce, just inherent structure? Or because the people with experience in leadership who would provide that mentorship don't know how to open up, don't know how to mentor remotely open up, don't know how to mentor remotely, or the company hasn't figured out the right way to create those organic intersections, or inorganic, like we're going to actively create these intersections, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's, I may be jumping the gun here. So, you know, I think, that if you are a company like Spotify that says we are remote first, you need to make sure you have all of that stuff figured out. You need to make sure that Do you, though, I mean I think Walk me through this, because I'm not disagreeing.
Speaker 2:I'm just curious about I mean, I feel like you are shortcutting your employees If you don't have ways, a proven way for them to grow and develop in a remote setting, if you don't have proven ways for people to collaborate, share best practices, mentor in a remote setting. So that's why, to me, like hybrid is kind of just the default best model.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then what's interesting too is if you think about hybrid. I think hybrid can have two definitions, you're right. So you have hybrid in the sense of, like a human, we come into the office a couple days.
Speaker 3:We're in the office three days.
Speaker 1:You're not in the office two days a week, and that's for people who live within the radius of one of our offices. Yeah Right, but then we have half of our workforce is fully remote.
Speaker 1:So you have the two definitions Either you are part-time in the office or part of your workforce is in the office and part is not right and I think that sometimes the like oh, you can work from home two days a week, but you're in the office three days. I sometimes feel like it's a consolation prize. Okay, like, oh, in order to retain employees, we have to let them work from home.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, yeah, I get where you're going with that which there's nothing wrong with that, but I think that it's.
Speaker 1:I think it misses the opportunity to see the value of the remote experience.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, and you know you're 100% correct, because one thing here at Human that we always struggle with is making sure that our remote employees are truly engaged and that they are getting all of the same opportunities that our internal or in-office employees are having, and that goes back to my and vice versa, and vice versa. Yeah, yeah. So how do you make sure that, regardless of if you are remote in person, whatever it is, that opportunities are available consistently, regardless of if you are remote in person, whatever it is, that opportunities are available consistently, regardless of location?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and my opinion on that is that we talk a lot about culture and like culture-based hiring and defining your culture and the behaviors that go into your core values, whatever that may be but also defining how does that translate across different work locations. So what is the expectation for a remote employee? What is the expectation for an in-office employee? What are the pros and cons, what are the benefits and trade-offs and, as a company, can you be confident with that? So, for example, if you compare Spotify to like Amazon, Yep, I feel like if Amazon had been better able to clarify their own reasoning, you know they gave reasons for why they were forcing people in, but the story that comes out is like they're just trying to like tighten their workforce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, or like the management is not willing to learn how to engage remotely. Yeah, you know, whereas if it's a company you say, okay, do can, can we provide the right experience remote, hybrid or in person. And if you can't, that's the question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. To me that's the question. Can we provide the right and the right and consistent experience as well? Yeah, okay. So if you were to start a company Hillary's company I'm going to be your first applicant. What are you?
Speaker 1:mandating. What is your work schedule look like? So for me, I really like what we have at Human, where we have an office. We all come in on the same days so that we can have meetings in person, we can engage with each other, whatever, but those days I work from home. Those are my head down. Get things done, bust it out. There's less distraction for me and it's a lot more productive in the individual like work sense and that helps keep my work balanced in, like when do I engage with people, when do I have meetings and when do I have space where I'm less likely to have someone come knock on my door, and I love that. I will say I think it's really important to make sure that that hybrid approach gives an opportunity to include remote people, because no city is going to have the best talent for all jobs in one place, and I think it's in Hillary Co that we've now founded. I have to have space for talent that doesn't live within driving distance.
Speaker 2:And what's your business again? Will you remind me?
Speaker 1:I sell fancy things to fancy people.
Speaker 2:Okay, I thought. Just wanted to confirm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very exclusive and very expensive.
Speaker 2:Okay, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:So thus, you are actually my number one customer, so you can't be an employee. This podcast has gotten viral.
Speaker 2:Sorry, okay, what about you?
Speaker 1:So yeah, d and Co has just founded Dina and Co.
Speaker 2:How do you approach it Okay. So first of all, we rehabilitate wild animals.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that's what we do at Dina and Co See.
Speaker 2:this has been founded already, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it has, it has Okay.
Speaker 2:No, so. So I like the hybrid schedule.
Speaker 2:So like, like the in office for clarification yeah, in office and then home a couple of days, um, I do think, just from a mental health perspective, going to the office is good, I think, for me personally. I like having to get dressed up, I like having to put my best foot forward, I like seeing people in person. Um, you know, when we were home from COVID, like, yeah, it was great wearing sweatsuits for the first six months, but let me tell you something, after a while I'm like I need to get up and get dressed and go and see people.
Speaker 1:I really thrived living in my little cave. I thrived.
Speaker 2:So no, I'm a big fan of kind of you know, same reason you are.
Speaker 1:How would you do? Like the non-local piece? So I Would you hire people who don't live close enough to the office to come in.
Speaker 2:I mean I struggle with that. If I had yes, because I do believe, like I mean, half of my I was going to say most of your team is. Most of my team is truly remote, but I guess it depends on what it is that we're doing. Because I do think that for people who are more junior in their career, I really want them more hands-on, more working closely in person type space.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you know what it just. It inspired the thought and maybe this is part of the pain of why return to office is an easy answer because I completely agree with you and I bring people in to the office as often as I can, like my, my true, our true remotes it's what we call people who don't live within the proximity of an office. It requires the business to invest in like. If that person-to-person experience is that valuable, then I have to invest in making that happen and that is a huge financial change, because if on your budget, you're just used to people driving themselves into the office, then there's that mental shift of like okay, now we invest in bringing people in. And so I think I don't think it's wrong either way, like it's not wrong to say I want people local so they can come into the office, and it's not wrong to say like I don't know if I want to invest in them coming in, but I think that's an interesting potential change if it's that valuable.
Speaker 2:And here's the thing.
Speaker 1:Like it forces a different conversation of like value versus output.
Speaker 2:You know yeah yeah, and I'm looking at this, that thought is very specific to human and knowing that oftentimes we're employing people who are recruiters for the first time and so you know from that context, I'm like gosh, be in office, be around other individuals, hear other recruiters on the phone, et cetera. But if I look at my team, people who have been recruiting for 15, 20 years, work wherever you're comfortable working at, work, whatever's available to you.
Speaker 1:So I also think there is, you know you know, I do know, and I think it's interesting because that also moves us into, like, the future of work Uh-huh, and that mentality of if you are new in this, you really should be hip to hip with someone who can watch you share with you.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's such an old school mentality it is. I just don't know how to get past it.
Speaker 1:No, but that's and I guess that's the challenge is saying it is an old school mentality. Yeah, doesn't mean it's wrong, yeah, but it'll be interesting to see as work changes.
Speaker 2:I mean, oh my gosh, are we going to have to do like virtual reality? Maybe that's how this happened Like hi, you're a new employee, you want to be a recruiter, you're just going to VR with me all day.
Speaker 1:I will tell you that I did a virtual conference where, like it was, it was a LinkedIn conference, yeah, and it was for leaders in the staffing industry. So they they sent, like the Oculus headset, yeah, and. And we actually did a virtual, like in person, but remote conference. And there is something to be said about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, we're onto something. I think that we should get one of those companies to let us demo.
Speaker 1:Okay, but I got to say I'm jumping the gun here. I'm ready to have fun at this point. So, but what about Spot the virtual office? No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:Because to me I didn't like that.
Speaker 1:I loved that. I didn't like it. I loved that Because, to me, it captured so many of the elements of an in-person experience. In a way, it was digital but everyone was on a level playing field, and I think that is when we think about that. To me bridges some of those concerns yeah, you know what, adoption and like so yeah, so that is yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think when I say I don't like spot, when I would get in there it'd be, you know, I'd go and just walk right up to remote people it. It could be because I'm more tenured in my career. Thank you, you are well, are well-aged, I am well-aged, I'm like a fine one. Yes, you are. No, I always like to look at the camera.
Speaker 1:Watch me be funny, continue. You're engaging remote employees.
Speaker 2:But I think this goes back to does your company have the infrastructure appropriately Granted? We were piloting that system. Change management, change management. There we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay. Let me ask you this Okay, if you had a workforce that was entirely remote and you were given the directive, dina, your chief operating officer, oh God bless. Okay, dina, your chief operating officer, oh God bless. The chief executive officer has told you, okay, that in three months, no more work from home. How would you do it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I, you can't say quit Peace. Well, obviously I'd want to understand why. Yep, what is your thought? What is the business reason? For this just because you want everybody here. Please give me some type of business reason for it um.
Speaker 2:And then I mean I would. It's a good thing we're a recruitment company, because I would anticipate a lot of turnover. Yes, yes, you know. I mean gosh, I don't know. I don't know how you do that, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I mean just when we came back to the office three days a week, it was really hard for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:It was really hard Change is really hard.
Speaker 2:Change is very hard. So I mean gosh, hillary, I don't know what would you do.
Speaker 1:But then also think through what are the personal cases? So because if you tell like an individual contributor that the business case is, or like you're going to have natural intersections with leaders, First of all, like their job is to not care about the overall business case.
Speaker 1:Their job is to care about their job. And if they're not someone who cares about growing their career, they're like this is my job, I show up, I do it and then I go home. Then they're not going to care about mentorship opportunities, right? Or they may not understand, like, if you don't have exposure to what that means, there's no value in that for you. So what I would try, what I would do, is I would map out okay, this is the business case, so that you're always grounded in, like this is ultimately a business decision and we know what that is. But then how do you find the? What are the stories for each of your key audiences? And it has to be genuine. It may not be a great story, yeah.
Speaker 1:It may not be a story you like, but this is the lie, or it may not be a story they like, they like and that's in which case it's like understood that this is how we run as a business now and like we want you to be a part of it. But like this is how it is, and this is why we think it's going to be good for you and how we're going to support you in that effort.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know and then you call Dean and I get recruiting support.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're available 866-517. Sorry, just spitting out my phone number in case anybody needed recruiting support. Love it yeah, tough yeah. That's not a conversation I would want to have, but yeah.
Speaker 1:This is fun. This was good yeah yeah um. Are we returning? To the office no, we are in the office. What?
Speaker 2:um. Are we returning to hot takes for hot topics?
Speaker 3:yes, hot takes well, the hot take is how a lot of employees have been responding to returning to the office, which brings me to a fun new buzz term called coffee badging, in which people will clock in for the first half of the day, then during their lunch or coffee break they will badge out and go home, so they're fulfilling halfway those mandates. Is that a okay way to respond or is this just a sign of how companies did not really work people in to the mandates effectively?
Speaker 2:So here's Dina grounds for termination. I'm sorry if I tell you that your job is in the office five days a week.
Speaker 1:Did you define eight hours a day?
Speaker 2:Well, so to be clear, I'm going to assume I did. I'm going to assume I did. I'm going to assume that all that has been made clear. So anybody who is gaming a system that's just not right, Just don't do that.
Speaker 1:So here's my thought on it. I've got two thoughts on this. Whoa, are you doing it as a leader? That's none of your business. That's my point. It is, and again, like if you are an executive Pop, just called the kettle black.
Speaker 1:Well, no and I want to be clear on this If you are an individual contributor, an entry-level individual contributor, it is expected that you do your job from 8.30 to 5.30, with an hour lunch, right? Sure, yeah. If you're an executive, when's the last time that you worked eight hours in a day, five days a week, and that's it? Yeah, exactly Because the expectation of your job is different. Yes, in my personal opinion, if you are expected to be more available because you have a different type of job, then there's some flexibility that comes in, if you know you're going to have to take a late call you're going to leave the office early because you're going to work late, right and again.
Speaker 1:That's just kind of, in my opinion, by definition of that. But I think that the balance is if you have a team that constantly sees the people in charge coming and going as they please. They don't understand that it's because they spent all weekend on calls and working right. Yeah, and so I think it's a balance of saying do I think? I think if you're doing it to be deceitful?
Speaker 2:That's mine. Yes, yeah, if you're doing it to be deceitful non-starter, yeah, I don't think I would ever say to somebody your job is eight to five, you need to be here eight to five.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't care what hours you do your job in as long as you get it done, see, but the problem is, if you have like recruiters, our recruiters, the expectation of their job is they're available to the client during business hours yeah yeah I think we've talked about this before like marketers are very different very different.
Speaker 1:Get it done, you get it done I think for me, you need to be clear on what is the expectation for being in the office yeah and what is your flexibility for when things are out of the ordinary. Yeah, you know. Yeah, you got a doctor's appointment. You come into the office for the first half of the day, go to the doctor's appointment. Is it okay to go home? Yeah, is it expected that you come back to the office? You're expected.
Speaker 1:You see what I'm saying, yeah yeah yeah, and I feel like coffee badging is where people are thumbing their noses at the letter of the law, whereas, like, how do companies help people understand the spirit of the law? There we go.
Speaker 2:Well said, you're very on point right now.
Speaker 1:I don't know. If I'm right, I might get some people who are like annoyed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's okay. That's okay. Yeah, I mean, I would say I think you summed it up really well. I mean, to me, if you're doing it to be deceitful, non-starter, that's always an issue, no matter what it is, no matter what it is. And that's to me, that's the line. That being said, I believe that we should be flexible as needed.
Speaker 1:I do. But also I'll also say this the one problem I do have with the concept of like showing up just to like buzz in and then disappear is how much time did you waste just showing up? Well, also that. But I think about the people like me who are rule followers and I'm going to be there Like I'm going to be in the office, and it is a less like if I'm sitting in an office all by myself because everybody else has coffee badged, but I'm there because I'm trying to be a good employee and follow the rules. You kind of screwed me over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the idea is they are meeting that baseline of they are making an appearance, they are talking with their colleagues and I think they go home because they are not getting a better explanation of why the mandate exists. They're not seeing that and, as a non-leader, I think that would be beneficial. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, I think you hit a really good point. What? Is the why and if you're forcing people to come into an office but not ensuring that the office experience provides value. Office, yes, thank you. Then why are you forcing people in the office?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're 100% correct.
Speaker 1:Be clear on the value of the office. Yeah, I like it here at Human. It's to see us.
Speaker 2:Available Mondays, wednesdays and Thursdays.
Speaker 1:Do you not know what days we're in the?
Speaker 2:office. Ours vary. I do travel a lot for work. Bye.
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