The Economist November 6th 2021 Business 61A
n office ismeant to bring people
together. Instead, it has become a
source of division. For some, the post
pandemic return to the workplace is an
opportunity to reestablish boundaries
between home and job, and to see col
leagues in the flesh. For others it repre
sents nothing but pointless travelling
and heightened health risks. Many ingre
dients determine these preferences. But
one stands out: seniority.
Slack, a messaging firm, conducts
regular surveys of global knowledge
workers on the future of work. Its latest
poll, released in October, found that
executives are far keener to get back to
the office than other employees. Of those
higherups who were working remotely,
75% wanted to be in the office three days
a week or more; only 34% of nonexec
utives felt the same way.
The divide has played out publicly at
some companies. Earlier this year, em
ployees at Apple wrote an open letter to
Tim Cook, the firm’s chief executive,
objecting to the assumption that they
were thirsting to get back to their desks:
“It feels like there is a disconnect be
tween how the executive team thinks
about remote/locationflexible work and
the lived experiences of many of Apple’s
employees.” Why are bigwigs so much
keener on the office?
Three explanations come to mind: the
cynical, the kind and the subconscious.
The cynical one is that executives like the
status that the office confers. They sit in
nicer rooms on higher floors with plush
er carpets. Access to them is guarded,
politely but ferociously. When they walk
the floors, it is an event. When they sit in
meeting rooms, they get the best chairs.
On Zoom the signals of status are weaker.
No one gets a bigger tile. Their biggest
privilege is not muting themselves,which isn't quite the same power rush as
using the executive dining room.
The kind explanation is that executives
believe that inperson interactions are
better for the institutions they lead. Work
ing from home “doesn’t work for people
who want to hustle, doesn’t work for
culture, doesn’t work for idea generation,"
was the verdict of Jamie Dimon, the chief
executive of JPMorgan Chase, earlier this
year. Ken Griffin, the boss of Citadel, a
hedge fund, has warned young people not
to work from home: “It’s incredibly diffi
cult to have the managerial experiences
and interpersonal experiences that you
need to have to take your career forward in
a workremotely environment.”
These concerns have substance. Virtual
work risks entrenching silos: people are
more likely to spend time with colleagues
they already know. Corporate culture can
be easier to absorb in three dimensions.
Deep relationships are harder to form with
a laggy internet connection. A study from
2010 found that physical proximity be
tween coauthors was a good predictor of
the impact of scientific papers: the greaterthe distance between them, the less
likely they were to be cited. Even evange
lists for remote work make time for
physical gatherings. "Digital first does
not mean never in person," says Brian
Elliott, who runs Slack's research into the
future of work.
But the advantages of the office can
also be exaggerated. The Allen curve,
which shows how frequency of commu
nication goes down the farther away
colleagues sit from each other, was for
mulated in the 1970s but still rings true
today. Every workplace has corners that
people never visit; no gulf is greater than
that between floors. And the disad
vantages of remote working can be over
come with a bit of thought. Research by a
trio of professors at Harvard Business
School found that lockdownera interns
who got to spend time with senior man
agers at a "virtual watercooler" were
much likelier to receive fulltime job
offers than those who did not.
If physical workspaces have draw
backs, and remote working can be im
proved upon, why are executives clear in
their preferences? The subconscious
supplies a third explanation. As Gian
piero Petriglieri of insead, a French
business school, observes: “people ad
vising youngsters to go into the office are
those who made their way in that envi
ronment.” Executives who have achieved
success by working in an office are the
least likely to question its efficacy.
That is a problem, especially since a
majority of executives say that they have
designed returntowork policies with
scant input from employees. A hybrid
future beckons, in which workers divide
their time between home and office.
Managers need to improve both environ
ments, not assume that one is obviously
superior to the other. Blame a mixture of carpets, caring and conditioningBartlebyWhy executives like the office
that it will offer its entire portfolio of pro
ducts as a service by 2022. ibm, mainly
thanks to its mainframe business, has al
ways had a healthy stream of subscription
revenues, but wants to grow these further.
Taken at face value, the numbers are
impressive. Cisco announced that it had
reached its targets set in 2017: software and
services now generate 53% of revenue. hpe
boasted services revenues of $1.2bn and
after the Kyndryl spinoff ibm’s software
sales will leap to 65% of revenues. Mr
Amon will hammer home the point that
Qualcomm’s nonhandset businesses,
such as cars and the internet of things, al
ready have revenues of $10bn, about a third
of the total, and are growing 1.6 times faster
than its handset ones.
But so far, investors do not seem to be
convinced that old it’s new clothes are a
good fit: the group’s collective market capi
talisation, now amounting to about
$600bn, has only barely budged from
where it was before the charm offensive
aimed at Wall Street. Much will depend on
whether they will be able to attract top
technical talent. Without it, they will have
a hard time competing with both the bigcloud providers and hot startups. Antonio
Neri, hpe’s chief executive, says he recent
ly moved the firm’s headquarters from Sil
icon Valley to Houston, Texas, in part be
cause recruitment is easier there.
Do these firms still have what it takes?
Most have new ranks of hungry executives
but even the veterans still have fire in the
belly. Michael Dell has remained at the
wheel of the firm he founded in 1984, ex
cept for a hiatus in 200407. Asked about
his future, he replies: “I love whatwedo:
It’s fun, it’s interesting, it’s exciting.I have
no plans to change my involvement.”n