Why Your Boss Wants You Back in the Office
In 2019, famed director Steven Spielberg lobbied the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (a.k.a. “the Academy”) to prohibit Netflix and other streaming services from participating in the Oscars. He said, “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie; if it’s a good show, [you] deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar. I don’t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.”
Like many in the film industry, Spielberg had a problem with the obvious fact that the way audiences consume films has changed. Spielberg’s fury was about not only the threat that streaming posed to the in-person viewing experience but also how the streaming giant Netflix reported theatrical grosses and budgets, despite these not being how one evaluates whether a movie is good or not.
You would think that a serial innovator and creative visionary like Steven Spielberg would have read the tea leaves. Viewers have more options than ever, and there is no compelling reason to leave the house to go to the theater. Moviegoers, by and large, no longer want to go to the movies. They want the movies to show up on their devices on demand. Streaming films is much more accessible for everyone. It enables everyone to enjoy movies and gives filmmakers more ways to share their art.
Even Steven Spielberg is averse to change and unwilling to accept that industry has fundamentally changed. Spielberg eventually relented and recently signed a deal with Netflix. Why am I telling you this story, and what does this have to do with return-to-office mandates? Quite a bit. Your boss and countless other executives fear change and reject the notion that what they believe is true no longer is. Like Spielberg, they want and expect things to return to how they were. But the way of working has been upended. As with movie audiences, workers no longer need to be physically present in a building to deliver results, and the data supports this.
What is the reason for this fear? Many leaders have established long-standing cultures of control and monitoring. They genuinely believe the only way to ensure hard work and productivity is through micromanaging and physical conversations. Remote work gives employees a high level of autonomy, and executives are worried this could make them slack off or break the rules. I would characterize it as a form of cognitive dissonance. The truth is evident and is supported with facts, yet they can’t accept the new reality. These decisions are based entirely on emotion rather than logic and reason.
This stance on control comes from a misunderstanding of the employee–management relationship. Believing that control produces better work is a holdover from a more task-based work system, which doesn’t carry over to today’s more agile working practices. Not all of this mistrust is intentional – much of it is unconscious. Many executives have spent most of their careers physically monitoring people, so it’s starkly different not being able to watch them. Unfortunately for these executives, the people who make these companies’ profits have spoken. Top talent will leave, and these companies will have difficulty recruiting. As the saying goes, “Change is inevitable; growth is optional.”