April 29, 2024 • 19 mins
Marisa Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel explore the intriguing differences in return-to-office strategies between the U.S. and Europe. Dive into a detailed discussion on why European workers are heading back to their offices at a higher rate compared to their American counterparts. Wayne shares insights from his extensive research and personal anecdotes, shedding light on cultural, geographical, and infrastructural factors that influence these varying approaches. Whether you're a remote worker, a manager in a hybrid environment, or just curious about the future of work, this episode offers valuable perspectives on adapting to post-pandemic work life on both sides of the Atlantic.
Key Takeaways
1. Embrace Flexibility: Companies should consider the diverse needs and contexts of their global workforce when designing work policies.
2. Understand Cultural Differences: Recognizing and respecting cultural differences in work habits can enhance productivity and worker satisfaction.
3. Plan for Long-Term Strategies: Rather than reactive measures, thoughtful, strategic planning for hybrid and remote work can lead to more sustainable business practices.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
01:34 Statistical Differences
03:09 Culture and Structural Reasons
06:18 Work-Life Balance and Infrastructure
14:15 Future Trends in Work
17:10 Conclusion
Related Episodes
Additional Resources
- Long-Distance Leadership Series
- Learn more about Wayne Turmel
- Email Wayne Turmel
- Connect with Wayne Turmel on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Marisa Eikenberry
- Email Marisa Eikenberry
- Connect with Marisa Eikenberry on LinkedIn
- Purchase a copy of The Long-Distance Leader
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Welcome back to Long Distance
Work, where we help you meet, workand thrive in remote and hybrid teams.
I'm Marissa Eikenberry,a fellow remote worker.
And joining me is my co-hostand remote work expert, Wayne Trammell.
Hi, Wayne. Hello, Marissa.
How are you? I'm great. How are you?
I am very well, and I'm actuallykind of geeked about the show this week.
As you should be.
(00:28):
So listeners,
we are actually
we're talking about Return to Office,which is not the first time
that we've ever talked about this before.
However, the spin that we're doing todayis that
we're talking about the differencesbetween how the US handled it
and how Europe has handled itor is handling it now.
So, Wayne, I want to start off with, by
what are the main differences that you'vealready observed between the U.S.
(00:51):
and European countriesand how they're handling return to office?
Yeah, it's interestingbecause you can kind of get stuck in.
And Americans in particular are really badabout this, where, you know,
if it doesn't center around the Statueof Liberty, it didn't happen right
here, right.
Eastern time zone or bust. Right?
Right, exactly.
(01:11):
And so I've been writingfor management issues out of the U.K.
for a billion years. It feels like.
And I was doing some work for themand some research.
And I was fascinated to findthat return to office
is much more prevalent in Europeand in a lot of other countries.
Matter of fact,the US is severely different.
(01:34):
Okay, in the, number of people,just as a rough number,
70% of people in the UK
have gone back to predominantly returnto office or not in the UK, but in Europe.
Okay, going back to 70% return to office
basically full time in the USit's more like 50%.
(01:56):
Right?
and we're talking about those obviouslywho can work remotely, of course.
Right.
I mean, there was this whole thingeverybody went home during Covid.
Well, no,it was about a third of the population.
Right. It feels like a lot more people.
It feels like a lot more than thatbecause we hang with who we hang with.
Right?
but 70 to 50is a pretty significant difference.
(02:19):
And so I being me,
you know, I
remember at five, my grandmother actuallystopped babysitting me for a while
because I wouldn't stop asking why.
I could act like I'm surprised.
And I still to this day.
(02:40):
And for those of you
listening in audio only,it is a very short face. Oh.
Absolutely.
So anyway, I started geeking outand going down the rabbit hole
and I figuredthis was a worthy discussion.
Absolutely.
So, okay,we've already discussed 70 to 50.
Like that's a really big deal.
So why is it that Europeseems to be having way more return
(03:02):
to office people than we have?
I mean, is it just people fighting backand be like, no, I want to work from home?
Or is there something else?
No, I think there are.
I'm going to say three because I'mdoing this off the top of my head, okay?
B and there are sub reasonsto those three reasons,
but there are three things that strike meas most obvious.
(03:24):
Number one is that most people
in European citieslive much closer to where they work.
Europeans in general do not commutelong distances to go to work.
And by the way,when we talk about the European numbers,
there's a giant asterix therethat says everywhere but London, right.
(03:45):
You and I have talked about this offline.
Yeah.
Well, we'll we'll talk aboutwhy London is the outlier in a moment.
But the fact is that most people in Europe
do not have the hellishcommutes that Americans have.
and they are much more
willing to use public transportationand all kinds of things.
(04:08):
So as a result,the commute isn't as onerous
as it is for North Americans.
That makes sense.
So, you know, the number one reasonAmericans give for why do I want flexible
with because the traffic is killing me,and getting to work makes me miserable.
And grumpy and grumpy before I get there.
(04:29):
And by the way, when I was homewith Covid, I was saving $5,000 a year.
And that's a real numberfor a lot of people.
So the commute is a big part of that.
So the commute comes out of the equation.
The second thing,and this is very controversial,
and I just talked about thisat a conference this week and got some
(04:51):
I got some hallelujahs anda lot of uncomfortable squirming in seats.
Oh, I can't wait for the podcastcomments on this one. Then.
Well, it basically
comes down to Americans view
hybrid work in particular,and the right to work from home as a perk.
Okay, it's a perk. It'ssomething they want.
(05:12):
And the reason is Americans in particular
do not get a lot of perksin terms of work.
That is, if you think about the averageEuropean worker, their health care is paid
for, their education is essentially paid
for or extremely cheap.
(05:33):
there are laws about how many hoursyou can work and not work much longer.
Vacationtime, you. Know, more vacation time.
All of those things are
if you get themthrough an American company,
you get them through negotiationand then bargaining and threatening
to quit and all kinds of stuff.
Right? Yeah, they aren't inherently there.
(05:54):
So there is.
Whereas companies are willing to say,yeah, you know what?
We're not going to give you healthcare or, do any of that other cool stuff.
But if you want to work in your jammies
a couple of daysa week, we're good with that, right?
And so that's part of it. Right?
and that goes to the factthat the work life balance in Europe
(06:17):
is generally better.
People are better atI go to work and I work,
and when I leave work,I leave work, and I don't think about it
so that they tend to enjoy the timethey're there.
They take that eight hours and they work,and they get their social contact
with their friends, and they work hardand they do their jobs and then it's done.
(06:40):
And then they go
home and do it all. Over,and then they go, so, you know,
the ability to do that is already there.
They don't put the same value on itthat American workers have put on it.
Yeah.
We're it's almost like our,
our identity and our careers sometimesbecome our identity in many ways.
Well it doesand you know, we can get deeper into that.
(07:03):
But the third reasonI'm trying to stick to three,
because I said I would, I rememberedthe third reason as we were just talking,
which is the infrastructurefor working from home
doesn't exist in a lot of places.
And I noticed this at the beginningof Covid, where it was really problematic
getting people in Asia, for example,to work from home.
(07:27):
And then I realized why, if you live inTokyo, you're living in an apartment
the size of my garagewith no distinct room to work in.
Right?
You're trying to cut million dollar salesdeals on the end of your bed,
and that doesn't really work.
And it's the same thing.
Housing in Europe, especially in thecities, tends to be smaller apartments.
(07:52):
Even the houses are smaller than we'retraditionally used to here in America.
And so the idea of having a home office
is just physically not possible.
Yeah, no, that makes for a. Lot of people.
I thought about that.
I hadn't either.
This is why we go down rabbit holes.
Because we learn stuff right?
(08:13):
so if you think
about just those three things, right, the,
the structure of the commutegoing to work, isn't that bad.
Well, okay.
You know, it's not a big deal.
It's not a big deal.
It ceases to become a bargaining chipwhen you're talking to your boss.
You know, if you don't havea lot of perks, it this has become.
(08:37):
And by the way, flexiblework is the number one thing
people are asking forwhen they apply for jobs.
Yeah.
So this is far more important here.
There is a value on flexible workthat just hasn't
caught onin much of the rest of the world.
Well, and then the third thing is,even if I am working from home,
(08:58):
can I be as productive?
Can I do the same job?
And the answer is maybe not.
It's not quite as convenient and simpleas it is in North America.
So those are kind of the obvious things.
And there are some really interestinglong term impacts on this
which we can get to in a moment.
(09:19):
I did mention that the outlier is London.
Right.
Well, and I did want to go into somethingrobust before you get into London.
So and unfortunately I don't have the datawith me right this second.
But wasn't there something I want to say?
Switzerland,maybe Sweden, that it was like
work from home was like a protected thing.
Like it was likeyou had a right to work from home.
(09:41):
How is that different thansome of the other stuff that we're seeing?
Well, what's happening
is that as a result of Covid,
there was a big rush
to codify things like how many hours
can your boss expect you to workwhen you're not in the office?
Do the same labor lawsthat protect you in the workplace.
(10:05):
Protect you when you work from home?
there was all kinds of that stuffthat was kind of rushing to judgment
on a lot of that.
And this the countriesthat you would expect to do that, right.
The companies,the countries that put a large value
on work as part of the social experiment.
Right. Switzerland.
Okay, Sweden, the Nordic countries,you would expect
(10:27):
that that'swhere the first of this would come.
I think a lot of thathas kind of come to nothing,
because so relatively few peopleare taking advantage of it now.
Or. When they do, when they do,they're kind of going along with the
stealth work thing, which is going to workfor a short period of time.
(10:47):
Eventually, people will start runningafoul of labor laws and and things, and,
you know, somebody will always ruin itfor everybody else.
Right? Like that happens all the time.
You know,
it's important to rememberthat every law was put in place,
and it made sense to the personwho wrote it
because they were trying to solvea specific problem.
(11:10):
Right, right.
so it's interestingto see where it's going to shake out.
Right.
And so going back to your thingabout London, so how was London different?
London is really expensive and really big.
And as a resultthe commutes are basically London
(11:32):
as a work environmentis much more like New York or Chicago.
Okay.
Than it is Amsterdam or Paris.
Okay, that makes sense.
the problems that you've got with stupid
expensive housing and, you know,and you can't even drive your city,
your car into the City of Londonwithout paying an entry fee every day.
(11:54):
It's the only citythat has a coverage charge.
Oh my gosh.
you know, which again, was institutedto solve a specific problem.
But there are unintended consequencesto this.
But basically, London doesn'tfit into the European model.
the third reason,which also makes sense in London, is that
(12:15):
there are so many international companiesheadquartered there.
Right. That. They're already doing.
More working.
Yeah, well, they're doing flexible workin times of hours and and whatever.
And if I have to be in the office at 9:00,I don't want to still be there
for the 9:00 at night.
Call with the team in Singapore.
Absolutely.
And I don't blame them for that right now.
(12:37):
The impact of allthis is really interesting.
One of the things is that Europeancities are already built. Yes.
They've been there a long time.
The footprint of the city is what it is,and as a result, there is less,
building
going on all the time in these places.
(12:59):
And the,
the if you look at the square footageof business
properties available again,
it is something like
it's a vacancy rate of somewherebetween 7 and 10%
versus some American cities, and London,
(13:19):
where it's getting close to 50.
Like even if there are peoplein a building,
they there may not be people on all floors
because businesses have kind of shrunk.
And some of that is remote workand people not coming in.
Frankly, some of it is automation,
and we need less people than we neededten years ago to do the same job.
(13:43):
That makes sense too.
So all of these factorsI found absolutely fascinating.
and if you are the CEO of a company,if you're thinking about
how do we come up with a policythat makes sense?
If we are an international company,how do we come up with a policy
that makes sense?
Right.
(14:03):
This is allstuff we have to take into consideration.
And one of the things I wanted to dowas just bring those facts out there
and throw them on the table and go,I don't know what you all
are going to do with this,but there you are. Right?
So with all of this, like looking forward,what trends do you
predict will emerge in the workplacebecause of this?
(14:24):
Like,do you think that we're going to continue
to see more return to office in Europe?
Do you think that we're goingto stay about the same in the US?
I think we will gradually see
a rise in remote work, at least part time.
We're going to see a risein hybrid work, in,
in all corners of the world.
(14:46):
I think we're going to see that,but it's going to be more gradual.
It wasn't like the sudden boom in remote.Right?
Right. Right.
I think we're going to see that.
I think
we're still seeing attentionin North America.
And I said this and got more hallelujahsthan not the other day
when I said, you know, in America,because of this idea of using it as a perk
(15:10):
instead of looking at itfrom the standpoint of the business sense,
saying what's best for the business, it'skind of it's
not so much a strategyas it is a hostage negotiation.
Okay.
Where the where the company says,how much can we make them
come into the office before they quitor won't come work for us?
(15:30):
And the workers are going,how much can I avoid
going into the officeand still draw a paycheck?
And they've kind of settled on whateverformula two days, three days
a week that they've settled on,which is not really sustainable.
And more importantly, it's not strategic.
Right? Yeah.
(15:51):
There's no rhyme for it.
Well, there's a rhyme and a reason.
It's just,you know, it's it's vulgar on poetry,
which means nothing to anybody who hasn'tread Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
But it is poetry, andit is the worst poetry in the universe.
So that's really where we are.
I think we've hit this compromiseand we're kind of dealing with it,
(16:15):
and long termit's not going to progress and improve.
until we get strategicabout what's going to happen is
and somebody actually said this,I can't remember who said it,
but it was a quoteand it hit all the business papers said
this whole return to office remote work,hybrid work thing would just go away.
What we need is 20% unemployment, okay?
(16:38):
Because then people will be so darnglad to have a job,
they'll just shut up and show up.
Yeah, I feel like I've also heardthat quote before or something like it.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's that's where we are.
And and I thoughtthis was a worthy discussion.
Right.
It's like you will there be kind
(16:59):
of a growing acceptance of hybrid workwhen people realize
they aren't going to have to spend all dayin their 500 square foot flat?
Probably. Yeah. Right.
will Americans get the hang of itand figure it out?
Maybe.
but their conversations worth having,
(17:20):
and you can't make those decisionswithout context.
Absolutely. So that's what we hope.
That's what we hope we didtoday was give you some context.
Absolutely.
And I'll make sure to linkto your management issues.
article inside of our show notes.
So for people who want to readeven more about this, it will be there.
And listeners,thank you so much for listening
(17:41):
to the long distance work life or shownotes, transcripts, and other resources.
Make sure to visit Long DistanceWork-Life dot com.
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This helps us know what you loveabout our show.
Feel free to contact us via emailor LinkedIn with the links
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and let us know that you listento this episode,
(18:03):
or suggest another topic for Wayneand I to tackle in a future episode.
We'd love to hear from you.
Well, and one of the things,if you're kind of asking these questions
about what's it like leading remotely,how is leading a hybrid team different?
We would urge you to take advantageof our open enrollment programs.
The long Distance Leadership Seriesruns a couple of times a year.
(18:23):
You can find out more on the Kevineikenberry.com site.
We would love to have you or talk to youabout delivering
that content inside your organization.
Or it's a bring us home. Absolutely.
And you can learn more about thatat Kevin eikenberry.com/ldl s.
Thank you so much for joining us, Wayne.
Thank you for saving me for a second rightthere.
(18:46):
And as Wayne likes to say,don't let police escort you down. Hey.
You.
Welcome back to Long Distance
Work, where we help you meet, workand thrive in remote and hybrid teams.
I'm Marissa Eikenberry,a fellow remote worker.
And joining me is my co-hostand remote work expert, Wayne Trammell.
Hi, Wayne. Hello, Marissa.
How are you? I'm great. How are you?
I am very well, and I'm actuallykind of geeked about the show this week.
As you should be.
(00:28):
So listeners,
we are actually
we're talking about Return to Office,which is not the first time
that we've ever talked about this before.
However, the spin that we're doing todayis that
we're talking about the differencesbetween how the US handled it
and how Europe has handled itor is handling it now.
So, Wayne, I want to start off with, by
what are the main differences that you'vealready observed between the U.S.
(00:51):
and European countriesand how they're handling return to office?
Yeah, it's interestingbecause you can kind of get stuck in.
And Americans in particular are really badabout this, where, you know,
if it doesn't center around the Statueof Liberty, it didn't happen right
here, right.
Eastern time zone or bust. Right?
Right, exactly.
(01:11):
And so I've been writingfor management issues out of the U.K.
for a billion years. It feels like.
And I was doing some work for themand some research.
And I was fascinated to findthat return to office
is much more prevalent in Europeand in a lot of other countries.
Matter of fact,the US is severely different.
(01:34):
Okay, in the, number of people,just as a rough number,
70% of people in the UK
have gone back to predominantly returnto office or not in the UK, but in Europe.
Okay, going back to 70% return to office
basically full time in the USit's more like 50%.
(01:56):
Right?
and we're talking about those obviouslywho can work remotely, of course.
Right.
I mean, there was this whole thingeverybody went home during Covid.
Well, no,it was about a third of the population.
Right. It feels like a lot more people.
It feels like a lot more than thatbecause we hang with who we hang with.
Right?
but 70 to 50is a pretty significant difference.
(02:19):
And so I being me,
you know, I
remember at five, my grandmother actuallystopped babysitting me for a while
because I wouldn't stop asking why.
I could act like I'm surprised.
And I still to this day.
(02:40):
And for those of you
listening in audio only,it is a very short face. Oh.
Absolutely.
So anyway, I started geeking outand going down the rabbit hole
and I figuredthis was a worthy discussion.
Absolutely.
So, okay,we've already discussed 70 to 50.
Like that's a really big deal.
So why is it that Europeseems to be having way more return
(03:02):
to office people than we have?
I mean, is it just people fighting backand be like, no, I want to work from home?
Or is there something else?
No, I think there are.
I'm going to say three because I'mdoing this off the top of my head, okay?
B and there are sub reasonsto those three reasons,
but there are three things that strike meas most obvious.
(03:24):
Number one is that most people
in European citieslive much closer to where they work.
Europeans in general do not commutelong distances to go to work.
And by the way,when we talk about the European numbers,
there's a giant asterix therethat says everywhere but London, right.
(03:45):
You and I have talked about this offline.
Yeah.
Well, we'll we'll talk aboutwhy London is the outlier in a moment.
But the fact is that most people in Europe
do not have the hellishcommutes that Americans have.
and they are much more
willing to use public transportationand all kinds of things.
(04:08):
So as a result,the commute isn't as onerous
as it is for North Americans.
That makes sense.
So, you know, the number one reasonAmericans give for why do I want flexible
with because the traffic is killing me,and getting to work makes me miserable.
And grumpy and grumpy before I get there.
(04:29):
And by the way, when I was homewith Covid, I was saving $5,000 a year.
And that's a real numberfor a lot of people.
So the commute is a big part of that.
So the commute comes out of the equation.
The second thing,and this is very controversial,
and I just talked about thisat a conference this week and got some
(04:51):
I got some hallelujahs anda lot of uncomfortable squirming in seats.
Oh, I can't wait for the podcastcomments on this one. Then.
Well, it basically
comes down to Americans view
hybrid work in particular,and the right to work from home as a perk.
Okay, it's a perk. It'ssomething they want.
(05:12):
And the reason is Americans in particular
do not get a lot of perksin terms of work.
That is, if you think about the averageEuropean worker, their health care is paid
for, their education is essentially paid
for or extremely cheap.
(05:33):
there are laws about how many hoursyou can work and not work much longer.
Vacationtime, you. Know, more vacation time.
All of those things are
if you get themthrough an American company,
you get them through negotiationand then bargaining and threatening
to quit and all kinds of stuff.
Right? Yeah, they aren't inherently there.
(05:54):
So there is.
Whereas companies are willing to say,yeah, you know what?
We're not going to give you healthcare or, do any of that other cool stuff.
But if you want to work in your jammies
a couple of daysa week, we're good with that, right?
And so that's part of it. Right?
and that goes to the factthat the work life balance in Europe
(06:17):
is generally better.
People are better atI go to work and I work,
and when I leave work,I leave work, and I don't think about it
so that they tend to enjoy the timethey're there.
They take that eight hours and they work,and they get their social contact
with their friends, and they work hardand they do their jobs and then it's done.
(06:40):
And then they go
home and do it all. Over,and then they go, so, you know,
the ability to do that is already there.
They don't put the same value on itthat American workers have put on it.
Yeah.
We're it's almost like our,
our identity and our careers sometimesbecome our identity in many ways.
Well it doesand you know, we can get deeper into that.
(07:03):
But the third reasonI'm trying to stick to three,
because I said I would, I rememberedthe third reason as we were just talking,
which is the infrastructurefor working from home
doesn't exist in a lot of places.
And I noticed this at the beginningof Covid, where it was really problematic
getting people in Asia, for example,to work from home.
(07:27):
And then I realized why, if you live inTokyo, you're living in an apartment
the size of my garagewith no distinct room to work in.
Right?
You're trying to cut million dollar salesdeals on the end of your bed,
and that doesn't really work.
And it's the same thing.
Housing in Europe, especially in thecities, tends to be smaller apartments.
(07:52):
Even the houses are smaller than we'retraditionally used to here in America.
And so the idea of having a home office
is just physically not possible.
Yeah, no, that makes for a. Lot of people.
I thought about that.
I hadn't either.
This is why we go down rabbit holes.
Because we learn stuff right?
(08:13):
so if you think
about just those three things, right, the,
the structure of the commutegoing to work, isn't that bad.
Well, okay.
You know, it's not a big deal.
It's not a big deal.
It ceases to become a bargaining chipwhen you're talking to your boss.
You know, if you don't havea lot of perks, it this has become.
(08:37):
And by the way, flexiblework is the number one thing
people are asking forwhen they apply for jobs.
Yeah.
So this is far more important here.
There is a value on flexible workthat just hasn't
caught onin much of the rest of the world.
Well, and then the third thing is,even if I am working from home,
(08:58):
can I be as productive?
Can I do the same job?
And the answer is maybe not.
It's not quite as convenient and simpleas it is in North America.
So those are kind of the obvious things.
And there are some really interestinglong term impacts on this
which we can get to in a moment.
(09:19):
I did mention that the outlier is London.
Right.
Well, and I did want to go into somethingrobust before you get into London.
So and unfortunately I don't have the datawith me right this second.
But wasn't there something I want to say?
Switzerland,maybe Sweden, that it was like
work from home was like a protected thing.
Like it was likeyou had a right to work from home.
(09:41):
How is that different thansome of the other stuff that we're seeing?
Well, what's happening
is that as a result of Covid,
there was a big rush
to codify things like how many hours
can your boss expect you to workwhen you're not in the office?
Do the same labor lawsthat protect you in the workplace.
(10:05):
Protect you when you work from home?
there was all kinds of that stuffthat was kind of rushing to judgment
on a lot of that.
And this the countriesthat you would expect to do that, right.
The companies,the countries that put a large value
on work as part of the social experiment.
Right. Switzerland.
Okay, Sweden, the Nordic countries,you would expect
(10:27):
that that'swhere the first of this would come.
I think a lot of thathas kind of come to nothing,
because so relatively few peopleare taking advantage of it now.
Or. When they do, when they do,they're kind of going along with the
stealth work thing, which is going to workfor a short period of time.
(10:47):
Eventually, people will start runningafoul of labor laws and and things, and,
you know, somebody will always ruin itfor everybody else.
Right? Like that happens all the time.
You know,
it's important to rememberthat every law was put in place,
and it made sense to the personwho wrote it
because they were trying to solvea specific problem.
(11:10):
Right, right.
so it's interestingto see where it's going to shake out.
Right.
And so going back to your thingabout London, so how was London different?
London is really expensive and really big.
And as a resultthe commutes are basically London
(11:32):
as a work environmentis much more like New York or Chicago.
Okay.
Than it is Amsterdam or Paris.
Okay, that makes sense.
the problems that you've got with stupid
expensive housing and, you know,and you can't even drive your city,
your car into the City of Londonwithout paying an entry fee every day.
(11:54):
It's the only citythat has a coverage charge.
Oh my gosh.
you know, which again, was institutedto solve a specific problem.
But there are unintended consequencesto this.
But basically, London doesn'tfit into the European model.
the third reason,which also makes sense in London, is that
(12:15):
there are so many international companiesheadquartered there.
Right. That. They're already doing.
More working.
Yeah, well, they're doing flexible workin times of hours and and whatever.
And if I have to be in the office at 9:00,I don't want to still be there
for the 9:00 at night.
Call with the team in Singapore.
Absolutely.
And I don't blame them for that right now.
(12:37):
The impact of allthis is really interesting.
One of the things is that Europeancities are already built. Yes.
They've been there a long time.
The footprint of the city is what it is,and as a result, there is less,
building
going on all the time in these places.
(12:59):
And the,
the if you look at the square footageof business
properties available again,
it is something like
it's a vacancy rate of somewherebetween 7 and 10%
versus some American cities, and London,
(13:19):
where it's getting close to 50.
Like even if there are peoplein a building,
they there may not be people on all floors
because businesses have kind of shrunk.
And some of that is remote workand people not coming in.
Frankly, some of it is automation,
and we need less people than we neededten years ago to do the same job.
(13:43):
That makes sense too.
So all of these factorsI found absolutely fascinating.
and if you are the CEO of a company,if you're thinking about
how do we come up with a policythat makes sense?
If we are an international company,how do we come up with a policy
that makes sense?
Right.
(14:03):
This is allstuff we have to take into consideration.
And one of the things I wanted to dowas just bring those facts out there
and throw them on the table and go,I don't know what you all
are going to do with this,but there you are. Right?
So with all of this, like looking forward,what trends do you
predict will emerge in the workplacebecause of this?
(14:24):
Like,do you think that we're going to continue
to see more return to office in Europe?
Do you think that we're goingto stay about the same in the US?
I think we will gradually see
a rise in remote work, at least part time.
We're going to see a risein hybrid work, in,
in all corners of the world.
(14:46):
I think we're going to see that,but it's going to be more gradual.
It wasn't like the sudden boom in remote.Right?
Right. Right.
I think we're going to see that.
I think
we're still seeing attentionin North America.
And I said this and got more hallelujahsthan not the other day
when I said, you know, in America,because of this idea of using it as a perk
(15:10):
instead of looking at itfrom the standpoint of the business sense,
saying what's best for the business, it'skind of it's
not so much a strategyas it is a hostage negotiation.
Okay.
Where the where the company says,how much can we make them
come into the office before they quitor won't come work for us?
(15:30):
And the workers are going,how much can I avoid
going into the officeand still draw a paycheck?
And they've kind of settled on whateverformula two days, three days
a week that they've settled on,which is not really sustainable.
And more importantly, it's not strategic.
Right? Yeah.
(15:51):
There's no rhyme for it.
Well, there's a rhyme and a reason.
It's just,you know, it's it's vulgar on poetry,
which means nothing to anybody who hasn'tread Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
But it is poetry, andit is the worst poetry in the universe.
So that's really where we are.
I think we've hit this compromiseand we're kind of dealing with it,
(16:15):
and long termit's not going to progress and improve.
until we get strategicabout what's going to happen is
and somebody actually said this,I can't remember who said it,
but it was a quoteand it hit all the business papers said
this whole return to office remote work,hybrid work thing would just go away.
What we need is 20% unemployment, okay?
(16:38):
Because then people will be so darnglad to have a job,
they'll just shut up and show up.
Yeah, I feel like I've also heardthat quote before or something like it.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's that's where we are.
And and I thoughtthis was a worthy discussion.
Right.
It's like you will there be kind
(16:59):
of a growing acceptance of hybrid workwhen people realize
they aren't going to have to spend all dayin their 500 square foot flat?
Probably. Yeah. Right.
will Americans get the hang of itand figure it out?
Maybe.
but their conversations worth having,
(17:20):
and you can't make those decisionswithout context.
Absolutely. So that's what we hope.
That's what we hope we didtoday was give you some context.
Absolutely.
And I'll make sure to linkto your management issues.
article inside of our show notes.
So for people who want to readeven more about this, it will be there.
And listeners,thank you so much for listening
(17:41):
to the long distance work life or shownotes, transcripts, and other resources.
Make sure to visit Long DistanceWork-Life dot com.
If you haven't yet,subscribe to the podcast
so you won't miss any future episodes.
And while you're there,be sure to like and review.
This helps us know what you loveabout our show.
Feel free to contact us via emailor LinkedIn with the links
in our show notes,
and let us know that you listento this episode,
(18:03):
or suggest another topic for Wayneand I to tackle in a future episode.
We'd love to hear from you.
Well, and one of the things,if you're kind of asking these questions
about what's it like leading remotely,how is leading a hybrid team different?
We would urge you to take advantageof our open enrollment programs.
The long Distance Leadership Seriesruns a couple of times a year.
(18:23):
You can find out more on the Kevineikenberry.com site.
We would love to have you or talk to youabout delivering
that content inside your organization.
Or it's a bring us home. Absolutely.
And you can learn more about thatat Kevin eikenberry.com/ldl s.
Thank you so much for joining us, Wayne.
Thank you for saving me for a second rightthere.
(18:46):
And as Wayne likes to say,don't let police escort you down. Hey.
You.
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