When trust is broken, the office won’t fix it.
It finally happened. In a big Corporate environment, any time one of us "little folks" sees a message from the CEO in our inbox, we know it's probably bad news.
By now, you have received our RTO (return-to-office) policy.
For those of you who have welcomed and supported this change, you have my heartfelt thanks.
I also understand that for many of you, this is unwelcome news. You've grown accustomed to working primarily from home and have found it a better alternative to getting in your car, driving to work and spending the day at the office.
I won't attempt to persuade you with the various reasons, factors, data, etc. that prompted us to make this change and return closely to where we were pre-pandemic. What I can say is that we have given very close attention and scrutiny to all factors, including the challenge this change will undoubtedly create for some of our colleagues, and yet we feel this change is essential for our company to survive, grow and thrive.
For those of you who are dismayed by this change, I ask you to give us a chance. Make the adjustment. Join us in the office. Connect in person with your colleagues, and hopefully experience the personal and professional benefits we all gain when we are physically present with each other.
Change is seldom easy. For those of you who agree with this change and for those of you who don't but are willing to give it a try, you have my profound gratitude.
I am available to anyone who wishes to discuss this change and wants to know more about why the decision was made and why we think it will put our company on a path to an exciting future.
Note: I swiped the above 'letter to staff' from shrm.org, where they appear to believe this is some sort of shining example that a CEO could follow for how to communicate with their staff. I'm sure this passes for wisdom in Human Resources circles, but I guarantee your staff will have less-than-pleasant things to say behind your back.
If you want me to translate this line-by-line, drop a comment and I'll do that in a future post!
Returning to Office IS NOT about Productivity
The big problem with this kind of message isn’t just that it’s condescending (though it absolutely is!). The real issue is what it reveals: a complete breakdown of trust, reframed as a logistical shift.
“We looked at the data.”
“We know it’s not ideal.”
“We’re asking you to give it a try.”
All of these lines translate to one thing:
We don’t trust the way you’re working, and we think the office will fix that.
Spoiler: it won’t.
Returning to the office doesn’t rebuild broken trust. It rebuilds broken control.
Let’s break it down...
🧠 1. RTO Mandates Are Trust Issues in Disguise
“If I can’t see you working, how do I know you’re working?”
(Most) Management has learned not to say this aloud... but an alarming percentage seem to still believe it. The "socially acceptable" way to say this is that "We're more productive when we have that in-person synergy together".
But let's be real for a minute: that entire last sentence is just marketing buzzword hypespeak. There are ZERO measurements that can be made from a statement like that.
If you believe in "in-person synergy" affecting productivity, you're likely:
- Tracking outputs instead of outcomes. You might be tempted to conflate them but there's a valuably subtle difference: Outputs don't require creativity. "Work 8 full hours today". That's your output - 8 hours of work. But was it useful work? Was it beneficial? You can sleep at your desk for 8 hours and still report it as "time at work". What does 8 hours of work really look like? Outcomes give your team the flexibility to achieve their mission in their own way, rather than dictating all the specifics. Imagine that: giving them flexibility means you don't have to manage them as much... I'll let ya think on that one a bit 😉
- Assuming proximity equals progress. You probably feel like "getting everyone together in a meeting" is going to solve problems. But here's the thing: forcing everyone into a building allows us to be lazy in our definition of feedback loops, expectations, and... accountability. Being remote required us to figure those things out.
🔇 2. Async Isn’t Absence... It’s Respect.
The premise of returning to the office is to provide some sort of order to the "chaos" of work... but async-first teams aren’t actually chaotic. In fact, (when done right) they’re more structured, focused, and respectful of deep work than the average office-bound team.
How is that possible? By avoiding one of the "cultural cornerstones": the Hallway meeting. I can't count the number of times I got caught in a hallway conversation, and when I finally escaped I'd lost a half hour or more. I'm not a proponent of being rude or antisocial, but it's hard to deliver on time if you're regularly interrupted for extended periods.
So what's the problem with being asynchronous? We covered this recently in The Cultural Compartmentalization Paradox: many companies have adopted remote tools without remote Norms. They see Slack noise and Zoom fatigue and think, "clearly this isn’t working" when in reality it's just a different balance.
The important lesson to learn here is that you can't just slap a Zoom call on it and call it Remote work... adopting a new way of working requires you to change behaviors along with your tools.
🧱 3. You Can’t Rebuild Culture With a Badge Reader
“We need to be back in-person because we’re losing our culture!”
In fact, your need to control and meticulously quantify everything and everyone is tearing down your culture. For example: I've worked in some cultures where your manager has to approve PTO requests (Which implies that there's any chance that the request will be denied). Just the word choice in a message: "You may have those days off" implies a sense of ownership and authority over an employee that feels... icky. It's much better to respond with "ok, who's covering your work while you're out?"... see how this sounds more like curiosity than authority?
Culture doesn't need a building where everyone's gathered together. It needs intentionality, thoughtfulness, and genuine empathy.
Sure, you probably felt "like family" when everyone was in the office together before... but there are a lot of folks starting to realize that's not a great analogy. It's not healthy and we shouldn't set a goal to return to how it was.
🛠️ 4. Offices Are Tools, Not Fixes
I'm not proposing that we never interact with colleagues in "meatspace". There's no denying that people collaborate well in person. But RTO mandates are like trying to perform open-heart surgery with a chainsaw.
Yes, in-person collaboration can be useful. So can Slack. So can a living document. So can three hours of uninterrupted solo heads-down time.
Good leadership would ask:
- What friction are we seeing?
- What signals are we missing?
- What’s the right tool for this moment?
If the only answer is “everyone come back in,” you’re not thinking deeply about the problems, you're just firing up the chainsaw... instead, we should be looking case by case and choosing the right tool for the job.
💬 5. If You Don’t Trust Them Remote, You Won’t Trust Them In-Person Either
Did it ever occur to you that the act of going Remote didn't actually cause any communication problems?
Your team didn't just wake up in 2020 and were suddenly unable to collaborate well. The problem was there all along... and being remote just amplified it.
If your team isn’t delivering, if they aren’t collaborating, if nobody knows what’s going on — those problems won't go away when you scan into a building. They'll just get quieter. You'll be right back where you were... just with lower morale.
Remote work didn’t break your org. It revealed the brokenness that already existed.
🧶 Wrapping up
If it wasn't already patently obvious, I believe that requiring RTO (whether full-return or even hybrid) is a bad move. I think that as of this writing, employers have the advantage in the job market so they'll get away with it for a while... but I also know that advantage won't last. It's always cyclical!
The companies that will thrive when the pendulum eventually swings the other way are the ones who understand this:
Trust is the real cultural infrastructure.
P.S.
💬 Want me to do a brutally honest "translation" of the CEO’s letter in a follow-up post? Let me know in the comments. I’ve got notes 😉.