The Work Wire
Is Remote Dead? - The Work Wire
Join SHRM President & CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr. and President of Career Club Bob Goodwin as we explore the future of work in a post-pandemic world. This episode delves into the complexities of hybrid work environments, balancing remote flexibility with the need for in-person collaboration. We discuss how hybrid models impact diverse employee demographics, especially underrepresented minorities, and the role of empathy in the workplace. Addressing proximity bias and its career implications, we advocate for equitable work conditions. We also examine the tech industry's response to remote trends, highlighting the importance of mutual respect and open dialogue in shaping work culture.
Join SHRM President & CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr. and President of Career Club Bob Goodwin as we explore the future of work in a post-pandemic world. This episode delves into the complexities of hybrid work environments, balancing remote flexibility with the need for in-person collaboration. We discuss how hybrid models impact diverse employee demographics, especially underrepresented minorities, and the role of empathy in the workplace. Addressing proximity bias and its career implications, we advocate for equitable work conditions. We also examine the tech industry's response to remote trends, highlighting the importance of mutual respect and open dialogue in shaping work culture.
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Bob Goodwin:SHRMorg. Everybody, welcome to another episode of the Work Wire. I'm Bob Goodwin, the president of Career Club, joined by my co-host, the president and CEO of SHRM, Johnny C Taylor. Jr. Johnny, how are you?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I am doing well, Bob. How about yourself I?
Bob Goodwin:am doing fine. Happy New Year to you Happy New Year.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I can't tell you how fast it looks like. I can't believe we're pushing on half the month already. It's like insane.
Bob Goodwin:Time to slow down, slow down. It is time to slow down, but the world doesn't slow down. That's the beauty of the work wire. There is an endless funnel of topics to talk about, some of them that we, you know, maybe, have touched on before, but things continue to evolve, and one of those is something that I am sure that your constituents at SHRM are talking about constantly and you're providing points of view, which is full-time, return to office, full-time remote and hybrid.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Can I tell you, before you say this I'm so over this conversation. You're going away I'm afraid Everyone I know is but it continues to be highly relevant because it's moving, so let's hear what you're thinking today.
Bob Goodwin:Let me share one thing for you, and it's basically is remote dead. It makes me want to like press the clicker at the TV. It's remote dead. So this is a survey, johnny, from E&Y that just came out that you shared with me, and it says that only 1% of executives in a new EY survey say their employees are fully remote, a stark contrast to 2022, when 34% of respondents said they had a remote workplace model. It looks like hybrid work is the winner, with 80% of business leaders confident in the strategy. And then the one of the EY executives is saying he thinks today's of let's see what people want are quickly running out and we shall see.
Bob Goodwin:But yeah, I'm just real quick. I'm not sure. I totally believe the 34% number was fully remote in 2022. Really, I don't know. It was a bigger number than it is now. That's a fact. But 1% for people to be clocking in at just 1% is pretty amazing too. So it seems like you know fully remote is dead, and it's also kind of indicating that these mandates get your butt back in the office. It doesn't seem to be holding very well either. What are you?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:seeing. Well, and so, like most things, bob, the answer's in the middle Right and and frankly that's a good thing I think that we may have overcorrected one way. In the beginning, everyone and I'm going to be very careful about you've heard me talk about the use everyone did not work remotely at any point. We always knew that a majority of the American workforce were actually going to a workforce, going to a workplace at the height of the pandemic, and I remembered going over to get prescriptions for my daughter. Someone was in her workplace. They weren't doing that remotely, right, and the mail person was delivering mail and da-da-da. So a lot of the world continued healthcare workers, law enforcement officials, like a lot of folks, worked in a physical workplace. So let's start with that. The number was never as large as people said, but it was a significant number. It was single digit remote work before the pandemic and that number swelled in the 40s. 40 percent or so higher, as some argue, as high as 50 percent were working of the US workforce working remotely. Ok, so we swung and that was OK in the beginning. I mean we needed that.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:There was so much uncertainty about safety in the workplace. Could we keep people safe except in these most essential of roles that it made sense. Then we started with all of the headlines. People are more productive, they're happier, they're saving money on gas, their car insurance has dropped, they don't have to pay for food. And all of a sudden the correction was it's the new way of work. Going into the office is dead. You read all of the headlines right, the office space building is done, downtown urban areas are done, and I knew that wasn't right at the moment. It was right at that moment, but it wasn't reflective of the future, because what we knew and all of our data at SHRM was telling us is that people are staying home now because they want to be safe. The second, you reassure them that you can come back to the workplace and be relatively safe not guaranteed, but relatively safe. They want to get back because human beings like to be around other human beings.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Funny how this works and businesses innovate and and and grow, and for good or for bad this is the way most of them have, how we have flourished and how we thrive.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:The American American economy does so new, we're getting there, okay. But then the opposite happened, when the CEOs by the end of 2022. So I'm not surprised that that 22, 2022 number in the 30s, because if it were January of 2022, I'll tell you something interesting was happening. So no one, the people who could. There was a huge swing the other way and then, if you remember, we kind of had the summer. It was the summer and we went through the summer and then, and then the winter started again. So the beginning of 2021, we saw a big uptick in the cases and weren't what? When COVID wasn't attacking children, it then started to go after children until schools were out, until you had daycare issues. So it went through all of 2021 before we kind of started talking about a post pandemic world.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:And then the winter started again. The flu, the COVID, so early 2022, it doesn't surprise me that the number was as high as they're reporting as the EY people report, reporting as the E and Y people report. But precipitously, as spring broke in 2022, we started to see the get back to work message. Ceos were like enough of this, you're going to come back to work or you won't work here. And the market started softening. The employment market. I was looking today, 6.2 million people looking, 8.7 million open jobs, but remember that was 10, 11 million. It was flipped Right. So, news alert the market is softening. The quit rate shows us fewer people are quitting.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:So employers and not just greedy CEOs, but employers broadly said, hmm, we're going to bring this back now and they saw the opportunity to do it. And that's where we are. Some of them and this is where again they overcorrected made these bold pronouncements. You know, work can't be done remotely. All of you must come back to work five days a week. We're going to go back to the good old days before the pandemic. And that, too, was the wrong answer. This you're going to come back to work and if you miss two days, I'm going to fire you. All of that didn't work either.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I think we are finally here. We are in the beginning of 2024, coming back to a more normal and rational approach, which is, I don't think those who went along for the Monday to Friday nine to five that we had in 2020, 19 and early 2020. I think that's gone forever. I don't think the people got excited in 2021 that forever I'm going to be able to work, not just from home, but work from anywhere, like my employer. I'm in the Bahamas, right? Oops, did I go at you, bob? I'm in the Bahamas and I can do whatever I want to do it out.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:That's not working either. So let me tell you a funny. It's not funny, it's actually tragic in some ways. There was a Wall Street Journal article that I read recently and I think it was WSJ, but but basically the headline was the new workday dead zone talked about. Productivity is gone between four and six o'clock on Friday afternoons and increasingly every day, because, as people are working remotely, they're in kid pickup lines. They said in recent reports that like half the restaurants in New York City were full between four and six pm, which means these people have left work early.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Happy hour's back Right, happy hour's back, and every day is happy hour right, and so between four and six managers are reporting. I can't find people. It's a dead zone, there's no productivity. Going into the garage and you're like my God, my garage is empty at 430. What happened, if it ever was filled? So what has happened is we've swung back, and so I think both sides if there's fault to blame here, if there's blame to lie anywhere, it is both sides took advantage and, as we know, learning very early, right If greedy, my tax professor in law school, used to say, I'll never forget the quote pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And in both swings people essentially got slaughtered. So I think we're back in the middle now. The win is hybrid. I think that's the winner and I'm really excited. Now, what does hybrid mean?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Exactly Is it one in the office? Is it three? Two in the office? Is it? We all come in on the same days, Exactly?
Bob Goodwin:Is it three, two in the office? Is it we all come in on the same days? I don't know that's unique to your culture, but at least decades and decades and decades to get to the model. That was in February of 2020. It's going to take a while and a lot of experimentation to sort out where we go from here.
Bob Goodwin:I do believe that we are very much in this period of experimentation. To your point, ceos experimented with come on, now we're all going back to the office, don't want to really have a dialogue about this anymore. I'm just telling you it's the mandate of what you're going to do next. And people are like, yeah, no, I don't want to do that. And so there's this tug of war, and I think that power struggle is still in place. It's ironic, though.
Bob Goodwin:One of the things with Gen Z is they want to go to the office right heck, out of their apartment or mom and dad's house. They want to be around other people and they, they very much want to get back to the office. It feels like work when I'm at the office, and so you know, somehow maybe I'm my own bias, but like demonizing. You know, going back to the office like that's horrible, because I know how much I don't like to commute, but you know there's a lot of people that they do want to go there. That's where work happens.
Bob Goodwin:My life happens at my home. I really like the separation of those two. You know facets of my life. They're both really important but they're also very different and I, like you, know a chinese wall between the two. I like speaking with my colleagues, I like being able to poke my head over you know the uh thing and say, hey, john, do you do this? Because, like I, I don't remember how to do this. Yeah, you know. Hey, quick idea. Can I share an idea with you real quick, like you can't slack your way to greatness.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Nope, nope, nope. And I'm going to jump in here because we talk a lot in terms of what Generation Z and younger millennials want. The fact of the matter is, increasingly the data is suggesting older workers want it too, and I tell you why America has. I mean, everyone's talking about it now. It's probably globally the case, but it's definitely in america right now. We have a loneliness epidemic. Yes, we have a serious isolation problem that was exacerbated by the pandemic, so we sent people home.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:A number of a significant number of these people are empty nesters and oftentimes they're deceased or divorced. Their spouse is deceased or they're divorced, and so they're at home alone and long periods of time isolated. And yes, you can say you got Zoom and you and I interacting right now, but there's nothing like pressing flesh, seeing someone having a meal with them, grabbing a coffee, et cetera. So flesh, seeing someone having a meal with them, grabbing a coffee, et cetera. So we are seeing that on the other end of the multi-generational workforce, young people want to get out, for obvious reasons. The older workers are saying you know, I want to get out and build relationships and get to know people as well, and so I think it's really interesting that we are seeing a general coming together of the workforce saying again maybe not Monday to Friday nine to five, the way we did it in the past, but it's also not stay at home and do remote work.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, and so there's a few aspects of this I'm hoping that we can kind of explore, because these are some of the factors that you know get into all these situations are different, Industries are different, to your well-made point. There were zero work from home postal delivery people or nurses or whatever, right.
Bob Goodwin:So there's the uniqueness of your industry, there's the uniqueness of your company, of your team, of the kind of work that you guys do, the work streams that constitute the outputs. We both know Katie George from McKinsey, and one of the things that Katie talks about that I think is really illuminating is that on a project, when we're together might be really helpful at the beginning. We're in a creative mode. This isn't a team dynamic. We're kind of getting all aligned on what we're going to do together as a team.
Bob Goodwin:Then, as the work gets divvied out, then it's like you know what this is head down, hands on, keyboard work. This is like I just need to go be a knowledge worker and think for a while I need to go do some research, whatever the work stream is, for a while. I need to go do some research, whatever the work stream is and then coming back together to share your kind of progress on the, the project or whatever. But you know, none of that had anything to do with the day of the week. It was organized around the work and the work is actually focused on the result. Like how do we get results oriented, get out of a time clock card, swipe mindset and and be focused on the results, because that's really what matters no, I, I love katie and I and I I think they're so right on that, it's it's.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:But I do want to say there, there is work right. It absolutely say there is work right, it absolutely. On balance, we believe that people coming together create a much better product and experiences. First of all, we talk about diversity all the time. Well, the funny thing about working remotely is you actually become less diverse in many ways because you typically live with and around people who look like you, have similar experiences, et cetera. So what we want to do is get people together so we can actually unlock the power of that diversity, and fully remote it doesn't eliminate it, but it definitely hampers it.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Like you don't get everything that you could get from people who are different, getting together and guess what, acting like human beings, which is how human beings do what they do. I will say this though so, yes, there's the work part and you'll hear me focus on this a lot but there's also that human part. Human beings thrive around other human beings to varying degrees. Some people don't want to be around people all the time, but they want to. But because we know this, we know that in most of the world, if you were incarcerated and they put you in with that thing solitary confinement people go crazy, like they really do significant periods of time without other people. So there's something very human about bringing us all together. It happens to be commercially good, but it's also good for the human being and then societies broadly, as, again, we most experience diversity when you bring people together. I can see as someone different on the screen, but there's nothing like doing. I don't know if you yeah, I know you do you travel around the world. Yeah, surely I could sit on a screen and visit Europe online, but there's nothing like walking down the streets of Europe and interacting with their people and eating their food and smelling the citrus Like that's how this all happens. So I want to focus on how important it is and we talk about this a lot on the work wire that we focus on allowing human beings to flourish, and I think that's why hybrid is so important giving us a time to balance and you know I don't use this term a lot but balancing our lives and our work so that you know you integrate and you move seamlessly throughout. But, yeah, this thing, I think hybrid is where we're going to land.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Now what's going to be interesting for me and I'm watching very closely is to see where the data falls out. So you know I'm a data wonk and I think in many ways we have a huge opportunity. I know SHRM has been doing this but to measure productivity, to measure engagement, to measure satisfaction. So we know what the world was like pre-pandemic kind of. We didn't have the best measurements, but we know for sure that we started measuring productivity and engagement once people, a significant portion of whom, went home and worked remotely, and so it'd be interesting to see.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I've always said, from April to June to July of 2020, of course, productivity was at an all-time high. You couldn't go to a movie theater or coffee shop or anything. You're stuck at home. So what else do you do about work? I know for me, I wrote my first book Reset because I was at home with nothing else to do and I never could, right. I had these kids in the house and I was like I'll do anything, I'll write a book to get away from them, right?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:But I think we're going to be able to see that there was a point at which we burned people out. We worked them too hard because they focused exclusively on work. By to. You said the blurring of work and and home, and so now we're going to be able to. We saw there's a point and then we saw a precipitous drop in productivity. All of the data. I know there are people out there who are going to deny it and reject it and say, oh, not at my employer. Overall, when we look at big Bureau of Labor Statistics data and that's the data right it tells us that productivity started to go on a serious decline and now we've just in the last couple of months from the BLS, we've seen it go back up and I submit to you that it's partially because we began to bring people back into some type of hybrid work, because I think that's when we are most productive.
Bob Goodwin:You know. So you ended on productive, I started on results, but in the middle you wove in. We're social creatures and I want to go to that part too, because you know this is what it would potentially gets lost. And what's it called? Proximity bias? Is that the term that people use and meaning, if I got this right, it's something along the lines of basically, if I go to the office and I'm seen by the people that have the opportunity to tap me for promotions or more responsibility or any kind of recognition, I stand a better chance than my remote colleague who's kind of out of sight, out of mind, right? So okay, that's fine, but you can't get away from the fact that we are social creatures and we just are, and so you know, building relationships with people, it doesn't happen remotely like it does in person. I think about mentoring, you know? I know, is this mentor month or is that seems?
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:like.
Bob Goodwin:I think, I think it was either every month is mentor month, right, but but.
Bob Goodwin:But the fact is it's like, you know, that is a very lost opportunity if someone. And mentoring goes in both directions too, right, I mean, a young person could be mentoring, uh, someone more senior than them on technology or something else, so that's all cool, um, but but to lose those connections, all in the name of productivity, you know, is probably a pretty big opportunity cost. To develop people, not just hit, you know, short-term or whatever productivity goal, because I think ultimately, the muscle of the organization is not as strong as it could be because all the muscles aren't being exercised. That's right.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:They've atrophied, and listen.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I get it. What I love about this and this conversation that we're having is we're getting back to the middle like common sense approaches. Too much of work work remote was bad. Too much of being in the office 80, 90 hours a week is bad like, and not a lot. So just figuring out how to settle in a good place. Another area that I feel like I'm under my inclusion equity and diversity hat a lot today, but one of the things that we don't talk a lot about is because of proximity bias.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:There are serious long-term career implications to underrepresented minorities when they are not in the workplace. If they are fully working remotely, I think the data is going to tell us over time that they will have fewer opportunities people like me to build relationships and they will be disadvantaged over time. To identify mentors and mentoring opportunities and sponsors and sponsoring opportunities to build networks Over time. That's something and it's classic. People think so in the now. Well, I'm going to stay at home because it's easier for me.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I've read some articles about Black women saying I don't have to face the microaggressions of coming to work, so I'm feeling better now. Yeah, but that's the now. A decade from now, let's see how that plays out when people are being promoted around you, because not because they don't want to promote Black people or don't want to promote women or Latinos or whatever, but because they don't know you. They just never had the opportunity to vouch for your work style, your personality, your go down the list, check, check, check.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:And so I think that, as we reflect on it and I'm so glad that people are being forced back into a hybrid work environment, because asking people what they want's a really important point I can't tell you so I've been talking a lot about that the way that you're going to. If you feel like, for example, you are name it a Latino, black, latino and you don't feel comfortable with other people, well, the sure as hell way not to ever get comfortable with other types of people is, if you don't interact with them, you simply do it across the screen. That's a surefire way for you never to get comfortable with other people. And, let's face it, our country is as divided as as diverse as it's ever been. By the way, it happens to be as divided as well, but it's going to become even more diverse. So you've got to force people back into this work environment.
Bob Goodwin:I believe so one of one of the quotes that you know you'd like to, that I've learned from you is just that empathy is a two-way street. That's right, and you know my heart is with the worker, the candidate, right and in. You know so. So when I think about you, they're a caregiver, like all the things that act on us as human beings, not just work, producing units like that. Stuff resonates with me.
Bob Goodwin:Comma at the same time, for the employer to have a healthy company, to have a healthy culture for you, as I think you said. Well, you know, yes, in the short term I understand why you want that one immediate gratification, but please understand that is not going to serve you well over time. And if you aren't making yourself more available to your employer to see and for you to grow and to develop, more available to your employer to see and for you to grow and to develop, there's a cost that you're going to pay, probably on another day. But you're just getting back to the you know the five day a week, however many hours a week. You know, okay, that was the model and the employer kind of held a lot of the leverage in that shifted and now we're getting back. You know, okay, that was the model and the employer kind of held a lot of the leverage in that shifted and now we're getting back you know, into finding equilibrium.
Bob Goodwin:Yes, Like there has to be, I think. Now give on the part of the worker to understand that, you know, the employer believes that innovation, you know, and creativity, culture, all those things get built when we're together, or get built better when we're together, and to just not pay that due respect of like, well, they may be right about that. Maybe I should like move, you know, and, johnny, you said this two years ago to me, which was you, which was when the pandemic hit, and also we went to in a lot of industries, almost fully remote, and then employers came back and said, hey, how, about three days a week? That was already a giant conception, christine, model and employees going, yeah, no.
Bob Goodwin:I just want to stay home. It's like, well, who's operating in good faith here? That's right.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:No, and I got to tell you. This is where and I hope people don't bite my head off on this one, but ultimately it is called work and ultimately the employer is paying you and while you have a choice not to come, the terms and conditions of work are dictated by the employer period. I have the most amazing housekeeper who I've had with us for a while. She's helped me raise my daughter all that good stuff and helps my life is could not work without her. But I tell her the hours that I need are here and she can't come when she wants to come. She has to come when it works for me, Because it's like that's how it works. I pay you and now she could decide. You know, Johnny, the hours that you want don't work for me, in which case I'd get someone else. That's just how this works, and we have to come to grips with the fact that an employer should be flexible, should be accommodating, but ultimately, if I'm paying you and you're going to give me something in exchange, then both of us have to decide if this works. What you're seeing more and more CEOs are saying pretty blatantly like got it, but this is how we're going to work. I'm going to tell you up front and if this works for you, good. If it doesn't work for you, that's okay too. I would point out something else too.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:One of the areas, one of the sectors that has been particularly hit by layoffs this year was in the tech space. I don't think it's accidental or coincidental. I should say that that was the sector that was the fastest to say work from anywhere. Yeah, I think, Right, they, that was a group. People can work, not just work from home, but you can work from anywhere, and our people don't need to be together and dah, dah, dah. And I think what we're seeing as an indicator is that two or three years later, a lot of those companies are not thriving as well as they did when people were working together. You're not bringing new products to market as quickly and those products aren't as good because they don't have the advantage of that diversity, that diverse group of people working together to create and ideate, and what have you? And now, all of a sudden, they're laying off that diverse group of people working together to create and ideate, and what have you? And now, all of a sudden, they're laying off.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I saw this morning Google is laying off a whole hundreds of people. Again, I saw this company Twitch. It was unfortunate. I don't know if you saw it. It's horrible. They leaked to Bloomberg that they were going to do it, so a third of their workforce they laid off. So the CEO was forced to say we're going to do this in a more orderly fashion. But I'm going to tell you all via email, because everyone learned from Bloomberg.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Yesterday I saw Spotify, which was't think they're willing to ask themselves what changed. I'm going to submit to you that some of what changed is the way they worked and this notion I always called work from home a grand experiment. I was like we don't know, We've never done it that way before and now we're going to go do it. We may learn that in the short term, because we had to keep people safe, it made sense. But the long term not so much, and I think it has directly impacted the bottom lines, the valuations of these companies. I fundamentally believe that now, over time, we'll be able to collect data and determine if that's true. But we already see the CEO community moving back toward. I got to get you back in here to get this business back on track. Yeah, so it's kind of a different track.
Bob Goodwin:I think that that is one of the important factors of a multifactorial kind of thing.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I don't want to overly simplify it.
Bob Goodwin:But yeah, I mean tech went on a hiring binge. They were flush with cash. It was basically a talent land grab that they were on and you know back to your point about but it's so called and I'm still the employer, just to be clear. And the balance in this and this is trade-offs is employer brand, the competition for talent. And you know, in the same way that when you want me, jamie Dimon, to be in the office all the time, I don't really want to be in the Cool, don't work at JPMorgan Chase, that's okay. But there's also trade-offs to where you are going to go work and do they have the same financial wherewithal that JPMorgan Chase does? You know, is they're going to go out of business in two years? You don't know. So the regional bank that all sudden got turned around. So everything is a trade-off, everything is a choice and there's like so many things, there's. It's like you always say with culture, it's not right or wrong. It doesn't fit you and if it doesn't, there's 10 million other places you can go work at. It's.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:OK, and that's what you know as we wrap this up. That's what employees have to understand and it's not intended to be threatening. I've said that to people. I said listen, you owe it to yourself to be in a place where it's culturally aligned, where the rules work for you and or at least are acceptable to you, et cetera. At such point that you decide that this doesn't work for you and or at least are acceptable to you, et cetera. At such point that you decide that this doesn't work for you. I'm not bad. You're not bad. No one's judging here. It just doesn't work for you and I'll you know. Let's do this the right way.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:What happens, you see more and more, is when a CEO and I got to point this out, so the CEO who announces you can work from anywhere at a period, that person is a hero. The person who says I want you to come into the office is a villain. How that, like that, doesn't work. First of all, neither one of these people is right in the in, like the sense of what is right and wrong in life. Right, they're right because they've said this is the way I'm going to operate here.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Jack Dorsey said this is the way Twitter is going to work. Good, check we can, or X as they call it now. Okay, uh, jamie Dimon said this is the way the bank is going to work. Neither one of them is bad. They're just different. And that's the beautiful thing about the workforce is you've got all sorts of options. You, as an employee, has to decide which one of these ways of work work best. For me, the idea that you're going to go to one and make that CEO, him or her, change their minds because you don't like it is naive, it's misplaced and, I think, counterproductive. It just I think okay.
Bob Goodwin:So I think that that you know having an open and honest dialogue. Jamie, I understand what you want. I just want to also offer up. This is a potential trade-off. You've probably considered it, but I want to voice it. But to demand that you, that you really don't, your demand to make him change his mind doesn't really hold water. Then you probably want to work somewhere else.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Period and he, by the way, isn't demanding. I hate the headlines CEO demands that you come back to work. No, no, no. What they said is this is how we're going to show up to work If you want to come join us. If you don't, that's okay too. That's not a demand. That's not a demand, and you can't be demanded to show up to work and they can't.
Bob Goodwin:That's right. This is not the military.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:Right, it is what it is, and you show up voluntarily. Both sides do, and that's why in 49 of the 50 states or so in the US, there's something called employment at will. You can leave, they can leave. Nobody's tied together and that's why you know you don't want to be glib about it, I don't intend to be flippant about it, but at the end of the day, that is what it comes down to, and what I am feeling more and more comfortable with is CEOs now are saying this is the way I want us to work. The next CEO might work differently, that's OK, but while I'm here and ultimately accountable for the outcomes of this business, this is how we're going to work.
Bob Goodwin:And to that last point is as companies change, people change too. Right? My life circumstances, my values, what's important to me, are also open to changing. And again, nobody did anything right or wrong in that moral sense. It's just things have changed and that used to work for me. It doesn't work for me anymore. Okay, no problem. Hey, before I probably wouldn't have wanted to do that. I'm okay with doing that. You made the point about older people wanting to go back to the office because of loneliness. Because of loneliness, Maybe they really liked the pandemic. All right, people change and that's all okay. So again, continues to be a grand experiment.
Bob Goodwin:The good news is is we have limitless data points and kind of live experiments going on and people are learning from each other. Shrm is a great resource for people to get outside their own four walls and see what else is working in a wacky world, so I think it's great.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:John, let me tell you, be open to it. I hope everyone listening will say you shouldn't walk away and say, oh, Johnny felt this way about remote, or Bob felt this way. It's not about that. What we're saying is the biggest takeaway to me is be open to listening and following the data and don't make the data which say what you want it to say. Listen to it. It could be that in your particular culture, your sector, your geography, that remote work works. You could also find that it doesn't. But let the data honest brokering of that data tell you and we have now three, almost four years of experience. March of 24 will be four years since. Wow, I can't believe that. So we have, we can now look back and we can see how things graph it. Be honest about what the data says.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:I find a lot of times that if the data says and I actually know of this happened with an HR practitioner who felt very strongly about remote work, mostly because that's the way she wanted to work, and I asked her, I said have you collected the data? And when the data came back, notwithstanding the fact that a majority of her employees said they preferred working hybrid, not fully remote, but not in the office full-time either, and she said that's insane. I said, oh, so this was never about the data. This was actually never about the employees. It was about you and your preferred style of work. That's a problem. We as business people. You got a ton of data. Now we should follow the data and go from there and remember flexibility is the answer. We talked about that word a lot. That is the way of work going forward. Amen, all right?
Bob Goodwin:Well, this has been another amazing episode, johnny. I know we will come back to this topic on future episodes, because we just have to.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr.:We'll have more data, we'll have more data.
Bob Goodwin:We'll have more data. There you go, so thank you for your time, your expertise, listeners and viewers. Thank you, guys, so much for investing a few minutes of your day with us here on the Work Wire. We appreciate comments on LinkedIn, on YouTube, on your favorite podcast platform. Wherever it is that you're able to see us or listen to us, we appreciate you engaging with us. We would love to know topics that would be of interest to you on future episodes, but in the meantime, johnny, I like what you do here with your W.
Speaker 1:The work wire.
Bob Goodwin:See you next time on the Work.
Speaker 1:Wire. Thanks, aaron, bye-bye, bye-bye. Check out careerclub for personalized help with your job search. Visit shrmorg to become part of the largest human resources organization worldwide.