As the return to office (RTO) vs work from home (WFH) debate rages on BusinessCloud has asked some of the biggest names in tech and business what they think. Their opinions may surprise you.
You can’t build a culture behind a screen
Katy Leeson is a growth coach and former CEO of Relentless Group. She said: “I personally don’t think you can build a meaningful, lasting company culture entirely through a screen. There’s so many little things that just can’t be replicated remotely. Is there a need for flexibility – yes absolutely but I think the magic happens when people come together.”
We wary of employee pushback
Joe Averill, Level Workspace
Joe Averill is the managing director of Level Workspace. He said: “Lots of Manchester businesses (and beyond) have been calling staff back to the office; whether that’s five, four, three or two days per week. WPP is a prime example of this by implementing a four-day working week in the office, which was met by significant pushback from employees. There needs to be a balance struck. If you remember, prior to the pandemic there was excitement and implementations of a four-day week for a number of firms however the shift to fully remote has meant a HUGE transition for firms in a short period of time.”
We spent £750k on office refurb
Sam Lenehan is the group managing director at digital media company KOMI Group. He said: “At KOMI Group, we see a real mix of preferences when it comes to remote vs office working, but with an average age of 28, many of our team prefer coming in. For those living in house shares, or in city centre studios, the office provides a better setup for focused work, collaboration, and social connection. It’s also a super important part of the learning and development we have engrained in our business. While some businesses used Covid as an opportunity to downgrade their offices and cut costs, we gambled and took the opposite approach – investing nearly £750k in a full refurbishment of our Ancoats space to create an environment where people actually want to be.”
Stop posting about WFH
Neil Lathwood is the founder of Config Services. He said: “I really wish people would stop posting about how everyone should adopt ‘WHF/WFO/hybrid’ because that’s what they like. What works for one, doesn’t work for all. For me personally, I like a mix. Two-three days in the office with flexibility to change things up each week works for me.”
Productivity dilemma
Greg Cooper is a director of Acres Digital Prospecting. He asked: “If productivity is identical why does everyone want to work at home on Mondays and Fridays?”
Fully remote is a disaster
Jordan Madeley is the chief technology officer at Appacut. He said: “Tech teams should spend 60 per cent minimum of the working today together for productivity and collaboration. Whiteboarding sessions are underrated. Hybrid is flawed / always unjust across the team and fully remote is just a disaster.”
Employees can vote with their feet
Eddie De Lewis is the co-founder of Luna. He said: “It’s (up) to the discretion of the employer and whatever works for the culture. Employees can always work for someone else, or start their own business. We have a flexible/international remote working arrangements, but this has to be earned by the employee and not expected.”
Fortnightly company meet-ups
Cytix team. Thomas Ballin is on the right
Thomas Ballin is the co-founder of cybersecurity business. He said: “Once a fortnight we expect everyone in together for general discussions/ company updates etc. Outside of that, we expect the team to operate hybrid, making a judgement based on the specific tasks that they’re working on. For some that means WFH 90 per cent of the time, for others it means the opposite. If I saw a significant drop in office attendence I would start looking at ways to encourage it. On an individual level people (myself included) are often more effective at home, but putting a bunch of smart people in a room together on a semi-regular basis is a powerful thing that I wouldn’t want to do away with at the current stage of our business.”
WFH is not flexible working
Emma-Louise Fusari is the founder of In-House Health
Emma-Louise Fusari is the founder of In-House Health. She said: “What annoys me about this debate is that people confuse WFH as flexible working. I’m concerned that the employers who choose a RTO (return to office) forget about the importance of flexibility for their workforce. Every time this discussion rears its head in the media, the RTO mandate is primarily driven by privileged rich men with invested interest in property and who have lots to lose financially from WFH.”
Gone fully remote
Rob Illidge is the CEO of Vulse, which describes itself as the world’s leading employee advocacy platform for LinkedIn. He said: “We’ve gone from a full-time office, to hybrid two days per week to fully remote. We’re saving an incredible amount and public transport isn’t reliable for teams to get into an office. We continually gather staff feedback to decide what’s best for everyone.”
Benefits to both
Laura Malins is the VP of Products at ALTA and previously held a similar role at Manchester-based Matillion. She said: “I can see benefits in both. I used to work for a Manchester-based company and went to the office twice a week. There’s no doubt recruiting locally restricted the talent pool. I now work for a US-based company where a lot of people are remote however I love going to the office when I can to collaborate, I just need to plan it more carefully.”
I wouldn’t work somewhere without WFH
Jengira Begue is the content manager at CloudGuard AI. She said: “We are remote-first at CloudGuard. I personally would not work somewhere that offered limited WFH. My CEO Matt Lovell is a believer in in-person collaboration but knows that he will retain the best talent with a remote-first model.”
Office doesn’t work for people with ADHD
Jackie McGuire is the principal analyst at US-based SiliconANGLE & theCUBE. She said: “The ability to work remotely is critical for people who are ADHD, and/ or autistic. Not only am I less productive in an office, I probably make other people less productive as well because I am what my elementary school teachers called a ‘social butterfly’.”
Office transformed our business
Niall Ratcliffe is CEO of Manchester-based noticed. He said: “Spent two years building the company remote. When in office in January it changed everything for us.
– Hired amazing talent.
– Drove 400 per cent more leads.
– My happiness 🚀🚀🚀
“Currently hybrid with three days in office a week. Feels like a great mix for us.”
Better representation needed
Beckie Taylor
Beckie Taylor is the founder of Voices in Tech. She said: “Over the past few months there has been an increase in media coverage and general talk about companies mandating a five day-a-week return to the office with the likes of Amazon, Barclays, Boots and WPP leading the disappointing decision for the UK. With the talk and cut backs on DE&I (diversity, equity and inclusion) this is the time when we really need representation in the room when making these decisions and challenging the views of some and understanding the large proportion of who these decisions are going to affect!”
Let your staff decide
Hassan Zaman is the founder of Flocast. He said: “My personal opinion is let your people do the talking. Make it an open policy and if it is such a great culture as some claim then your staff will come into the office. I think a lot of businesses will be surprised that by forcing people in office it doesn’t automatically equal better culture or output.”
WHY do you need to be in the office?
Rebecca Cullum is a team coach and leadership consultant. She said: “My take is we need to be really clear on WHY we want people in the office. There is no logical argument for full-time in the office but even in a hybrid scenario we need to create value around the office. It’s about collaboration, social time and the value of being a team together. We don’t need to do this all the time but when we ask people to be together there has to be a reason. We need more focus on bringing teams together for specific collaboration days rather than just asking people to come to the office to continue with the Zoom calls they can do from home.”
Forced return to office penalises disabled
Melanie Denyer is group CMO of People Tree. She said: “Being disabled, and having proven during Covid and beyond that remote working is not only possible but beneficial to companies and employees alike, the whole RTO (return to office) situation is deeply frustrating. It’s essentially telling disabled employees and parents that they are no longer valued, and likely reducing the diversity of teams across the board in those companies whose leadership feel that micro-management and presenteeism are the way forward. And it will obviously be the already-marginalised groups that are most impacted by these changes. I hate to just lob accusations of ableism about, but forced RTO and linking RTO to future promotions feels highly discriminatory.
100% office working boosts collaboration
Charlie Coode is the founder of Culture15. He said: “Running a small, rapidly growing tech business at Culture15, we are 100 per cent in office, which works for us. There are simple reasons for this: information flow is too dynamic, roles are too interdependent and the necessary levels of collaboration too high for it to work in a remote or hybrid set up. We articulate this clearly in our working principles and are clear on expectations. By taking this position, we are aware that we will exclude a sizeable part of our potential workforce, but the success of the business depends on in-the-moment decision-making and the whole team having a shared understanding of what is going on. This can only be achieved by having everyone in the same room.”
Hybrid working is a must
Marketing, communications and branding consultant Rebecca Coughlan said: “I wouldn’t consider a job that didn’t offer flexible or hybrid work now. Especially in a tech field where there is often no requirement to be in a physical space, aside from building team relationships, which can be done easily with flexible working.”
Horses for courses
Chris McGowan is a partner a partner at Drax Executive. He said: “There is a clear trend toward employees returning to the office, with many companies expecting staff to be in the office two-three days per week. However, employees in tech roles, particularly software engineers and devops professionals, often enjoy more flexibility. This is largely because these employees are in high demand, making it challenging to recruit top talent and this is something they tend to look for, and because they tend to be more productive when working outside the office environment. While sales and operations teams are returning to the office more regularly, tech workers are often more resistant to this shift. Junior employees, however, may face challenges as remote work makes learning through osmosis more difficult. On a different note, some tech companies have been set up in a way where they are fully remote, and they will not shift from this set up.”