What Does Your Workday Look Like?
Days when you have to go in to an office, I mean
My company is adding one more day a week in the office to our work schedule. I’m not happy. We’ve been working Tuesday through Thursday in the office, and Monday and Friday at home. Mondays are now back in the office, and back to as awful as they always used to be.
I’m not alone. It’s happening everywhere. To a friend who works in the tech sector. To lots of people working for companies that are back — or never left — a five day work-in-the-office week.
Why? Amazon workers famously asked CEO Andy Jassy what data informed the decision to bring them back to the office at least three days a week. He had no answer for that. Because there isn’t any. Every explanation from every senior leader in every company in every industry that is following this backwards trend is fuzzy. Intangible. Unquantifiable.
Here’s what they’re missing: the magic sauce they’re looking for to make their companies truly great really does rely on a fuzzy, intangible, unquantifiable feeling among workers that their work makes them happy, productive, and proud. Leadership can create the settings and policies that help promote this feeling, but it isn’t guaranteed, and it can’t be forced. The more you try to force it, the less happy people will be.
