Office mandates and company culture: What the research reveals

I recently heard myself using the phrase, “phone it in.” I was talking to an executive client who was feeling swamped by the number of projects she was expected to manage. I suggested she should focus her energy on the really important ones. For the others, perhaps it would be OK to phone it in — that is, to offer the minimum amount of effort and enthusiasm that would get the job done.

Afterward, it struck me that this is a funny phrase to use in an era when we’re doing much of our work over the phone or videoconferencing. The phrase comes from a time when most work was done in-person, so “phoning it in” suggested an unwillingness to show up when expected. It also implied that connecting and collaborating in-person is superior to the more remote forms of communication.

But is that true? This debate has been going on for years now, ever since the COVID pandemic forced us all into isolation. What a horrible, scary, lonely time that was! And yet, as we adapted to new ways of working, many people found ways to get the job done well while avoiding the fatigue and costs of commuting. When it was possible to come back to the workplace, many folks questioned whether the benefits were worth the costs — to themselves and to the company.

The divide over where work happens

There’s a big split between senior leaders and rank-and-file employees on this question. In general, the leaders favor bringing everyone back to the office, at least some of the time, while the rank-and-file favor the flexibility of working from home. Companies continue to experiment with all kinds of arrangements — full time back to the office; hybrid schedules, with or without requirements to be in the office on certain days; and fully remote work.

A recent article in The Economist titled “Does working from home kill company culture?” explored this issue, looking at the findings from a study on the link between firms’ working policies and their culture, by CultureX, a research firm. “Culture” sounds a little fuzzy, but research has shown that it can drive innovation, growth, and stock market returns. Here’s a summary of the study’s findings:

• Companies that required employees to be in the office full time scored higher on “agility,” the ability to predict and adapt rapidly to changes in the marketplace.

• Employees found these companies to be less supportive, more toxic, and less candid.

Of course, we can’t be sure about causality here. Maybe the full-time policy caused these cultural effects, or maybe certain company cultures cause the leadership to be stricter about in-office mandates. 

In either case, here’s the takeaway. If you’re leading a company where agility is really important, a full-time mandate may make sense. But you need to consider the negative cultural implications and design ways to ameliorate them. Sometimes, phoning it in isn’t good enough. And other times it works just fine.

Looking to strengthen your leadership team or navigate workplace change? Get in touch with Gail, an MBA and Ph.D. with over 25 years of experience helping organizations build better leaders.