Bosses can’t moan about working from home and be WFH themselves

Early in the first lockdown, a senior partner of a major London law firm said to me they were not planning to be back in their office for a while. He and his partners would be working from home and, even once the premises were allowed to reopen, he envisaged only the junior staff immediately returning.

I spoke to him again this week and he was complaining that they could not get enough workers back into the building. He did not know when they were likely to return; too many were WFH. He’d like to order them in, but that made him uncomfortable and HR were advising against it. I asked him where he was based and he said, “at home”.

This is being repeated across the board. Offices remain largely empty. People have got used to WFH, they’re loving it and they’re not in any hurry to get out of their casual clothes and to begin commuting again.

At the risk of coming over pious, this is badly harming our economy. Thousands of small businesses that rely on servicing office workers and their buildings face ruin. Commercial districts are largely empty. Trains and public transport are lacking passengers, stations have a ghostly feel.

Virtual meetings may be functional but they are no substitute for the casual encounter – the creative spark that may yield innovation, land the deal and generate a profit. Those firms where their employees are WFH will surely suffer. It isn’t a case of “control and command” as some have suggested; the damage is more to do with the absence of cooperation, that indefinable buzz that all successful enterprises possess. The longer people WFH the greater the chances of it diminishing.

But what to do? How do you require staff to head into their offices? Using force is difficult and unpopular, and makes the employer appear uncaring – a poor place to be in the best of times, but not now, not after Covid-19. Human behaviour determines too that they will kick back against it; they will resent being told what to do.

In the City, US banks tend to be compelling an end to WFH, whereas the British banks are keener to display a softer, caring, more relaxed attitude. Some are going for a middle approach of flexi-working, although that will still lead to staff not being in and a significant proportion working at home.

There is a straightforward, easy way that is being overlooked in this ordering versus non-ordering argument. It’s for the bosses to stop WFH and go into the offices, every day, same as they did before.

That senior partner who was moaning, was also enjoying working from home. That should stop. He must get back in. And not just him, but all his senior colleagues. They need to leave their comfy, partner-at-a-law firm houses, don their suits and work shirts and recommence the daily commute.

The reasoning is straightforward. FOMO. Once the workforce realises the chiefs are in, they will follow suit. They will not want to miss out on a quick meeting that may be beneficial to their bonus or career; the juniors will want to be there when a networking opportunity arises, when the senior partner or head of department suddenly says they feel like a drink after work and who will join them?

Where firms are going wrong is with the notion that this somehow has to be enshrined in an all-staff memo. That again begins to feel like an imperative. In this age of concern for wellbeing and being seen to do the right thing, that is not a good look. But it does not need to be formalised at all, it’s much more subtle than that. There should not be a fanfare or a great announcement, all that ought to happen is understated, everyday normal: the hierarchy get back behind their office desks and walk the floors and corridors again, same as before.

Word of mouth will guarantee that everyone knows they’re back. Very soon, once the managers are in their rooms or sitting in the open plan, and making coffee and standing at the water cooler, and bumping into folk in the lift, when face-to-face meetings restart in earnest, the rest will return. They will get the vibe and become anxious, that by staying away they are losing out, paranoia will inevitably kick in.

The firm can include those who are WFH on the Zoom and Teams calls, but it would not take much to provoke alarm – a reference to “talking later” or “afterwards, can you drop by my office” or “the client is coming in to see us” to those physically present – and the ones dialling-in remotely will panic. They don’t need to make it obvious, by promoting only those who come in – that would appear discriminatory.

The top ranks must lead by example, which they may not like, but if firms want to end WFH that is how to do it. Some are getting it wrong. According to reports another big law firm is reportedly allowing its senior solicitors to work from home, while their junior colleagues must be in four days a week. That may be fine for the seniors, but it will not create a happy, cohesive, all-guns-blazing, brimming-with-energy practice. No, for that to occur, the seniors must be in as well.

The leaders can’t moan about WFH and be WFH themselves. The solution really is very simple.