Transforming Work with Sophie Wade

Mark Ma, a research professor at the University of Pittsburgh, studies social and economic issues including Return To Office (RTO) mandates, AI, and tax evasion. A working parent during the pandemic, Mark describes how personal and community experiences initially generated his interest in researching remote work options and hybrid policies. He shares his discoveries that stock market declines generated RTO mandates but not improved corporate results. Mark discusses the dynamics of executives’ control, power, and distrust affecting work policies. He advocates for workplace flexibility—giving employees and teams choices.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:23] While Mark’s parents advised him to study accounting, he found it fascinating.

[03:01] For his PhD, Mark explores financial analysis, and his tax avoidance research is cited.

[03:45] Passionate about research, Mark pursues academia, also appreciating the flexible lifestyle.

[05:09] Parental challenges during the pandemic fuels Mark’s interest in remote work options.

[05:50] Noticing neighbors’ complaints about returning to the office, Mark attends a conference and hears about working from home research.

[06:41] Mark gets tenure and explores risky research projects that help improve people’s lives.

[08:25] In late 2022, Mark starts collecting data on companies’ return-to-office mandates.

[09:25] Leaders say remote workers aren’t working hard, while employees keep performing.

[11:06] Return-To-Office mandates often happen after a stock price crash—but why?

[12:00] How remote work gets blamed—without evidence—for poor performance.

[14:36] RTO mandates also result from executives’ loss of control and not trusting employees.

[15:40] Companies may also use RTO policies to easily/cheaply lay off employees.

[18:16] Male and powerful CEOs—with higher relative salaries—issue more RTO mandates to assert control.

[21:38] Employee and team choice is recommended combined with intentional office time.

[22:32] Mark needs data from companies offering employee choice to confirm the best approach.

[24:58] Amazon’s shifts to 3-days/wk then 5-days/week RTO has caused employee dissatisfaction and departures.

[25:50] One example of Nvidia’s flexible policy enables it to benefit from Amazon’s rigid one.

[26:59] Mark finds no evidence that RTO mandates help firms’ performance or stock price.

[27:43] Should productivity be measured appropriately and over what time period?

[29:12] States level data shows structured hybrid work reduces depression and suicide risks.

[32:00] Fully remote workers often self-select which fits their lifestyle and social setup.

[32:50] Companies going fully remote need regular off-site engagements to mitigate isolation.

[34:18] New research explores RTO mandates’ affect turnover, especially in finance and tech.

[35:20] Initial findings show higher turnover, especially among women, follows RTO mandates.

[36:48] After RTOs announcements, turnover increases quickly as some people can’t go back to the office.

[39:06] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: “First, allow flexibility so employees have choice. Second, promote flexible team leaders to signal that people working from home will not be penalized. Third, for new graduate hires who want to work at the office, ensure mentors are present to support them.

RESOURCES

Mark Ma on LinkedIn

Is Workplace Flexibility Good for the Environment?

Research on Return To Office Mandates

Mental Health Benefits of Workplace Flexibility

QUOTES

“The more powerful CEOs and the male CEOs are more likely to impose return-to-office mandates.”

“You should allow team choice plus employee choice. That means teams decide when they want to come to office together. And on those in office days, those meetings should be intentional.”

“We clearly do not find any evidence that Return To Office mandates help firms’ performance or stock price.”

“Five-day in-office work is not necessarily good for your mental health.”

“A lot of top executives, when they do not see the employees in the office, they do not trust the employees. They feel they have lost control of the employees.”

"Firms are telling their employees, you can work from home, but you will not be promoted. That's not a good strategy because your good employees will leave."

"By promoting flexible team leaders, you will send a signal to those people who want to stay remote or hybrid that there is a clear career path for them."

Josh Bottomley is CEO of Dunnhumby (UK), a global leader in customer data science. Josh has led digital transformation initiatives at media and finance businesses. After overseeing customer data-focused traditional print businesses, Josh gained invaluable strategic experience early in the digitalization of organizations’ income streams and operations. Josh shares his insights about how he aligned multiple internal groups as new tech-enabled opportunities cut across business units. He explains the importance of working frameworks and freedom for employees and how to view any roadblocks.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:46] From childhood, Josh was interested in what will eventually be called systems thinking.

[03:52] Joining the Financial Times during the internet’s early days, Josh’s job takes an unexpected turn.

[04:47] How the internet changes the way a newspaper needs to operate.

[05:51] Josh tries to recruit for jobs and titles that don’t exist yet.

[06:46] The importance of details in marketing.

[09:43] Digital transformation isn’t easy—how Josh succeeds by talking to customers.

[12:54] Using YouTube as a Trojan Horse to move parts of advertising budgets from TV to the Internet.

[15:45] How Josh finds an innovative way to create alignment in teams and mindsets.

[17:38] Digital integration is done cautiously across a company, working closely with customers.

[19:59] The perfect place to be is one step ahead of your customer, not three.

[21:58] What Josh took from Google to HSBC and every organization after.

[24:47] Why we now think more about systems and ecosystems to understand our world and business.

[27:02] What Dunnhumby has been doing for over 30 years.

[29:20] How “nudges” help people get what they want.

[31:40] How to strike the right balance relating to employees’ need for freedom and structure.

[35:05] Clarity about expectations and sustaining individual motivation are key to empower employees.

[37:54] Having a sense of purpose and nurturing it in others helps internal mobility, Josh explains.

[39:40] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Pick a theme, a sense of purpose. Leadership is a journey. You may or may not get to your destination. Rather than getting frustrated, be curious about the silly stuff that gets in the way — see them as roadblocks to overcome as you progress. Life is an obstacle course, not a sprint.

[42:21] Gen AI may be leveling blue and white-collar work--the impact has yet to be estimated.

RESOURCES

Josh Bottomley on LinkedIn

dunnhumby.com

QUOTES (edited)

“We would spend $200 million a year on direct marketing and get a response rate of 2%. If we could get the rate to 3%, we would be getting 50% more customers for our money because one person in a hundred is making a different decision. So the lesson was, I might operate in this business at a level of detail such that one person in a hundred makes a different decision.”

“The perfect place in the business is one step ahead of your customers, not three.”

“Get curious about what’s getting in the way. And once you know what’s getting in the way, you can usually find a way to fix it.”

“Shoppers are not totally rational. That’s why I love businesses where the data and the tech result in some form of human decision.”

“I'm so impressed by younger generations because I think life is much harder. The default career options aren’t there. I think it’s much harder coming into the workforce now than it was when I was at that stage.”

Allison Vendt is Senior Director, People Operations (Virtual First, People PMO, People Analytics) at Dropbox. She shares key reasons and research behind Dropbox’s transformation to ‘Virtual First’ starting with an office-centric culture. Allison discusses insights since the initial design phase and implementation including the change management required. She explains the ongoing evolution of the company’s virtual first approach to the Future of Work as they continue to pilot, learn, and iterate. Allison describes how they create high impact employees’ experiences with emphasis on culture, connections, and community.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:38] Allison quickly discovers law school is not for her and finds American studies fascinating.

[04:00] Allison wants to do something creative and starts working in media planning.

[04:55] Wanting more daily impact on people, Allison does a graduate degree in education.

[05:16] Allison was a student athlete herself – a swimmer.

[06:20] As an academic advisor, Allison runs orientation, tutoring, and development programs as well as coaching and counseling.

[06:48] Intrigued by Silicon Valley, while at Stanford, Allison runs a technology-integrated program for entrepreneurs.

[08:46] Parallels between high-achieving student athletes and Allison's current coworkers.

[10:19] Starting her first job in tech, Allison feels at home at once thanks to Dropbox's culture.

[11:24] While the L&D group transitions, Allison is open to experimenting and shifts role.

[13:18] Exploring how employees can own their careers through personal growth plans.

[14:08] More current focus on mentorship and skills.

[15:30] Pandemic shifts give Allison ‘Virtual First’ as her first strategy and operations project.

[16:40] Before 2020, Dropbox explores remote work while having an office-centric culture.

[18:02] The company's mission is relevant as they become intentional about reinventing what modern work looks like.

[20:44] Mindset shifts for virtual first, prioritizing human connection and adopting asynchronous by default

[22:22] Research on effective distributed work principles focused on an asynchronous by default mindset and upskilling everyone.

[23:48] Needing to reinvent everything, one work stream is dedicated to culture and community.

[24:57] Investing in cultural tethers and touchpoints that connect people and drive belonging include a neighborhood program with local relevant events.

[26:53] A mentoring program helps build weak ties, reinventing core elements for Virtual First.

[27:54] The empowering essence and elements of Dropbox’s self-serve mindset and strategy.

[29:48] Investing in training managers who play a critical role in distributed work effectiveness.

[30:52] Iterative ongoing piloting and learning with an open source Virtual First toolkit.

[32:19] Research drives the decision not to choose hybrid to avoid creating two employee experiences.

[34:06] Being transparent about choices and principles, Virtual First still wasn't for everyone, but some have returned.

[34:46] Virtual First is executed with a learning mindset, just like Dropbox builds products.

[35:26] Change management is critical for the organizational transformation.

[36:30] Onboarding is overhauled and refined—identifying synchronous and self-paced aspects.

[37:29] What are the frameworks for success? How to make Virtual First work for you.

[39:14] The potential for AI to reduce friction at work starting with AI training.

[40:40] Potential AI opportunities as behaviors and tools must go hand in hand to get more focus time and flow time.

[42:35] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Consider virtual first over hybrid. Whatever the size of your organization, you can adapt the core framework appropriately. Try a virtual first approach with one unit of your company to see if it could work. The benefits of happy productive employees outweigh the challenges.

RESOURCES

Allison Vendt on LinkedIn

Dropbox on LinkedIn

Dropbox on Instagram

Dropbox on X

QUOTES edited

“We really had to take this opportunity to reinvent what modern work looked like.”

“We wanted to do our due diligence. We came up with a set of guiding principles that four years later continue to guide the work. It was really important for us to be intentional about what we were doing to have a solid design to kick us off.”

“Virtual First means we work remotely, that's our primary orientation of work. But we do prioritize human connection. We really believe there's just no replacement for that face-to-face in-pe...

Paul Wolfe is Author of “Human Beings First - Practices for Empathetic, Expressive Leadership” and a Human First Leadership advocate. Paul was the long-term CHRO of Indeed with a seasoned career in HR leadership. Paul shares how he transferred skills from Customer Service to Human Resources and built his expertise across different cultures and industries. He explains the value of transparency during periods of transformation and offers new career paths options as we transition from career ladders. Paul describes why flexibility is important for every employee and the difference human first leadership makes.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:35] Paul goes to college with a full scholarship but doesn’t like it which displeases his mother, a teacher.

[03:45] Paul leaves college, starts working, then joins American Express and finishes his degree in parallel.

[05:47] CitiSearch.com’s CEO and Founder ask Paul to move from Customer Service to Human Resources.

[06:30] Paul agrees to try the HR role for six months, transfers his skills and enjoys the new role.

[07:50] CitySearch and other companies go under Ticketmaster’s umbrella and Paul takes on an international role.

[09:54] Working three months in each country opens Paul’s eyes about work and other cultural differences.

[11:10] Paul’s philosophy as a CHRO: People get their work done well and clients are taken care of. Timing and surf/walk breaks are not a concern.

[12:03] Recognizing the realities of people working in other countries challenges our assumptions.

[12:50] Paul moves to Match.com initially to run both HR and Customer Service!

[14:05] Moving again within IAC, Paul helps Cornerstone build up an engineering group and go digital.

[16:10] Transparency is key during periods of change to explain what’s happening and why.

[18:04] During the pandemic, with almost no data to inform decisions, Paul increases transparency and discusses what information supports the latest direction.

[20:29] Organizations are living, growing beings with a culture generated by the environment that is everyone’s responsibility.

[22:09] At Conde Nast, Paul explores a non-tech industry and checks he is good at his job!

[24:39] As a storied, family-based corporation, Conde Nast gives Paul new insights about culture.

[26:35] Paul is offered the top HR job at Indeed, but he turns it down. He doesn’t want to move again.

[27:36] Six months later, Indeed still wants Paul to head up HR, agreeing he can stay in NYC.

[29:41] Indeed only uses Indeed to recruit, experiencing what its customers go through.

[30:36] Paul finds everyone focused on protecting Indeed’s culture.

[31:18] Growth is strong, the workforce expands from 1000 to 12,000 and attrition stays low.

[31:41] Paul’s first epiphany about human first leadership happens during a Zoom call in 2020.

[33:44] We are all the same before we become different.

[34:08] Paul does a “Dig” and discovers “Better” is the word driving his personal operating system.

[35:08] To make the world better, Paul leaves Indeed to write a book and spread the message.

[36:42] Employee flexibility is key. Paul believes in treating people like adults.

[37:48] If executives believe hybrid working is negatively impacting collaboration, how were they measuring collaboration effectiveness before?

[38:31] Why not be transparent: describe metrics, trial a plan, and review the data in six months?

[39:02] What about asking employees to discover the range of situations they are dealing with and using that information to develop policies?

[40:52] How much (better) were people really working when in the office at their desk?!

[41:31] Flexibility for employees who have to work onsite—giving them equitable options.

[42:18] Managers are not great at performance reviews, so making remote working a reward for performance is complicated.

[44:30] How leaders can help employees deal with ongoing changes, especially with many unknowns.

[45:38] Transparency about AI and its potential impact supports change management.

[46:35] Individual contributor career paths present new options for those who don’t like or aren’t good at managing, which has been developed in engineering but not other areas.

[48:52] Let’s create two different career paths—a leadership track and an individual contributor track.

[51:51] Engagement, upskilling, career development, and performance should be ongoing discussions.

[56:20] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: We are all human beings first. We are all dealing with a lot and self-care for leaders and everybody is important. What’s more, no one has all the answers. It’s okay—as a leader--to say I don’t know. It’s ok to be vulnerable. IF you have curated a good team, they are going to r...

Denise Brouder, Founder and Head of Data and Insights at SWAY Workplace. As a flexible work skills expert, researcher, and consultant—with a Wall St background in financial oversight and controls—Denise discusses a risk-adjusted systems approach to implement flexibility and optimize performance. She explains why AI is a key factor driving us from fixed hybrid to flexible models as the only viable long-term solution. Denise explains the critical importance of empathy-based trust to effect flexibility at scale and fuel high-performing teams and that to work differently, we need to start by thinking differently.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:39] From rural Ireland, Denise writes to Wall St. banks asking for an internship and gets one!

[03:55] Denise is systems-oriented, finding banks’ capital, economics, and operations fascinating.

[04:37] Denise compares Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs as organizations and employers.

[05:17] As a young mother, Denise leaves Wall Street to join a tech startup and get more flexibility.

[06:00] Denise finds she loves the process of starting with a problem and building something.

[06:48] Working in a large company becomes transactional while at a startup to see how your everyday effort contributes to progress.

[07:41] At a fast-paced startup, Denise learns to hustle, figuring things out as they build the business.

[08:22] Denise finds building and scaling with limited resources a very interesting challenge.

[09:02] Denise follows a colleague to LugTrack, launching with five people and a patent.

[10:19] Persistence, creativity, and grit are critical for success as a startup—which are emotional skills.

[11:06] Lithium-ion batteries catching fire on planes meant LugTrack’s business runway ran out.

[11:49] After a course on the Future of Work, Denise takes a big leap of faith and founds a company.

[12:30] Denise recognizes the work change ahead and wants to productize how to work flexibly.

[14:29] Denise wants to yell “AI is coming! AI is coming!” from the hilltop!

[14:45] Denise feels strongly about mastering flexible work at scale to propel everyone forward.

[16:10] Denise thinks that flexibility at scale levels the playing field for women.

[17:10] The first iteration of SWAY is a technology play using apps to convene the conversation digitally around new ways of working.

[18:15] The advancement of women will happen by changing the system from the inside out, making flexibility a gender neutral issue.

[19:38] Denise discovers she is a systems thinker and we have a systems problem.

[20:32] The Science of Flexibility helps de-risk flexibility as an operational strategy for a large company.

[21:17] If flexibility is demonstrated, measured, and communicated like a risk-adjusted talent model, senior leaders can get people on the same page.

[22:49] In SWAY’s work, EQ and empathy demonstrate the intelligence that is in flexibility that we’re going to need in an AI-influenced world.

[23:42] High-performing flexible teams are fueled by empathy-based trust.

[25:32] Emotions are fundamental to our human design, but we only just starting to understand them.

[27:47] Traditional working norms evolved around visual-based trust.

[28:26] In hybrid models, trust levels feel low and are questioned—these are growing pains.

[29:16] Flexibility at scale requires empathy-based trust.

[32:03] The social contract used to provide stability. Now, what is the system? Do we trust it?

[32:49] Reimagining the social contract may be an even bigger shift to prepare for in the future of work.

[33:40] Denise is concerned that some employees are not fighting RTO mandates anymore.

[36:05] In-office mandates are not long-term models, but the current situation is still malleable.

[36:45] In face of AI disruption, Denise’s goal is to articulate that flexibility is not a fad or a perk but an intelligent model for the modern era

[38:33] Mindset is first—to facilitate adaptability and resiliency.

[40:08] If we want to work differently, we have to think differently.

[41:20] Cultural differences about work and historical religious underpinnings.

[43:00] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: First, the Future of Work is a journey, not a destination. Take the pressure off “completing” the transition as it is an evolution. Second, we learn and communicate new ways of working through documentation rather than observation. Third, lead by outcomes and create social space to learn team members’ work styles.

RESOURCES

Denise Brouder on LinkedIn

@SWAYworkplace on X

@SWAYworkplace on Instagram