A Microsoft executive has urged workers to "actively fight back" against efforts by businesses to force them back to the office.
Lucy Cooper, Head of Customer Innovation for Europe at Microsoft, argued that returning to daily commuting would negatively impact women and young people. Cooper added that rather than using the stick of forcing people back to the office, businesses should instead focus on the carrot of "encourag(ing)" employees to return.
Cooper said:
Flexible and remote working benefits single parents, young people, people who have an a-typical work or life environment. We need to be really careful before we disenfranchise those groups. We have to actively fight back against the rhetoric we are hearing and try and find a new model to help the remote, flexible, hybrid work environment. We want to encourage these people to be able to turn up and be as valuable as they possibly can."
Cooper's comments, which she stressed were a personal opinion and not representative of Microsoft, were delivered at the MindGym HR summit in London.
Microsoft currently adopts a hybrid working model with employees expected to be on-premises for at least 50 percent of their workweek unless they have special permission.
The Challenge to Hybrid Working as the New Normal
The world had to adjust to the realities of remote working when the COVID-19 pandemic spread in early 2020. Some businesses inferred from the experience that there were long-term employee health and productivity benefits of a remote or hybrid working model — enabled by platforms such as Teams, Webex and Zoom. Many organisations decided to preserve the policy, and hybrid workplaces have become the new normal.
However, some businesses have attempted to return to varying extents of on-site work, believing collaboration suffers when employees work remotely. This has been especially notable in financial services and banking. JP Morgan, BlackRock and Lloyds are three prominent financial businesses in the news recently for revamping their hybrid working policies.
JP Morgan asked its senior bankers to return to the office five days a week in April, while this week, BlackRock released a memo asking all staff to be on-site four days a week starting this autumn. During its recent annual meeting, Lloyds was criticised by staff for revising its flexible working model. Robin Budenberg, Lloyds' chairman, said the changes were part of a policy scheme.
How do Businesses "Encourage" Employees to Return to the Office Rather Than Force Them?
Cooper's comments about encouraging employees to return to the office echo one of the critical challenges for businesses building a successful hybrid working model in 2023 — to make the office a magnet, not a mandate.
