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The Tone Deaf Decisions Companies Make
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Yes, they told us that in 2017 we will no longer have the option to work from home. We used to be able to take one day a week. Their reasoning is that they just opened another office in North Carolina and they will not be offering it there so they are cancelling it across the company in all locations. We all looked at each other and everyone had that look, that we are out of here.
This was one of my holiday conversations with a millennial family member.
That bonehead decision is going to cause a brain drain. It reminded me of Charter Communications’ decision to change what was called relaxed work rules at Time-Warner, which it acquired last year.
In a memo to employees at all corporate locations, including the New York City office that used to be Time-Warner’s headquarters, St. Louis-based Charter restricted a series of common practices at the acquired company: No more jeans in the office, no more working from home without high-level approval, and no more early departures on slow summer Fridays. The new memo also banned so-called summer hours which allowed employees to work extra hours so that they could leave early on Fridays.
Yahoo was another company that did the same and banned working from home for most employees. However, research shows working from home enhances productivity.
“If you have been or sometimes work from home and you are assigned to work functions in these corporate buildings you should immediately begin to report to your work location every day,” the Charter memo from Paul Marchand, head of human resources, said. “Any formal work from home arrangement must be approved by an EVP and must have time bound criteria.”
The new Charter memo also banned jeans in the workplace without approval from an executive vice president. “We will provide a harmonized workplace dress policy in the coming months, however, unless approved by an EVP for a specific department and location, jeans are not deemed professional attire,” Marchand wrote. “In advance of the policy, if you are in doubt as to whether your attire is appropriate, better to not wear it.”
I would have expected this back in the 70s and 80s, but we were in 2016 and it hurt me to read this nonsense even now. What were these people thinking? These high-level announcements have absolutely nothing to do with accomplishing objectives. What do jeans have to do with corporate strategy? So, with this thinking if I come into the office in a suit, I will be super productive.
However, if I work from home or, god forbid, wear jeans, I am a slacker and will not produce. I can imagine that the people in the recruiting pipeline then, or maybe had just received an offer from these companies would have done a lot of soul searching as to what their next steps would be.
ROWE is not some pipe dream; it is the new workplace of the future. The ROWE concept was developed by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, founders of the consulting firm CultureRx. In a ROWE, you measure team members by their performance, results or output, not by their presence in the office or the hours that they work. You give them complete autonomy over their projects, and you allow them the freedom to choose when and how they will meet their goals.
Working in one is not the same as having “flexible hours.” The time your team members spend on a task is irrelevant; only their results matter.
In lots of organizations, this will be a leap. But you might as well prepare yourself because it is coming and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. I welcome the change because the current state in a lot of these firms is like going back in time. Their dinosaur antics seem so ancient.
When organizations like Charter make these ill-informed decisions, they have no idea how they are smearing their brand. All the silver polish in the world will be needed to buff the shine back in, if ever.
An organization’s goal is to reach its strategic objectives. It has nothing to do what you wear or where you wear it. It has nothing to do with what cubicle or office you share. Most of all, who died and made the EVP the king of the hill of productivity? That line in the memo alone requiring approval from an EVP just shows disconnect.
Any leader involved in these type decisions should be required to go through an immersion session of a “leadership anonymous intervention.” Their leadership compass is broken and misaligned and they need help.