Old tensions resurface as return to office gathers pace
Companies are struggling to align business demands with an employee preference for flexibility. Is the office a platform to build culture or ‘a bland grey corporate hellscape?’ The jury is still out
As more companies direct their people back to the office this autumn, a familiar dividing line is still there for all to see. The pendulum may have swung away from employees trying to stay as flexible as possible, and towards employers determined to boost culture and collaboration inside the workplace. But that doesn’t mean everything is sweetness and light in the world of hybrid working.
On the contrary, two business stories from the UK reveal just how fraught things can get between opposing camps. In the first episode, British digital bank Starling, which has around 3,200 UK employees, has run into trouble after its chief executive Raman Bhatia called on hybrid staff to return to the office for a minimum of 10 days a month, ending a policy of ad hoc remote working.
‘A bland grey corporate hellscape filled with dead-eyed zombies…’
According to a report in The Guardian, some staff have resigned on principle. Others plan to resign and have used internal Slack channels to complain that Starling is creating a ‘bland grey corporate hellscape filled with dead-eyed zombies who care about nothing more than doing the bare minimum, clocking off and collecting a paycheque’.
Raman Bhatia has hit back, saying, ‘We share a conviction that working in the office is important for creativity, collaboration, problem solving, performance and engagement.’ However, Starling’s problems have been exacerbated by an acknowledged shortage of desk space for returners, which only goes to show how difficult it is to make space calculations in the current climate of hybrid flux and why better data analysis is needed.
Toughening up return
The second episode centres on struggling British supermarket chain Asda which has responded to difficult market conditions by introducing job cuts, restructuring operations and making it compulsory for thousands of workers to return to its offices in Leeds and Leicester at least three days a week from January 2025.
Asda’s announcement has been accompanied by a familiar refrain: the policy change will bring it ‘in line with our competitors and the wider market’ and enable it to ‘build high-performing teams with a collaborative culture and respond to what our business needs the most’. But its shift to greater in-office working has a different dynamic compared to Starling Bank’s mandate.
At its Leeds office, Asda promises to improve the working environment as a sweetener for reluctant returners. Changes include a better catering offer, a more welcoming atrium, more meeting spaces, quiet-space working pods, upgraded toilets, new chairs and redecoration, as well as an on-site Asda Express. That’s a better offer than simply owning up to a shortage of space for returners.
Equality of experience
Something else is going on too. Asda shares with Boots and Amazon – two high-profile companies which have recently tightened their return-to-office rules – a real-estate mix of corporate offices alongside stores, warehouses and distribution centres. Ordering laptop-toting knowledge workers back to their desks at HQ is simply bringing them into line with retail and logistics employees who have no choice but to show up physically in their workplace every day.
If equality of employee experience appears to be driving at least some of Asda’s decision-making, what’s Starling Bank’s excuse? Founded in 2014, this bank operates entirely online and many of its staff have worked remotely without controversy for years. Ironically, one of Starling Bank’s key backers is Goldman Sachs, which has been an aggressive advocate for returning to the office and ordered its staff back five days a week in 2023.
Support for bottom line
Ultimately, it appears that flexible working will continue to be sacrificed on the altar of corporate profitability. Work-at-home policies will only stay if they support the bottom line. Looking at companies such as Google, which started with a laissez faire attitude but quickly reverted to mandating its people back to the office, is instructive here.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is unrepentant about the tech giant’s decision to reverse its policy, telling Fortune magazine: ‘Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.’ But not everyone is so convinced. A raft of researchers led by Stanford University’s Nicolas Bloom warn that mandating for more concentrated office attendance will create a corporate workforce that is younger, more male and less diverse, with negative implications for inclusion and innovation.
As the dividing lines stay in place, this one will run and run.
To learn about new workplace strategies adopted by large organisations around the world, visit WORKTECH Academy’s Hybrid Working Radar in our Innovation Zone, an exclusive resource for members and partners.
