Employees butts in seats vs remote freedom? My Idries Shah third side

Starbucks' Howard Schultz is the latest CEO to beg for white-collar workers to come back to the office.

First, regular readers may recollect why I reference Idries Shah. For those that don't, and for non-regular readers, here you go.

So, with that said, the third side here is that I don't totally agree with either of the "two sides" this issue has been framed as. (I also reject Shah's implied contention that seeing beyond "just two sides" will lead to a "complete solution." Lots of things in life have less than complete solutions, no matter how carefully they're parsed.)

With that, let's dig in further.

To begin, I see this as partially parallel to an athletes' strike — "millionaire players vs billionaire owners," as such things are stereotyped. I raise that because in many such cases, more discerning fans, and more discerning people who critique and criticize capitalism say that neither side deserves a lot of sympathy.

It's true that the "players" here aren't "millionaires." But, at many companies, the CEOs aren't billionaires, either, and senior management at individual sites may be millionaires, but not a whole huge lot more than that.

Second, speaking from a small town, where I'm technically in the "knowledge industry" in a sense, and have bits of flexibility on office hours but have to be in an office every day, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the Apple, Google Maps and other IT types who don't want to go back to offices. You wanted the big money you're getting. You applied to these companies, or FIRE companies, or similar, because you wanted both the primo pay and the primo culture of San Francisco, New York, maybe Miami or Chicago, etc. So, now you need to pay the piper.

As for how corporations deal with recalcitrant employees? 

First, pushing back deadlines for "you have to be here" doesn't work. Especially if, after they're pushed back once, your bluff is called again 90 days later and you have no Plan B.

So, what should your Plan B be?

A mix of carrots and sticks, and here are some specifics.

First, on parts of office life that aren't productive? Fix them. If you're having meetings just for the sake of meeting, get rid of them. Meetings you do have? Make sure they're organized, as brief as reasonably possible and otherwise beneficial. If you're going to at least a hybrid schedule, if not full in-house, make sure that employees who need to be in person together actually ARE in person together, and otherwise, bring organization to hybrid schedules and more. In general, have reasons, not chaos, for in-house work.

But, employees? Some meetings are necessary.

And, per that link immediately above? That "paying the piper" includes the paying the piper of having moved further away from the office during the height of COVID and expecting a temporary situation to be permanent. NO sympathy from me.

And, while Zoom is better than not meeting at all, it's still not as good as a well-organized in-person meeting. It simply isn't.

Feedback and interactions just aren't of the same quality, first. 

Second is divided attention possible problems on Zoom. You've got kids at home? Are they dividing your attention, let alone outrightly interrupting your participation. That's a problem.

Willfully self-divided attention, as in reports of people using the potential of Zoom to actually work two jobs? If I'm an employers, I definitely want your butt in my office in part specifically to nix that. You got a problem with that? Quit.

The other carrots and sticks that I see off the top of my head are two simple ones.

One is pay differential. While I indicated above that I have little sympathy for people who are likely mainly neolib Dems supporting Warmonger Joe who boo-hoo about gas prices, if I'm a boss, I see an easy carrot-stick dyad. You want to work at home? Fine. But, you're not getting our new 10 percent pay differential.

The second is related. Promotions fast-tracking vs slow-walking. You don't want to be part of a team by being here in the office more, then we as senior management don't see how we can give you more responsibilities and opportunities, and the pay raise that goes with that.

And, I'm even OK with employers and corporations "sharing notes" up to the legal limits of collusion.

Next, there's the leading by example. Senior management and CEOs shouldn't expect employees' butts to be in office seats any more than their own.

Finally, there's the capitalism issue. Actual leftists writing blank checks of sympathy to employees who probably hate unions and don't care about ever-increasing income inequality leave me cold. And, speaking of capitalism, Schultz is a hypocrite to beg for corporate workers to come back while fighting unionization by store baristas at the same time.