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Hi all, Julie here.

Not much news to report, so today we’re doing things a bit differently. Remember that ‘back to work’ survey I sent out a couple of weeks ago, asking about your desire to go back into the office and how your company was handling this? Well today, we’re going to dive into the results :)

One quick note before we get into that though, after that blockbuster Peter Thiel story last week that showed he was going to make a LOT of untaxed money thanks to an IRA, I interviewed Alto. This is a startup that’s trying to help more ordinary folks invest like Thiel and the rest of the PayPal mafia. This podcast episode is a must listen (and huge thanks to my podcast producer for the quick turnaround here).

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Back to Work

Over the last few weeks, now that vaccines are super accessible across the US and we’re getting to a point where large portions of the populations are fully vaccinated, we’ve seen many companies begin putting in place a post-Covid work environment policy. Some are being a bit stricter, like the big banks, and others are getting rid of headquarters altogether and adopting a fully remote lifestyle, like Coinbase.

The problem with any decision that a company may make is that its employees are not only going to have different desires, but they’re going to have strong opinions on those desires as well. More on that in a second. First, the data.

As of now, hybrid seems to be the policy that most companies are adopting. That’s good news based on what respondents said their desired work balance was. The bad news is that there are a lot of people expressing concerns about whether people that are in the office more often will be promoted more frequently, get bigger bonuses, etc. Fair points and I think this is going to be something that HR departments and executives are going to have to keep a close eye on.

As I mentioned above, most people don’t want to be in the office more than 50% of the time. Roughly half of our respondents said that 50% at home and 50% at office was their ideal breakout. Then about a third wanted to be in the office 25% or less, 10% wanted to be fully remote, and 5% wanted to be back in an office full time. You can tell that while people don’t want to have to commute to an office and then stay there for 8-10 hours a day 5 days a week, they also don’t want to never leave home and never see their colleagues in person either.

Back to my point about people having strong opinions here. Typically when you give survey participants the chance to type in some final thoughts, most elect to not say anything. Well, many people felt compelled to share their thoughts on this topic. In fact, over half of our survey participants typed in responses, with many of them being a paragraph or so in length. Here are a few select responses:

• “Irrespective of what my organization requires, I feel like hybrid solutions are going to make working harder than all-remote, or all-in-office. I am looking forward to seeing how companies strike the right balance while also ensuring team members feel empowered/embedded within their line of work.”
• “Orgs who are stricter will end up seeing talent leave as they've recognized being in office full-time isn't required for productivity / collaboration.”
• “Productivity did not go down last year. Let people have their flexibility.”
• “I wouldn't mind the ability to pop into a (nicely renovated) office every so often mainly for social reasons. I am much more productive at home, and also enjoy the flexibility that WFH provides. I would not consider working for a company that ever mandated me to be in the office 100% (or even a majority) of the time.”
• “I am dreading the idea of commuting! I cannot imagine being on a crowded train or stuck in traffic for hours, especially having worked 1.5 years now without that hassle.”
• “Remote has been better than my (very low) expectations, because of everyone being on a 'level playing field'. Once some people are in the office and others not, we'll have to see how things are and what we can do to keep everyone in the loop.”
• “The only reason I want to commute twice a week is so that I can carve out some time to listen to Tux Time.” ;)

Not sure who let my dog take this survey, but that last response was him. Anyways, you get the point here. If you are not an HR professional, be thankful. If you are one, know that I am praying for you. And you should come talk about your insights on the podcast :)

Julie VerHage-Greenberg is the co-founder of Fintech Today, where she focuses on editorial content and brand. Prior to joining, she was Bloomberg’s first fintech reporter, covering Robinhood from before it was a billion dollar company, breaking the news that Plaid was acquiring Quovo, and interviewing executives on Bloomberg TV and at several large conferences.

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