Managers: Tend to want control above all, hence their responses are colored.
Execs: Same, and they’re typically old-school enough that they think everything has to be in-person, and that deals cannot get done on other platforms or the phone (despite their 2020 returns).
HR: They know absolutely nothing about the business, generally. They are a way to deal with low-level legal and compliance issues without paying the hourly rates of a law firm, and they are good go-betweens for terminating people. They are not part of the business; at many companies, they’re outright an outsourced function, or gradually being replaced by SaaS and AI.
Why would these three buckets be the buckets of people we discuss this major work shift with? All of them have a direct agenda, or no context for what’s really going on.
Oh, and have you ever — and I mean ever — met a “complexity-conscious HR leader?” I have not.
The narratives around “The Great Resignation” and “The Remote Revolution” are getting hijacked by people who don’t know anything about what’s really happening inside companies. It’s almost the same thing whereby, if you ask a middle manager or executive why Tommy left the company, they will instantly tell you “He got more money somewhere else” or “He couldn’t hack the culture here.” In reality, Tommy left because the place is run by fire-breathing dragons who drive Saabs, i.e. the same people being surveyed about Tommy. The answers mean nothing because it’s a giant void of self-awareness around what’s really happening inside the organization those guys are purporting to run.
The same thing is happening with all these current remote work, hybrid work, new world of work, and resignation-driven work discussions. Execs and managers are desperate to retain some form of control and the ability to discipline in the name of “accountability,” which goes away with two-days-in-office and video calls and Slack/Skype messages. HR is just trying not to get automated. What do these people’s opinions really matter?
If you want to know the real tea on what’s happening in orgs, talk to respected front-line managers (hard to find, but they exist), the employee level, the customer-facing level, and a few writers and analysts who have worked across different industries. That’s how you understand the modern moment. HR Henrietta knows shit. Executive Eddie just wants the peons back in the cubicle rows so he can be worshipped walking to his office, because the last time his wife asked him about his life was 2007, and that was only because she had 1.5 bottles of wine at “No Kids Happy Hour” with the ladies. It’s all agendas. It doesn’t frame the right narrative.
