Greg Giangrande, Career advice expert Interview

Greg Giangrande joins Mendte in the Morning to talk about the Instagram CEO making the move to completely get rid of remote work early on in the new year.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, now, let's check in with Greg g and
Grande career advice expert with us every Wednesday at this time.
Check them out on go to Greg dot com. Fascinating
story Greg with Instagram, the CEO announcing that everybody has
to be back in the office. Now this is Instagram.
So you can work at home in your computer pretty

(00:20):
well with Instagram, but everybody has to be back in
the office five days a week. They say it's about
boosting creativity and building a winning culture now. To make
it work, he's also cutting unnecessary meetings and pushing for faster,
more focus collaboration. This is a big shift for a

(00:46):
company that embraced flexibility. So what do you think of this?
Will it spark innovation or they're just going to get
a backlash and people quitting over this.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
It'll be a combination, because there is no doubt that
not working together in person full time absolutely stifles innovation
and creativity. And there is a lot that entry level people,
recent grads, early career people miss out, lose out on

(01:22):
not working side by side with colleagues, not learning by osmosis,
picking up cues, letting the boss see you like in
like in a natural organic way rather than having to
schedule appointment via zoom. The issue is do you need
to do that? Is it best doing it every single

(01:45):
day of the week, or is a hybrid schedule that
takes advantage and uses the best of both, giving people
flexibility that they need to operate in a way that
is most efficient and effective for them while also bringing
people together. That's the holy grail, and most companies are

(02:06):
experimenting with a different formula for that, not five days
a week. It's still the minority. Only about a third
of corporations are asking employees to come five days a week,
and many who make these announcements actually make lots of
exceptions because they realize they're going to lose a lot

(02:27):
of talent. So he doesn't seem to be making from
a big company, But the reality is most companies aren't
doing this.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
He doesn't seem to be making exceptions, and that's what's
fascinating about it. This is a huge company, This is
a huge Internet company, and you'd think he'd be amenable
to having people working from home, but he's saying no,
he wants there five days a week. And I guess
the question is if they're doing this is Is this

(02:55):
a sign that everybody wants to go this way?

Speaker 2 (02:59):
No, it's definitely not assigned the genies out of the bottle.
We've all learned that we can operate very effectively on
a hybrid schedule with technology, and that most employees prefer it,
and the fact that still most employers recognize that there's

(03:22):
value to the employer as well as the employee. Most
employers are still keeping a hybrid schedule where whether it's
two days a week in the office or three days
a week or four part time days, it will vary,
but most companies recognize that there is value for everyone

(03:42):
in having that kind of flexibility. So what it's going
to do is create more competition for the companies that
are trying to stick to the old traditional model of
five days a week every day. They're just it's going
to be harder for them. Listen, a company like Instagram,
because it has such popularity and name recognition, they can

(04:03):
try something like this because for every person who leaves
because that doesn't work for them. There's a lot of
people who want to work for Instagram, but most companies
aren't Instagram, which is why in a talent war, they're
going to create conditions that are more conducive to what
most employees want, and that is a hybrid schedule.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Let me give you part of his argument. He says
that having people together in a workplace inspires not only creativity,
but collaboration. Does collaboration suffer if people are at home
and they're separated from everyone else.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Absolutely, there are things I miss where I know that
the energy of just running into somebody's office or workspace,
pulling people together spontaneously because you're all there. Absolutely, if
you're working full time remotely, that suffers. Collec co aboration
and innovation absolutely suffers. But you don't have to give

(05:04):
it up if you have a compromise, even if you
do three days a week and then the other two
days can be flexible days where people can still have
more quiet time on their own to follow up and
do whatever things they need to do, you know, for
their responsibilities. Without the distractions and without the commute is

(05:28):
really the best model. But for sure, companies that allow
all employees to work remotely full time, you certainly lose
some cultural aspects. You lose collaboration, you lose innovation, and
for early career people, they don't even recognize they don't
even know what they're losing because they don't have any context.

(05:51):
But you lose so much learning and career development by
not being in an environment with colleagues, learning from them
and having those spontaneous interactions.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
So he has a point there, He has a point.
And what's interesting about what he's saying is, for some
reason he is zeroed in on meetings, especially lengthy meetings,
and trying to get rid of slide presentations and making
sure that if there is a meeting, it's kept very tight.

(06:22):
I don't think that is what people are thinking about
when they want to stay home. They just don't want
to travel in and they want some freedom. But do
you believe that taking away meetings or making them tighter
and making sure there's not just a prerequisite weekly meeting
is going to help.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Everyone complains about meetings, but they complain often about the
wrong thing. It's not the number of meetings, it's how
meetings are conducted. And you often sit there and say, like,
why am I here? I'm not getting anything done and
I'm not learning anything. So there is absolutely a whole
kind of reimagining of meeting culture to make sure that

(07:07):
everyone who's in a meeting, knows why they are in
that meeting and they're getting something out of it. And
usually there's three things. You're either there because you need
to be there for awareness, some people need to be
there to provide inputs so work can get done, and
other people need to be there who own the decision
of whatever needs to get done. So whether it's a
stand up meeting that's five, ten to fifteen minutes, or

(07:29):
it's a lengthy meeting for an hour is not the point.
The point is are we advancing what everybody needs to
do to get their work done in that meeting. So
it's how we're doing meetings, not the number of meetings
that's the issue, and it is a big issue in companies.
Everybody complains about meetings.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, he wants to change that too, so that at
least that part you'll agree. He's onto something. Greg gim
Grande career advice expert with us every Wednesday at this
very time. You can check them out and go to
Greg dot com. You really should go go to Greg
dot com and you can ask him your own questions
there because we may not cover everything and he's great

(08:05):
about responding. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Greg, good to talk to you, thank you, have a
great week.