Each month, “Anschuetz on Leadership” episodes look at unique ways for business to approach leadership. Christian Anschuetz is an adventurer, entrepreneur, and United States Marine Corps Captain (not on active duty). He’s been a CIO, CDO, and founded a nonprofit to help connect military veterans with business leaders for mutually beneficial outcomes. Today, Christian and Bob discuss the trend of companies seeking to end remote-work policies and bring their workforces back to the office, and why a mandate alone is the wrong approach.
Episode 16 | Return to Office, Without a Mandate
The Big Themes:
- Consistency: Companies that ask employees to give up the benefits of remote work and come back to the office must also require executives to do the same. Otherwise, trust disappears and team members disengage.
- Clarity, candor, transparency: Explaining the specific benefits of returning to in-person work is essential. Saying that productivity will go up is not enough—leaders must provide examples, and help employees understand how their experience will improve.
- Culture and environment: The key to a successful move away from all-remote work is to create an office environment that people want to be part of. Starting at the very top, companies must cultivate a positive and enriching in-person culture.
The Big Quote: “The reason why leadership is so hard is because every day, every day as a leader, your job is to show up for everybody but yourself. That’s extraordinarily hard… If you are not prepared to very literally show up for everyone else, then you might want to think twice about bringing the workforce back into the office.”
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