August 5, 2025 • 32 mins
Everyone's obsessing over getting people "back to the office" – but what if we're solving the wrong problem? While AI transforms entire industries, we're still debating desk locations. Dave and Chris unpack the real data on remote, hybrid, and office work, revealing surprising truths about productivity, collaboration, and what employees actually need to thrive.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I also think it is fundamentallythe job of an HR department to
try to enforce these things and make these changes for the
betterment of the company. The problem is when you are HR
and you were the cofounder, there's no way to be like while
I was HR's idea, you know, there's no way.
There's no way to put the bad hat on someone else, and as a
result, you take the heat. Big ideas money hustle smart
(00:26):
dream so will turn that grindingthrough a.
Joy Ride in the news right now there's a lot of talk about
we're obviously in Toronto big banks here and the big banks but
all decided that employees are going to come back to the office
four days a week this fall OK And there has been a trend OK at
(00:49):
first it was like they're going to come back like one day a
week, then two days a week, thenthree days a week now we're at.
4 Boil the frog. Right, right.
And then, so at some point there's gonna be 5, five days a
week where people are coming back, I figure within the next
year or so, something like that.So they're obviously trying to
like kill the work from home thing.
OK. And so I tried to, I, I wanna
(01:10):
have a conversation about that. OK, so is it time to return to
the office? Now I'm going to put out there
before we even get too deep intothis conversation that I really
liked working in the office. I'm the outlier in a lot of this
data where I'm way more productive at the office.
I can go into cave time. I can get a ton of stuff done.
(01:32):
I feel like I'm way more focused.
I think like you have an interesting recollection of the
office. Like I have a lot of thoughts on
this. OK.
I'll start with the first one, which is that return to the
office in 2025 does not matter, does not mean going to the
office in 2019, OK? Like it is not the same anymore.
(01:52):
And in ways I don't necessarily understand what we can talk
about here, Like it won't be exactly like the way it was
before, because there's still going to be a bigger push for
some employees to remote the remote.
There's still going to be kind of like, I, I feel like a
different vibe. Before it was kind of assumed
you had to go to the office. Like there was no, that's
ridiculous. Remember when Netflix came out,
(02:13):
we talked about this on some of our talks, the whole culture
document. Netflix came out with that
PowerPoint deck back in 2009 called culture.
They were all like, hey, come into the office whenever and do
your thing. And I think what's interesting
now though, is that if you're bringing people back, you're
forcing them. And I think that's really
different. It's a very different vibe that
that creates. You forced them to come back
(02:34):
rather than it was the regular expectation that everybody
worked in offices. It, it, it, it's, you know, the
pandemic did many things, but one thing it did was effectively
crush the cultural norm, or at least the psychological
expectation that you need to be in the office for your job.
Right? And when that happened, I think
(02:55):
that people realized, wow, I don't need to commute for an
hour and a half each way or an hour each way or whatever.
We're trying to get on the GO train or, or whatever mass
transit to, to get to my work inthe same way.
And because it doesn't actually matter, I can do my work from
home. I have a computer.
Here something too though is in 2019.
I feel like most of our staff lived fairly close to the office
(03:17):
so the commute might be 1520 minutes.
That's the other. Thing OK now they've all moved
yeah they're all living an hour and a half away from the office
because they. Know who you are.
They they wanted a big backyard.They wanted to live in a
neighborhood where they could take their kids.
Yeah. The.
Dogs for a walk. I, I agreed, but doesn't that
feel like kind of the right thing?
(03:38):
Like on a personal level that people wanted something else.
They were aspiring to have this big backyard and now because of
this work environment, they could do that.
And, and, and, and I think most of them would argue that they
are as productive. I, I don't think that's actually
true. I think there's data that shows
that on average, and I'll come back to a point on this in a
(04:02):
second, but on average people aren't as productive a lot of
like the the like the water cooler creativity, like there's
like serendipity around. This So you're kind of getting
into some of the content I want to structure this episode.
So that we can kind of do that kind of that.
So they're kind of like three ways to work in the current like
business environment, OK, There's like fully remote, OK,
(04:24):
there's fully in the office. And the third one is hybrid, OK,
where it's a combination of the two.
So what I want to do was kind oflike unpack some of the pros and
cons of each approach and see ifwe can get to like what the
ideal state of work should be and, and how a company,
especially if you're a startup, what you should be thinking
about from like an office space perspective, a culture
(04:47):
perspective that. You're assuming like you, you
can like afford it and stuff like that.
Yeah. So you gotta you gotta like I.
Don't know you got rabbit. Half million.
Revenue, Yeah, OK, exactly. OK.
So let's talk about remote work first.
OK. So when you think about the
pros, OK, I've done, I've lookedat the research on this, there's
definitely like productivity gains, OK?
And I think that if you were a person that was working in an
(05:09):
office and you were interrupted all the time, and now you're at
home and you can lock in and andget into flow, you're gonna have
that productivity. Game.
Can I, can I make a point there?Yeah.
Where this is where I think you have an interesting revisionist
history about. We're going into the office.
You know what I mean? Like, as in you, the way you
remember. It's not the same as what I
remember. OK.
I remember when you were in the office also getting frequent
(05:31):
interruptions, you were very, very much interrupted all the
time, OK, whether you were a remote or not.
I think that the difference in the office was somebody might
send you a Slacker, like equivalent of a Slack, like a
chat message on like, we use G Suites back then.
Yeah, but send you a chat and belike, hey, Chris, can I ask you
a question? And then they would come into
the office and ask you or knock on the glass door or whatever.
(05:52):
Right. But and then when we were
remote, you were just getting pounded by these all the time.
And so I think like, but you kind of remember it as like
being able to save time a lot. I'm not sure I saw that in the
same way. OK, yeah.
Cause remember you, you always felt like you had to work after.
Work right? So do you think I was less
interrupted when I was remote ormore interrupted?
(06:14):
And probably more, Probably more.
OK, so maybe This is why I'm I'mthe outlier in.
This. Either way, you're OK Fair
enough So maybe either way you were interrupted yeah.
I also think the other reason why you were interrupted more is
that people craved more interaction.
Yeah, because they were by. Them to get to that OK, I'm
going to get to that OK, so alright, so we're just going
through pros over about work. So productivity gains is is
there's data to support that. Obviously there's cost savings
(06:38):
because for the company, becauseyou probably don't need as many
desks, you know, you don't need as many, you know, there's the
work life balance piece, you're not spending hours commuting,
that sort of stuff. Give you another one which is
kind of interesting is like kindof global talent access.
Like we're, yeah, we're in Toronto where we had access to
really good talent. But if you're in a smaller
centre, it's harder to tell. This was a real problem actually
(07:00):
when we were starting before remote was really.
Part of it was because we were like didn't have a ton of money
and we were cheap. Like we didn't want to.
Spend. A lot of money.
So maybe that's why we didn't have access to talent was
because we didn't have the moneyfor, you know, like somebody
who's super experienced and yeah, like that.
Sure. OK Yeah.
And that's. A complicated question too, but
OK then. The last like prose of remote
(07:22):
work is obviously there's some environmental benefits that
everybody's not commuting, OK, so fewer cars on the road,
things like that, whatever, you know, functionality that's kind
of an externality. OK, so the the cons though, the
remote work is you kind of touched on it, the
collaboration. OK, so like if, if I'm just
trying to like sit at a computerand code, I'm probably way more
(07:42):
effective. But if if I'm like trying to
like brainstorm ideas on a toughproblem with the development
team that the data seems to showthat that happens better in
person when you can get in frontof the white board, when you can
have an in person meeting, when you can flail your arm.
Honestly, yeah, I do think actually I think a lot of it is
like you have the meeting and then everybody goes back to
(08:04):
their office and then they have some time to cook on the idea.
And because of your availability, like you're
literally there. Then come back to be like, hey,
I had another idea about that thing we were working on
earlier, and that's just easier to do in real life.
Yeah, I think it's more meaningful too.
Also, I think there's some element of like, you know, I
want to impress my boss. You know, I'm gonna show them.
I was thinking about that idea. And I think that you're just
(08:25):
more articulate in person or more able to, yeah, even go back
to that same whiteboard. Like there's this element of
just like, I don't know, convenience of creativity.
And that's in that space, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
So I agree. So when you think about being in
the office, there's the water cooler moments, the the the
serendipity, those types of things.
So like those are really the bigcons, the things that you're
(08:47):
missing out when when you're when you're working remotely is
you don't have those serendipitous moments of I'm at
the coffee machine and making a coffee and somebody has
imagined, hey, have you ever thought about, you know, yeah,
whatever. And I do miss that a lot.
I I feel like that almost never happened.
Nobody. Like the other thing too is like
when you're on like Zoom or whatever, you're not really
accessible, you know what I mean?
(09:08):
Like you're setting your status to away or, you know, I would
always set my status like, like,don't bother me, you know, right
now. Whereas when you're in the
office and you're just gonna randomly go up and get a coffee
or something like that, you did have those opportunities
interruption that just could happen.
Yeah, you know, I think. Those are the reverse
temptation, too, when you're working at home, that you have a
(09:28):
house full of cool stuff. Yeah.
You know, your PlayStation is sitting two rooms away.
And I think that you have like, no, not, not, not necessarily
during the day like this is. I'm sure some people do abuse
remote work, and that's a whole other problem.
Yeah. And people who can't handle this
kind of freedom that exists, forsure.
Let's assume that you can. You have enough control on your
(09:49):
mature person and you can continue.
I think the real issue is that when you get to that near end of
day steam whistle, OK, you're like OK, I'm gonna just be done
Forget that idea I had. I couldn't reach Chris cause of
whatever it's too much of I don't wanna start a Zoom call
now and whatever and I'm just going to go and hang out go
downstairs and do something else.
(10:10):
You know go away from my office.I want to get out of this room.
There's actually a bigger push to like be not working.
Yeah. Which is kind of like a weird
nuance there, Yeah. Like you're already at your fun
place, which is home you hopefully.
And so it's kind of like, I'm just not gonna bother.
And then the those ideas are just like poop.
Like they're gone. You're gonna remember tomorrow.
So I, I definitely consider myself a fairly like disciplined
(10:30):
person. Yes.
And you, I gotta be honest with you though, like I get
distracted by like stupid thingsthat I should not be concerned
with when I'm working from home.So for instance, I'll be like,
well, I could be way more productive if I also started up
my laundry while I'm working here.
And then, you know, like an hourlater, my laundry is beeping.
(10:51):
And then before I know it, a folding my teeth, my Amazon
Basics T-shirts and putting themaway.
Those. Yeah.
I assume you iron them and then hang them up and treat them with
the honor that they. Desire don't hang them up, I
fold them and I sort them by style and then by colour.
Ohe, like which one you? Wore last T-shirts.
No, no. Well, when they all get washed
at the same time it doesn't matter but what's convenient is
(11:13):
so, so by style and by colour. Yeah, yeah.
So I've got my short sleeve T-shirts, I've got my long
sleeve T-shirts and then I have them also have ones that are
more like a, you know, active type T-shirt or, you know, it's
like sweat wicking all that sortof stuff.
But I have like piles for each one.
And then I have them in order ofcolours.
So like like light to dark. And I usually do the, the light
(11:36):
colours, the, the, the monochrome colours first and
then the colour colours second. So like white, Gray, black, and
then like, you know, Navy blue or regular blue, Navy blue, dark
blue, like whatever. Cool man, yeah.
I know I'm really. Really, really pumped.
You're really pumped about this?System you know I like that
system so anyways so like when we talk about the in office
(11:59):
versus the work from home the the pros and cons are almost
like opposites of each other like so yeah you lack.
Collaboration one with with the other, you know.
It's hard. It's exactly so.
So then that kind of brings us to the other way of approaching
this, which is the hybrid model.And this seems to be the way
that most companies are doing it.
So I mentioned that story from TD Bank at the beginning that
(12:20):
they're going to four days a week.
Yeah, there's still one day a week from.
Home, it'll be 5. It'll be 5 days.
Yeah, it'll be 5. Obviously it's gonna be 5 days.
Do you think there's an impact on like if you're working for a
big company, big multinationals,something like that versus like
a startup? My brother and I sold our
business for $40 million and I want the same for you.
(12:41):
You might be wondering where he is.
Who cares? Check out a book, Startup
Different and figure out how to build your multimillion dollar
empire. Find out Amazon, Audible and
Kindle. Do you think startups are going
to have more openness to like remote or hybrid compared to an
established? Here, here's the other thing
(13:01):
that's happening in those, and then let's go back to the banks
for a second. Yeah, Why are the banks doing
this? Banks have made, how many
billions of dollars have they put into the towers downtown?
That's true. So massive financial investment
in physical space. First off, that space being
empty and must be driving the CFO absolutely insane.
We're paying all the costs for this.
Nobody's here. We either sell these assets or
use them. The other thing is that I think
(13:23):
banks can can really tell their employees what to do in a big
way. There's not many banks in
Canada. You know, the United States is a
little bit different potentially, but let's just
stick with Canada. Second, yeah, there's, there's
like big, the big six banks, OK,So you can move around those
banks. You're probably tied into some
sort of investment plan, stock option plan sort of thing.
You. Have you have gold handcuffs?
Yeah, you can't move. And so they kind of know that
(13:43):
and they're just gonna keep putting pressure on you.
And what will happen is and the not that I want to be, you know,
full prophecy here, but on the high and age wise, people are
gonna start just retiring ratherthan coming back in.
Right. And so then that'll make new
opportunities. But that'll be the same thing
for those people coming in at the bottom end of the bank will
be yeah, if you wanna be part ofthis organizations five days a
(14:03):
week. Yeah, like they're just I I
really think this is a there's alot more financial calculus here
happening as opposed to like some sort of interest in the
employees well-being or like this has nothing to do with
their well-being. This is everything to do with
the assets they have and and basically wanted to make sure
they get the most out of those. It's interesting.
Maybe people aren't working thathard or something too.
(14:24):
Like, I don't know, can't imagine trying to manage a
workforce of like, you know, 20,000 people.
Yeah, but I'm sure they have productivity issues.
Yeah. People at home, I everybody
knows it. It's like this like thing like,
oh, I'm working from home, you know, kind of thing.
Like people don't always work sohard.
Yeah, that is really scary. Is that scary?
Is an no. But there is kind of like an
undercurrent of I remember I wasin the gym of my building one
(14:47):
day and there was a guy who had two phones and it was like kind
of clock in the morning. 2 phones at Bell.
Yeah, back in the day. OK, so he's, he's in the gym and
he's got 2 phones and he said wow, why do you have, why do you
have two phones? And he's like ohhh, work phone.
Yeah. And, and I'm like ohhh, like are
you? And he's like, well, like
technically I'm working, but I just decided to come down and do
(15:09):
the gym at 10:00. Yeah.
And, you know, yeah, like, I don't know, I would have a hard
time with that if I was a manager.
Like what do you well? In so you are so looking at this
as an owner, as a founder, as a C-Suite, something, right?
If, and I'm with you, you're right that people shouldn't be
abusing remote work period, end of sentence.
(15:31):
OK. At the same time, you can see
why. So, like, the benefits of remote
work for me, for instance, during the pandemic were that I
got to see a lot more of my daughter's life, like when she,
you know, Yeah, like that. And I wouldn't have had that
period. Like, we were so busy.
We would have been in the officeevery day.
Now, this doesn't mean I was slacking off.
(15:52):
I was not. I was actively really working
really hard. And I was worried that and our
staff were wonderful, but I was worried that at times they
weren't actually there, you know, those sorts of things.
Yeah. But I don't know how to.
Manage. I don't know, like you.
Know, I think nowadays if I justto finish that thought, I think
nowadays that if you're working at a big company and you can
have fast your job like that hard, you will be replaced by
(16:16):
AI. Ohb ya you will be destroyed.
That's kind of job will not exist.
It will be an automated agent and you'll be out.
Of there, yeah, like if you actually have enough time to go
down to the gym and do an hour long workout at 10 AM like.
Before you bring your work home with exceptional insight, you.
Yeah. You.
Or maybe you in the fairness, that guy, maybe he works late,
(16:37):
maybe he makes it up elsewhere. But I, I do think that we know,
like everybody kind of knows a certain percentage of people
that just sort of mail it in at their jobs.
Yeah. Because they're not really being
watched that closely. Yeah.
And I know it drives you and I insane and, but and, but I think
that those people should be veryconcerned.
That's why the bank is having people come in four days a week.
Yeah, I think they need to know that people are working.
(16:59):
So it's another part of that like understanding your assets,
you know, so there's physical space, but then there's also
like output per employee that they probably have trouble
measuring to be totally frank, cause changes by role.
But I'm sure they are trying to put some sort of metrics on.
This do you think other people know that that employee is going
and going to the gym for an hourat 10 and.
I think it's, do you think that unspoken, do you think that you
(17:21):
don't tell, I won't tell kind ofthing, actually can tell the
story. Yeah.
So when I was at Bell Canada, and luckily I can't get fired
for this now, but I was at Bell Canada, they're pretty loosey
goosey about yours. Did you get your work done?
Yeah. And it was an unwritten rule
that you could kinda, you know, yeah, if you wanna get out a
little bit early, get a little bit early.
And so this rule obviously like most of the rule these these
(17:43):
unspoken comes to understand becomes the norm.
Yeah. And especially on long weekends.
So it was the summer and there'san elevator bank on my floor
shadow tell the folks at Creek Bank in Mississauga.
And so there's an elevator bank there and I, so I get it, kind
of put my bag, you know, put my laptop in the bag, you know,
sneaking out and I get over to the elevator and my boss is
(18:06):
there and he's looking at me andhe's got his bag.
He's doing the same thing. And he literally said to me, if
you don't tell, I won't tell. We got a different elevators and
we're out of. There no way.
Three, 3:00. OK, 3:00 in the afternoon.
The trick is take take the stairwell when you're trying to
leave. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, or potentially jump out the window depending on the
circumstances. Are you on the first floor?
Window is an option. But so, yeah, that's a good
(18:27):
point. So like, when does this sort of
stuff start to affect company culture?
OK, He's working from home. Everybody knows that.
So and so goes to the gym at 10:00 every morning.
It's just like nobody says if you don't tell, I won't tell.
And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, you know what?
I go get my groceries and I do my my errands.
They're on the call, 3:00 They're on the call.
They're on Zoom video off. They're at the grocery store.
(18:49):
Yeah, I think that's totally happening.
I I don't, I don't think it happens.
All the time that happened. No, it shouldn't.
It shouldn't if you're actually like.
Can I be honest with you though?Like so from my perspective, I'd
be the guy, you know, burning the midnight oil and then I
would find that so anti team anticulture.
Yeah, that I'm the guy working my tail off and other person is
(19:13):
at the gym getting their groceries, folding their
laundry, whatever. I'll give you when.
I'm working another example whendoes the.
Resentment start to be coming. Quickly, I think I think if
you're trying hard so the it'll give you the kind of a similar
but different scenario for this is remote work every remote
working my goodness yeah unlimited vacation so for
unlimited vacation everybody's like I want unlimited vacation
(19:35):
but unlimited vacation is a tax on your teammates in a in a
business so as an example let's say you and by the way I like
vacation too I love traveling like don't get me wrong and you
should have vacation that's really important it makes you a
better employee among other things it makes you probably
more grounded well interested person very much pro vacation
but unlimited vacation gets out of hand because it's like
(19:57):
realistically it's an unbelievable amount of vacation
it's like. 567 weeks or something like that is usually
where HR departments start going.
You're taking a lot of vacation.What's happening with you?
And then you kind of got like introuble, but not in trouble.
But what happens when somebody on, on a team, you know, you got
four or five people, let's say four people.
Let's make this easier. You have four people.
One person is taking six to seven weeks of vacation like.
(20:20):
Which is. Almost.
Holy holy shit. Right.
So two weeks is 2 months of the year.
Effectively they're away becauseyou know, you gotta, you get
backlogged with work and stuff like that.
Yeah. So then that 25, some of the
work that should be for that team member is then just
distributed across the other team.
And it's not usually distributedevenly either.
No, there's usually somebody who's working harder on that
team. Yeah.
So somebody all of a sudden is basically screwed over because
(20:42):
you're taking so much vacation. Yeah.
So there's like a a responsibility, like a maturity
that's required among employees to understand some of these
things. But unfortunately, I think the
remote culture created a much more individualistic approach to
your career, to the company you work for, much more
transactional. Yeah, this is what I get out of
(21:04):
this. And this is when I wanna work.
This is and and. If you don't do this then I'm
upset and I may not quit, but I will.
I will do less work. I will secretly go to the gym.
Remember quiet quitting Yeah, remember that that was a symptom
of a lot of this too, where people didn't like being pushed
harder. But I think that the only way
that a lot of companies can ensure their employees are doing
(21:25):
their thing is is in is in person when you're on a smaller.
But coming full circle here though on for startups, that's
what the show is about. I think that it's really you
will have a a mix because you want to attract better talent.
I think that, yeah, good talent,which is hard to evaluate, but
good talent as a keener young person or somebody with more
(21:47):
experience, I don't think that really matters.
But good talent is willing to work their butt off.
You're willing to make a hybrid workplace an option for them?
Yeah, I think you're willing to do that.
Yeah. And how do you evaluate for
that? It is a difficult process.
Hiring is so difficult. It is so difficult to see if
someone legit, it is so difficult to see if they're fit
with your culture. And so I would suggest having a
(22:10):
good length probationary period to get rid of them if it doesn't
work out pretty quickly on the other side after you hire them,
yeah, and do your evaluation of them.
OK. So can I just get your thoughts
on no. So I think we're landing on
that, you know, and this seems to be best practice that a
hybrid approach especially for startups.
For startups I think. The most sounds OK.
(22:30):
Can you just comment on cause you you were the HR you wore the
HR hat. It was great in our company.
Loved it. Yeah, every second of.
It can you comment on the idea of of giving a benefit to an
employee so in this case work from home abilities OK and then
later trying to claw. That back can't take
entitlements back. So it's it's really.
(22:52):
Well, the banks doing it. Yeah, and they're boiling the
frog and people are upset about it and they'll have turn.
So The thing is like a bank can tolerate churn is that happens
all the time anyway, right? And there's such a big
organization, they're gonna havegood pay, ish.
They're gonna have good benefits, medical benefits and
the stock benefits. Like they have leverage.
Yeah. The problem with us startup is
(23:13):
especially depending on the person it is in your company,
the wrong employee Quitting hurts, hurts a bit more.
Now, mind you, we've said this before.
No employee is essential. The only essential people in a
company are you and the cofounder, if you have a
cofounder or just you if it's just a solo founder or your team
of cofounders. However you're doing it.
But I think it's extremely difficult and I think it also
(23:35):
negatively affects their culture.
People will be less excited talking about their job.
They'll say, oh, you know, or they're taking this, they're
clawing this back there. And but I also think it is
fundamentally the job of an HR department to try to enforce
these things and make these changes for the betterment of
the company. The problem is when you are HR
(23:57):
and you are the cofounder, there's no way to be like, while
I was HR's idea, yeah, you know,there's no way.
There's no way to put the bad hat on someone else.
Yeah. And as a result, you take the
heat. So.
OK, so you're an HR department, you're you're tasked with like,
hey, we're going to let people work from home, but we need to
make sure they're all productive.
How do you do that? Yeah, so.
(24:20):
Feel about like like soft like I'm sure there's software out.
There, there's software. I think that's a terrible idea.
Yeah. I think that you have to go in
with the base level of trust andrespect.
OK, what does this mean? You will have people who game
the system, people who do abuse it.
How do you catch these people? KPI's around productivity that
(24:41):
are difficult to do per fake or whatever really pushing them in
I think frequent 360 reviews or at least performance reviews of
those people. And by frequent, I mean probably
like every three to six months. Yeah, I think your superiors
like that's a bad term, but the managers need to be doing one on
(25:02):
ones with their team, with each one of their team members
probably once a month. This is a really heavy cadence
for HR and it'll be tough to do in bigger companies, but you
need to be able to evaluate as aleader, are these people doing
the work or not? And then I think that you gotta,
you have to turn these people ifit's not working, like if you
find that they're that they're not fitting in with this change,
(25:22):
you have to kind of move on fromthem.
And these are difficult decisions, but fundamentally
that's the role of an HR. Department, right?
Right. But we used to do this though.
We used to do this at Apparmor. We had KPI's, we had things we
were following, we had regular touch points.
We were making sure that people were doing what they were doing.
And for the almost in the entirety of the company, I
believe people were doing their work.
(25:42):
Yeah, yeah, I think. And you know what do we weren't
seeing any like negative outcomes in the in the market.
Here's the other thing is like Iwas also pretty close to the
customer and no, but like customers weren't like my
projects going really slow. Now all of a sudden after
they're working, they were, theywere pretty good.
And you know that there's a lot of reasons for that.
But I, I do think that I felt asif our productivity was pretty
(26:04):
close to what we were doing in the office.
I didn't think it was the same kind of creativity for sure.
I didn't feel, but I definitely felt that people were going in
and moving the machine forward every day.
Yeah, You know, I think if, if we were to do the hybrid
approach, think we would have had to be a bit more structured
about the type of work that was getting done on which days of
(26:27):
the week. So let's say for instance, let's
take my development team just because that's what I know, OK,
I would have say we're in the office on Mondays and Fridays
and then it was all work from home for the middle of the week.
Then I would have taken Mondays and Fridays And we said, OK,
Mondays is going to we're going to do our Sprint planning
meetings. We're going to do our, you know,
(26:47):
our, our reviewing any PBI's, any, any tasks that we were
anything are stuck on product backlog infrastructure, things
that we want to do as a group. Like all like all that stuff.
I would load that on those days.Yeah.
And then the, the work from homedays, I would really like quiet
things down. And it's really like your siloed
and you're, you're working, you're writing code, you're
(27:09):
punching out pull requests, you're doing your stuff.
And, and and so really try and like don't have everybody come
into the office and then have them just sit there and silo.
Right, Coach? Yeah, yeah.
Agreed. Use the opportunity in the
office for those collaborative type of of things.
I think agreed. I agree that I think that's part
(27:29):
I would probably have like 2 to three days in the office per
team, something like that. Probably 2 is what I would I
could get consistently And I make it very much mandatory like
you have to be here and there. There's some sort of there
unfortunately have to be like a stick On the other end of that.
I really don't like the idea of giving people something they
already get a lot. So you can't like incentivize
(27:51):
people be like, oh, we got enough another day off.
If you, you know, I don't wanna do.
Yeah, hang on, hang on, hang on.And then.
But then I think that on those two days, one day is output
focus. What you're talking about
specific tasks that require morecreativity that are good in the
office. The other day I would probably
have more like, we're going to go out for lunch and do like a
team building thing and. OK.
And you know why? Because they want to establish
(28:13):
trust. And I want them to feel guilty
if they're not working. Yeah.
I want them to feel like at home.
Dave said Dave believed me. Dave told me good things.
Dave, what I I want to make, I actually think that's the most
effective way to get people to do work that's good for the.
Company. I think that's the best practice
as well based on my. Research I am.
I would work best at H. RI Believe.
Yeah, No, no, for sure. I think this is a really
(28:35):
complicated problem. And I do think that small
companies lack the leverage of big companies to be able to
force people to do stuff. Yeah.
Also the people that work in startups, like they're harder to
find. I think it's easier to get a job
like at a big company And we go,you work at some of these banks
and hide, you know, you hide allday long.
You know, I, I kind of feel likenot to destroy people where
they're great people who work atbanks too, but I, I do think
(28:57):
there are some people who like, they don't do that much and I
took. Yeah, this is the challenge.
So if I just use my software development team as another
example, I could sit there and Icould say I'm going to measure
productivity by the number of pull requests or the number of
like lines of code that changed and then look at that over time.
(29:18):
But the tough thing with it is sometimes one line of code is
really complicated. It takes you forever to figure
out how to deal with it. OK, so your productivity in that
situation goes down, but I'm wondering if there's almost like
some sort of counter, you know, metric that I could use to
offset that. So for instance, how many times
did you have to escalate and bring up a question in your dev
(29:41):
meeting where you were stuck? OK, so if if you see like
productivity declined, but number of questions in the dev
meeting went up and you're like,OK, that like offsets that.
So that was a tough. Maybe a sign that the work that
that person's having is too difficult?
For yeah, yeah. Like wrong seat.
It's really. Tricky though, because you you
get close to this where you're monitoring your staff and
(30:02):
there's a fine line, I feel likebetween like just gauging
performance and like like monitoring.
Hold up, hold. Up which?
Seems but monitoring and recording KPI sales they have
OKR's similar basically same thing that that's usually to
compensation, right. OK, so you're going.
They want to know this anyway. They want to be good at these.
(30:24):
Things for sales that works? How does that work in a
development environment? I don't know that you were the
CTO. So like, I'm not saying it's
easy. Yeah, I'm not well.
Probably different based on every.
Job correct each and this is where you need to actually work
on what these incentives are so that you can in one hand, on the
one hand monitor people, but on the other hand comma and save
them when they do work well likethis is I actually think this is
(30:44):
a good thing for most people. And by the way, most people want
to know how they're doing in their job.
They don't want to just be like Lucy Goosey like yeah, good job,
keep working. They want feedback.
How can I improve? Where where am I going with my
career? Like these are important
questions employees need to answers.
To so on this topic for startups, yes, how do we
summarize the best practice? Probably anticipate hybrid yeah
(31:07):
you'll need flexibility there yeah you'll need to have a some
sort of metrics or something that you can get behind that are
both tied to compensation but also tied to performance in
terms of like are they doing thework or not I would say that you
know your customers never lie and there are some roles where
you can really evaluate from themarket how your employees are
(31:28):
doing right you know I had an keep going actually you're.
Just going to add the trust thing.
The trust thing, you need to actively be working to build
trust with your employees so that, you know, they feel that
commitment to the team and that they're not gonna let other
people down and that. They're you know what you're too
is we, we really didn't mention it, but I think it's important
(31:49):
is admission like you need to bereinforcing whatever it is your
company is about. And it can't be about making
money. It has to be about the thing
that you do. Yeah.
You know, the benefit for people, for society, for
whatever, find a way to that andget your team to believe in
that, and you will also do a lotbetter.
(32:10):
Yeah. You know, I think that's, I
think once people believe in thework they're doing, you're going
to get better output and more reliable output too.
Alright, I think we solved. It it's done.
Working all hybrid working problems have now been solved
good. Work.
I'm glad we did that. What a what a great thing we
just did for humanity. Alright, thanks folks.
See you next week. Start it up, let's get it
(32:34):
rolling. Big ideas, Money, hustle, Smart
dream. So why turn that grind into a
joy? Ride.
I also think it is fundamentallythe job of an HR department to
try to enforce these things and make these changes for the
betterment of the company. The problem is when you are HR
and you were the cofounder, there's no way to be like while
I was HR's idea, you know, there's no way.
There's no way to put the bad hat on someone else, and as a
result, you take the heat. Big ideas money hustle smart
(00:26):
dream so will turn that grindingthrough a.
Joy Ride in the news right now there's a lot of talk about
we're obviously in Toronto big banks here and the big banks but
all decided that employees are going to come back to the office
four days a week this fall OK And there has been a trend OK at
(00:49):
first it was like they're going to come back like one day a
week, then two days a week, thenthree days a week now we're at.
4 Boil the frog. Right, right.
And then, so at some point there's gonna be 5, five days a
week where people are coming back, I figure within the next
year or so, something like that.So they're obviously trying to
like kill the work from home thing.
OK. And so I tried to, I, I wanna
(01:10):
have a conversation about that. OK, so is it time to return to
the office? Now I'm going to put out there
before we even get too deep intothis conversation that I really
liked working in the office. I'm the outlier in a lot of this
data where I'm way more productive at the office.
I can go into cave time. I can get a ton of stuff done.
(01:32):
I feel like I'm way more focused.
I think like you have an interesting recollection of the
office. Like I have a lot of thoughts on
this. OK.
I'll start with the first one, which is that return to the
office in 2025 does not matter, does not mean going to the
office in 2019, OK? Like it is not the same anymore.
(01:52):
And in ways I don't necessarily understand what we can talk
about here, Like it won't be exactly like the way it was
before, because there's still going to be a bigger push for
some employees to remote the remote.
There's still going to be kind of like, I, I feel like a
different vibe. Before it was kind of assumed
you had to go to the office. Like there was no, that's
ridiculous. Remember when Netflix came out,
(02:13):
we talked about this on some of our talks, the whole culture
document. Netflix came out with that
PowerPoint deck back in 2009 called culture.
They were all like, hey, come into the office whenever and do
your thing. And I think what's interesting
now though, is that if you're bringing people back, you're
forcing them. And I think that's really
different. It's a very different vibe that
that creates. You forced them to come back
(02:34):
rather than it was the regular expectation that everybody
worked in offices. It, it, it, it's, you know, the
pandemic did many things, but one thing it did was effectively
crush the cultural norm, or at least the psychological
expectation that you need to be in the office for your job.
Right? And when that happened, I think
(02:55):
that people realized, wow, I don't need to commute for an
hour and a half each way or an hour each way or whatever.
We're trying to get on the GO train or, or whatever mass
transit to, to get to my work inthe same way.
And because it doesn't actually matter, I can do my work from
home. I have a computer.
Here something too though is in 2019.
I feel like most of our staff lived fairly close to the office
(03:17):
so the commute might be 1520 minutes.
That's the other. Thing OK now they've all moved
yeah they're all living an hour and a half away from the office
because they. Know who you are.
They they wanted a big backyard.They wanted to live in a
neighborhood where they could take their kids.
Yeah. The.
Dogs for a walk. I, I agreed, but doesn't that
feel like kind of the right thing?
(03:38):
Like on a personal level that people wanted something else.
They were aspiring to have this big backyard and now because of
this work environment, they could do that.
And, and, and, and I think most of them would argue that they
are as productive. I, I don't think that's actually
true. I think there's data that shows
that on average, and I'll come back to a point on this in a
(04:02):
second, but on average people aren't as productive a lot of
like the the like the water cooler creativity, like there's
like serendipity around. This So you're kind of getting
into some of the content I want to structure this episode.
So that we can kind of do that kind of that.
So they're kind of like three ways to work in the current like
business environment, OK, There's like fully remote, OK,
(04:24):
there's fully in the office. And the third one is hybrid, OK,
where it's a combination of the two.
So what I want to do was kind oflike unpack some of the pros and
cons of each approach and see ifwe can get to like what the
ideal state of work should be and, and how a company,
especially if you're a startup, what you should be thinking
about from like an office space perspective, a culture
(04:47):
perspective that. You're assuming like you, you
can like afford it and stuff like that.
Yeah. So you gotta you gotta like I.
Don't know you got rabbit. Half million.
Revenue, Yeah, OK, exactly. OK.
So let's talk about remote work first.
OK. So when you think about the
pros, OK, I've done, I've lookedat the research on this, there's
definitely like productivity gains, OK?
And I think that if you were a person that was working in an
(05:09):
office and you were interrupted all the time, and now you're at
home and you can lock in and andget into flow, you're gonna have
that productivity. Game.
Can I, can I make a point there?Yeah.
Where this is where I think you have an interesting revisionist
history about. We're going into the office.
You know what I mean? Like, as in you, the way you
remember. It's not the same as what I
remember. OK.
I remember when you were in the office also getting frequent
(05:31):
interruptions, you were very, very much interrupted all the
time, OK, whether you were a remote or not.
I think that the difference in the office was somebody might
send you a Slacker, like equivalent of a Slack, like a
chat message on like, we use G Suites back then.
Yeah, but send you a chat and belike, hey, Chris, can I ask you
a question? And then they would come into
the office and ask you or knock on the glass door or whatever.
(05:52):
Right. But and then when we were
remote, you were just getting pounded by these all the time.
And so I think like, but you kind of remember it as like
being able to save time a lot. I'm not sure I saw that in the
same way. OK, yeah.
Cause remember you, you always felt like you had to work after.
Work right? So do you think I was less
interrupted when I was remote ormore interrupted?
(06:14):
And probably more, Probably more.
OK, so maybe This is why I'm I'mthe outlier in.
This. Either way, you're OK Fair
enough So maybe either way you were interrupted yeah.
I also think the other reason why you were interrupted more is
that people craved more interaction.
Yeah, because they were by. Them to get to that OK, I'm
going to get to that OK, so alright, so we're just going
through pros over about work. So productivity gains is is
there's data to support that. Obviously there's cost savings
(06:38):
because for the company, becauseyou probably don't need as many
desks, you know, you don't need as many, you know, there's the
work life balance piece, you're not spending hours commuting,
that sort of stuff. Give you another one which is
kind of interesting is like kindof global talent access.
Like we're, yeah, we're in Toronto where we had access to
really good talent. But if you're in a smaller
centre, it's harder to tell. This was a real problem actually
(07:00):
when we were starting before remote was really.
Part of it was because we were like didn't have a ton of money
and we were cheap. Like we didn't want to.
Spend. A lot of money.
So maybe that's why we didn't have access to talent was
because we didn't have the moneyfor, you know, like somebody
who's super experienced and yeah, like that.
Sure. OK Yeah.
And that's. A complicated question too, but
OK then. The last like prose of remote
(07:22):
work is obviously there's some environmental benefits that
everybody's not commuting, OK, so fewer cars on the road,
things like that, whatever, you know, functionality that's kind
of an externality. OK, so the the cons though, the
remote work is you kind of touched on it, the
collaboration. OK, so like if, if I'm just
trying to like sit at a computerand code, I'm probably way more
(07:42):
effective. But if if I'm like trying to
like brainstorm ideas on a toughproblem with the development
team that the data seems to showthat that happens better in
person when you can get in frontof the white board, when you can
have an in person meeting, when you can flail your arm.
Honestly, yeah, I do think actually I think a lot of it is
like you have the meeting and then everybody goes back to
(08:04):
their office and then they have some time to cook on the idea.
And because of your availability, like you're
literally there. Then come back to be like, hey,
I had another idea about that thing we were working on
earlier, and that's just easier to do in real life.
Yeah, I think it's more meaningful too.
Also, I think there's some element of like, you know, I
want to impress my boss. You know, I'm gonna show them.
I was thinking about that idea. And I think that you're just
(08:25):
more articulate in person or more able to, yeah, even go back
to that same whiteboard. Like there's this element of
just like, I don't know, convenience of creativity.
And that's in that space, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
So I agree. So when you think about being in
the office, there's the water cooler moments, the the the
serendipity, those types of things.
So like those are really the bigcons, the things that you're
(08:47):
missing out when when you're when you're working remotely is
you don't have those serendipitous moments of I'm at
the coffee machine and making a coffee and somebody has
imagined, hey, have you ever thought about, you know, yeah,
whatever. And I do miss that a lot.
I I feel like that almost never happened.
Nobody. Like the other thing too is like
when you're on like Zoom or whatever, you're not really
accessible, you know what I mean?
(09:08):
Like you're setting your status to away or, you know, I would
always set my status like, like,don't bother me, you know, right
now. Whereas when you're in the
office and you're just gonna randomly go up and get a coffee
or something like that, you did have those opportunities
interruption that just could happen.
Yeah, you know, I think. Those are the reverse
temptation, too, when you're working at home, that you have a
(09:28):
house full of cool stuff. Yeah.
You know, your PlayStation is sitting two rooms away.
And I think that you have like, no, not, not, not necessarily
during the day like this is. I'm sure some people do abuse
remote work, and that's a whole other problem.
Yeah. And people who can't handle this
kind of freedom that exists, forsure.
Let's assume that you can. You have enough control on your
(09:49):
mature person and you can continue.
I think the real issue is that when you get to that near end of
day steam whistle, OK, you're like OK, I'm gonna just be done
Forget that idea I had. I couldn't reach Chris cause of
whatever it's too much of I don't wanna start a Zoom call
now and whatever and I'm just going to go and hang out go
downstairs and do something else.
(10:10):
You know go away from my office.I want to get out of this room.
There's actually a bigger push to like be not working.
Yeah. Which is kind of like a weird
nuance there, Yeah. Like you're already at your fun
place, which is home you hopefully.
And so it's kind of like, I'm just not gonna bother.
And then the those ideas are just like poop.
Like they're gone. You're gonna remember tomorrow.
So I, I definitely consider myself a fairly like disciplined
(10:30):
person. Yes.
And you, I gotta be honest with you though, like I get
distracted by like stupid thingsthat I should not be concerned
with when I'm working from home.So for instance, I'll be like,
well, I could be way more productive if I also started up
my laundry while I'm working here.
And then, you know, like an hourlater, my laundry is beeping.
(10:51):
And then before I know it, a folding my teeth, my Amazon
Basics T-shirts and putting themaway.
Those. Yeah.
I assume you iron them and then hang them up and treat them with
the honor that they. Desire don't hang them up, I
fold them and I sort them by style and then by colour.
Ohe, like which one you? Wore last T-shirts.
No, no. Well, when they all get washed
at the same time it doesn't matter but what's convenient is
(11:13):
so, so by style and by colour. Yeah, yeah.
So I've got my short sleeve T-shirts, I've got my long
sleeve T-shirts and then I have them also have ones that are
more like a, you know, active type T-shirt or, you know, it's
like sweat wicking all that sortof stuff.
But I have like piles for each one.
And then I have them in order ofcolours.
So like like light to dark. And I usually do the, the light
(11:36):
colours, the, the, the monochrome colours first and
then the colour colours second. So like white, Gray, black, and
then like, you know, Navy blue or regular blue, Navy blue, dark
blue, like whatever. Cool man, yeah.
I know I'm really. Really, really pumped.
You're really pumped about this?System you know I like that
system so anyways so like when we talk about the in office
(11:59):
versus the work from home the the pros and cons are almost
like opposites of each other like so yeah you lack.
Collaboration one with with the other, you know.
It's hard. It's exactly so.
So then that kind of brings us to the other way of approaching
this, which is the hybrid model.And this seems to be the way
that most companies are doing it.
So I mentioned that story from TD Bank at the beginning that
(12:20):
they're going to four days a week.
Yeah, there's still one day a week from.
Home, it'll be 5. It'll be 5 days.
Yeah, it'll be 5. Obviously it's gonna be 5 days.
Do you think there's an impact on like if you're working for a
big company, big multinationals,something like that versus like
a startup? My brother and I sold our
business for $40 million and I want the same for you.
(12:41):
You might be wondering where he is.
Who cares? Check out a book, Startup
Different and figure out how to build your multimillion dollar
empire. Find out Amazon, Audible and
Kindle. Do you think startups are going
to have more openness to like remote or hybrid compared to an
established? Here, here's the other thing
(13:01):
that's happening in those, and then let's go back to the banks
for a second. Yeah, Why are the banks doing
this? Banks have made, how many
billions of dollars have they put into the towers downtown?
That's true. So massive financial investment
in physical space. First off, that space being
empty and must be driving the CFO absolutely insane.
We're paying all the costs for this.
Nobody's here. We either sell these assets or
use them. The other thing is that I think
(13:23):
banks can can really tell their employees what to do in a big
way. There's not many banks in
Canada. You know, the United States is a
little bit different potentially, but let's just
stick with Canada. Second, yeah, there's, there's
like big, the big six banks, OK,So you can move around those
banks. You're probably tied into some
sort of investment plan, stock option plan sort of thing.
You. Have you have gold handcuffs?
Yeah, you can't move. And so they kind of know that
(13:43):
and they're just gonna keep putting pressure on you.
And what will happen is and the not that I want to be, you know,
full prophecy here, but on the high and age wise, people are
gonna start just retiring ratherthan coming back in.
Right. And so then that'll make new
opportunities. But that'll be the same thing
for those people coming in at the bottom end of the bank will
be yeah, if you wanna be part ofthis organizations five days a
(14:03):
week. Yeah, like they're just I I
really think this is a there's alot more financial calculus here
happening as opposed to like some sort of interest in the
employees well-being or like this has nothing to do with
their well-being. This is everything to do with
the assets they have and and basically wanted to make sure
they get the most out of those. It's interesting.
Maybe people aren't working thathard or something too.
(14:24):
Like, I don't know, can't imagine trying to manage a
workforce of like, you know, 20,000 people.
Yeah, but I'm sure they have productivity issues.
Yeah. People at home, I everybody
knows it. It's like this like thing like,
oh, I'm working from home, you know, kind of thing.
Like people don't always work sohard.
Yeah, that is really scary. Is that scary?
Is an no. But there is kind of like an
undercurrent of I remember I wasin the gym of my building one
(14:47):
day and there was a guy who had two phones and it was like kind
of clock in the morning. 2 phones at Bell.
Yeah, back in the day. OK, so he's, he's in the gym and
he's got 2 phones and he said wow, why do you have, why do you
have two phones? And he's like ohhh, work phone.
Yeah. And, and I'm like ohhh, like are
you? And he's like, well, like
technically I'm working, but I just decided to come down and do
(15:09):
the gym at 10:00. Yeah.
And, you know, yeah, like, I don't know, I would have a hard
time with that if I was a manager.
Like what do you well? In so you are so looking at this
as an owner, as a founder, as a C-Suite, something, right?
If, and I'm with you, you're right that people shouldn't be
abusing remote work period, end of sentence.
(15:31):
OK. At the same time, you can see
why. So, like, the benefits of remote
work for me, for instance, during the pandemic were that I
got to see a lot more of my daughter's life, like when she,
you know, Yeah, like that. And I wouldn't have had that
period. Like, we were so busy.
We would have been in the officeevery day.
Now, this doesn't mean I was slacking off.
(15:52):
I was not. I was actively really working
really hard. And I was worried that and our
staff were wonderful, but I was worried that at times they
weren't actually there, you know, those sorts of things.
Yeah. But I don't know how to.
Manage. I don't know, like you.
Know, I think nowadays if I justto finish that thought, I think
nowadays that if you're working at a big company and you can
have fast your job like that hard, you will be replaced by
(16:16):
AI. Ohb ya you will be destroyed.
That's kind of job will not exist.
It will be an automated agent and you'll be out.
Of there, yeah, like if you actually have enough time to go
down to the gym and do an hour long workout at 10 AM like.
Before you bring your work home with exceptional insight, you.
Yeah. You.
Or maybe you in the fairness, that guy, maybe he works late,
(16:37):
maybe he makes it up elsewhere. But I, I do think that we know,
like everybody kind of knows a certain percentage of people
that just sort of mail it in at their jobs.
Yeah. Because they're not really being
watched that closely. Yeah.
And I know it drives you and I insane and, but and, but I think
that those people should be veryconcerned.
That's why the bank is having people come in four days a week.
Yeah, I think they need to know that people are working.
(16:59):
So it's another part of that like understanding your assets,
you know, so there's physical space, but then there's also
like output per employee that they probably have trouble
measuring to be totally frank, cause changes by role.
But I'm sure they are trying to put some sort of metrics on.
This do you think other people know that that employee is going
and going to the gym for an hourat 10 and.
I think it's, do you think that unspoken, do you think that you
(17:21):
don't tell, I won't tell kind ofthing, actually can tell the
story. Yeah.
So when I was at Bell Canada, and luckily I can't get fired
for this now, but I was at Bell Canada, they're pretty loosey
goosey about yours. Did you get your work done?
Yeah. And it was an unwritten rule
that you could kinda, you know, yeah, if you wanna get out a
little bit early, get a little bit early.
And so this rule obviously like most of the rule these these
(17:43):
unspoken comes to understand becomes the norm.
Yeah. And especially on long weekends.
So it was the summer and there'san elevator bank on my floor
shadow tell the folks at Creek Bank in Mississauga.
And so there's an elevator bank there and I, so I get it, kind
of put my bag, you know, put my laptop in the bag, you know,
sneaking out and I get over to the elevator and my boss is
(18:06):
there and he's looking at me andhe's got his bag.
He's doing the same thing. And he literally said to me, if
you don't tell, I won't tell. We got a different elevators and
we're out of. There no way.
Three, 3:00. OK, 3:00 in the afternoon.
The trick is take take the stairwell when you're trying to
leave. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, or potentially jump out the window depending on the
circumstances. Are you on the first floor?
Window is an option. But so, yeah, that's a good
(18:27):
point. So like, when does this sort of
stuff start to affect company culture?
OK, He's working from home. Everybody knows that.
So and so goes to the gym at 10:00 every morning.
It's just like nobody says if you don't tell, I won't tell.
And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, you know what?
I go get my groceries and I do my my errands.
They're on the call, 3:00 They're on the call.
They're on Zoom video off. They're at the grocery store.
(18:49):
Yeah, I think that's totally happening.
I I don't, I don't think it happens.
All the time that happened. No, it shouldn't.
It shouldn't if you're actually like.
Can I be honest with you though?Like so from my perspective, I'd
be the guy, you know, burning the midnight oil and then I
would find that so anti team anticulture.
Yeah, that I'm the guy working my tail off and other person is
(19:13):
at the gym getting their groceries, folding their
laundry, whatever. I'll give you when.
I'm working another example whendoes the.
Resentment start to be coming. Quickly, I think I think if
you're trying hard so the it'll give you the kind of a similar
but different scenario for this is remote work every remote
working my goodness yeah unlimited vacation so for
unlimited vacation everybody's like I want unlimited vacation
(19:35):
but unlimited vacation is a tax on your teammates in a in a
business so as an example let's say you and by the way I like
vacation too I love traveling like don't get me wrong and you
should have vacation that's really important it makes you a
better employee among other things it makes you probably
more grounded well interested person very much pro vacation
but unlimited vacation gets out of hand because it's like
(19:57):
realistically it's an unbelievable amount of vacation
it's like. 567 weeks or something like that is usually
where HR departments start going.
You're taking a lot of vacation.What's happening with you?
And then you kind of got like introuble, but not in trouble.
But what happens when somebody on, on a team, you know, you got
four or five people, let's say four people.
Let's make this easier. You have four people.
One person is taking six to seven weeks of vacation like.
(20:20):
Which is. Almost.
Holy holy shit. Right.
So two weeks is 2 months of the year.
Effectively they're away becauseyou know, you gotta, you get
backlogged with work and stuff like that.
Yeah. So then that 25, some of the
work that should be for that team member is then just
distributed across the other team.
And it's not usually distributedevenly either.
No, there's usually somebody who's working harder on that
team. Yeah.
So somebody all of a sudden is basically screwed over because
(20:42):
you're taking so much vacation. Yeah.
So there's like a a responsibility, like a maturity
that's required among employees to understand some of these
things. But unfortunately, I think the
remote culture created a much more individualistic approach to
your career, to the company you work for, much more
transactional. Yeah, this is what I get out of
(21:04):
this. And this is when I wanna work.
This is and and. If you don't do this then I'm
upset and I may not quit, but I will.
I will do less work. I will secretly go to the gym.
Remember quiet quitting Yeah, remember that that was a symptom
of a lot of this too, where people didn't like being pushed
harder. But I think that the only way
that a lot of companies can ensure their employees are doing
(21:25):
their thing is is in is in person when you're on a smaller.
But coming full circle here though on for startups, that's
what the show is about. I think that it's really you
will have a a mix because you want to attract better talent.
I think that, yeah, good talent,which is hard to evaluate, but
good talent as a keener young person or somebody with more
(21:47):
experience, I don't think that really matters.
But good talent is willing to work their butt off.
You're willing to make a hybrid workplace an option for them?
Yeah, I think you're willing to do that.
Yeah. And how do you evaluate for
that? It is a difficult process.
Hiring is so difficult. It is so difficult to see if
someone legit, it is so difficult to see if they're fit
with your culture. And so I would suggest having a
(22:10):
good length probationary period to get rid of them if it doesn't
work out pretty quickly on the other side after you hire them,
yeah, and do your evaluation of them.
OK. So can I just get your thoughts
on no. So I think we're landing on
that, you know, and this seems to be best practice that a
hybrid approach especially for startups.
For startups I think. The most sounds OK.
(22:30):
Can you just comment on cause you you were the HR you wore the
HR hat. It was great in our company.
Loved it. Yeah, every second of.
It can you comment on the idea of of giving a benefit to an
employee so in this case work from home abilities OK and then
later trying to claw. That back can't take
entitlements back. So it's it's really.
(22:52):
Well, the banks doing it. Yeah, and they're boiling the
frog and people are upset about it and they'll have turn.
So The thing is like a bank can tolerate churn is that happens
all the time anyway, right? And there's such a big
organization, they're gonna havegood pay, ish.
They're gonna have good benefits, medical benefits and
the stock benefits. Like they have leverage.
Yeah. The problem with us startup is
(23:13):
especially depending on the person it is in your company,
the wrong employee Quitting hurts, hurts a bit more.
Now, mind you, we've said this before.
No employee is essential. The only essential people in a
company are you and the cofounder, if you have a
cofounder or just you if it's just a solo founder or your team
of cofounders. However you're doing it.
But I think it's extremely difficult and I think it also
(23:35):
negatively affects their culture.
People will be less excited talking about their job.
They'll say, oh, you know, or they're taking this, they're
clawing this back there. And but I also think it is
fundamentally the job of an HR department to try to enforce
these things and make these changes for the betterment of
the company. The problem is when you are HR
(23:57):
and you are the cofounder, there's no way to be like, while
I was HR's idea, yeah, you know,there's no way.
There's no way to put the bad hat on someone else.
Yeah. And as a result, you take the
heat. So.
OK, so you're an HR department, you're you're tasked with like,
hey, we're going to let people work from home, but we need to
make sure they're all productive.
How do you do that? Yeah, so.
(24:20):
Feel about like like soft like I'm sure there's software out.
There, there's software. I think that's a terrible idea.
Yeah. I think that you have to go in
with the base level of trust andrespect.
OK, what does this mean? You will have people who game
the system, people who do abuse it.
How do you catch these people? KPI's around productivity that
(24:41):
are difficult to do per fake or whatever really pushing them in
I think frequent 360 reviews or at least performance reviews of
those people. And by frequent, I mean probably
like every three to six months. Yeah, I think your superiors
like that's a bad term, but the managers need to be doing one on
(25:02):
ones with their team, with each one of their team members
probably once a month. This is a really heavy cadence
for HR and it'll be tough to do in bigger companies, but you
need to be able to evaluate as aleader, are these people doing
the work or not? And then I think that you gotta,
you have to turn these people ifit's not working, like if you
find that they're that they're not fitting in with this change,
(25:22):
you have to kind of move on fromthem.
And these are difficult decisions, but fundamentally
that's the role of an HR. Department, right?
Right. But we used to do this though.
We used to do this at Apparmor. We had KPI's, we had things we
were following, we had regular touch points.
We were making sure that people were doing what they were doing.
And for the almost in the entirety of the company, I
believe people were doing their work.
(25:42):
Yeah, yeah, I think. And you know what do we weren't
seeing any like negative outcomes in the in the market.
Here's the other thing is like Iwas also pretty close to the
customer and no, but like customers weren't like my
projects going really slow. Now all of a sudden after
they're working, they were, theywere pretty good.
And you know that there's a lot of reasons for that.
But I, I do think that I felt asif our productivity was pretty
(26:04):
close to what we were doing in the office.
I didn't think it was the same kind of creativity for sure.
I didn't feel, but I definitely felt that people were going in
and moving the machine forward every day.
Yeah, You know, I think if, if we were to do the hybrid
approach, think we would have had to be a bit more structured
about the type of work that was getting done on which days of
(26:27):
the week. So let's say for instance, let's
take my development team just because that's what I know, OK,
I would have say we're in the office on Mondays and Fridays
and then it was all work from home for the middle of the week.
Then I would have taken Mondays and Fridays And we said, OK,
Mondays is going to we're going to do our Sprint planning
meetings. We're going to do our, you know,
(26:47):
our, our reviewing any PBI's, any, any tasks that we were
anything are stuck on product backlog infrastructure, things
that we want to do as a group. Like all like all that stuff.
I would load that on those days.Yeah.
And then the, the work from homedays, I would really like quiet
things down. And it's really like your siloed
and you're, you're working, you're writing code, you're
(27:09):
punching out pull requests, you're doing your stuff.
And, and and so really try and like don't have everybody come
into the office and then have them just sit there and silo.
Right, Coach? Yeah, yeah.
Agreed. Use the opportunity in the
office for those collaborative type of of things.
I think agreed. I agree that I think that's part
(27:29):
I would probably have like 2 to three days in the office per
team, something like that. Probably 2 is what I would I
could get consistently And I make it very much mandatory like
you have to be here and there. There's some sort of there
unfortunately have to be like a stick On the other end of that.
I really don't like the idea of giving people something they
already get a lot. So you can't like incentivize
(27:51):
people be like, oh, we got enough another day off.
If you, you know, I don't wanna do.
Yeah, hang on, hang on, hang on.And then.
But then I think that on those two days, one day is output
focus. What you're talking about
specific tasks that require morecreativity that are good in the
office. The other day I would probably
have more like, we're going to go out for lunch and do like a
team building thing and. OK.
And you know why? Because they want to establish
(28:13):
trust. And I want them to feel guilty
if they're not working. Yeah.
I want them to feel like at home.
Dave said Dave believed me. Dave told me good things.
Dave, what I I want to make, I actually think that's the most
effective way to get people to do work that's good for the.
Company. I think that's the best practice
as well based on my. Research I am.
I would work best at H. RI Believe.
Yeah, No, no, for sure. I think this is a really
(28:35):
complicated problem. And I do think that small
companies lack the leverage of big companies to be able to
force people to do stuff. Yeah.
Also the people that work in startups, like they're harder to
find. I think it's easier to get a job
like at a big company And we go,you work at some of these banks
and hide, you know, you hide allday long.
You know, I, I kind of feel likenot to destroy people where
they're great people who work atbanks too, but I, I do think
(28:57):
there are some people who like, they don't do that much and I
took. Yeah, this is the challenge.
So if I just use my software development team as another
example, I could sit there and Icould say I'm going to measure
productivity by the number of pull requests or the number of
like lines of code that changed and then look at that over time.
(29:18):
But the tough thing with it is sometimes one line of code is
really complicated. It takes you forever to figure
out how to deal with it. OK, so your productivity in that
situation goes down, but I'm wondering if there's almost like
some sort of counter, you know, metric that I could use to
offset that. So for instance, how many times
did you have to escalate and bring up a question in your dev
(29:41):
meeting where you were stuck? OK, so if if you see like
productivity declined, but number of questions in the dev
meeting went up and you're like,OK, that like offsets that.
So that was a tough. Maybe a sign that the work that
that person's having is too difficult?
For yeah, yeah. Like wrong seat.
It's really. Tricky though, because you you
get close to this where you're monitoring your staff and
(30:02):
there's a fine line, I feel likebetween like just gauging
performance and like like monitoring.
Hold up, hold. Up which?
Seems but monitoring and recording KPI sales they have
OKR's similar basically same thing that that's usually to
compensation, right. OK, so you're going.
They want to know this anyway. They want to be good at these.
(30:24):
Things for sales that works? How does that work in a
development environment? I don't know that you were the
CTO. So like, I'm not saying it's
easy. Yeah, I'm not well.
Probably different based on every.
Job correct each and this is where you need to actually work
on what these incentives are so that you can in one hand, on the
one hand monitor people, but on the other hand comma and save
them when they do work well likethis is I actually think this is
(30:44):
a good thing for most people. And by the way, most people want
to know how they're doing in their job.
They don't want to just be like Lucy Goosey like yeah, good job,
keep working. They want feedback.
How can I improve? Where where am I going with my
career? Like these are important
questions employees need to answers.
To so on this topic for startups, yes, how do we
summarize the best practice? Probably anticipate hybrid yeah
(31:07):
you'll need flexibility there yeah you'll need to have a some
sort of metrics or something that you can get behind that are
both tied to compensation but also tied to performance in
terms of like are they doing thework or not I would say that you
know your customers never lie and there are some roles where
you can really evaluate from themarket how your employees are
(31:28):
doing right you know I had an keep going actually you're.
Just going to add the trust thing.
The trust thing, you need to actively be working to build
trust with your employees so that, you know, they feel that
commitment to the team and that they're not gonna let other
people down and that. They're you know what you're too
is we, we really didn't mention it, but I think it's important
(31:49):
is admission like you need to bereinforcing whatever it is your
company is about. And it can't be about making
money. It has to be about the thing
that you do. Yeah.
You know, the benefit for people, for society, for
whatever, find a way to that andget your team to believe in
that, and you will also do a lotbetter.
(32:10):
Yeah. You know, I think that's, I
think once people believe in thework they're doing, you're going
to get better output and more reliable output too.
Alright, I think we solved. It it's done.
Working all hybrid working problems have now been solved
good. Work.
I'm glad we did that. What a what a great thing we
just did for humanity. Alright, thanks folks.
See you next week. Start it up, let's get it
(32:34):
rolling. Big ideas, Money, hustle, Smart
dream. So why turn that grind into a
joy? Ride.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.