The return to the office and the corporate culture based on mediocrity

On my way to work, before the pandemic, I watched from the car as the army of workers made our way to an office. There, basically, we would carry out an activity that would consist of use a computer and a telephone. It was in those moments that it came to my mind that, even in the second decade of the 21st century, we still maintained the habits marked by the working hours established in 1919.

The result of this daily pilgrimage, in which we all went to the office at the same time, was eternal traffic jams. A waste of time that could be used to sleep, work, be with the family, or simply be at home.

If we avoided overlapping in and out of the office, we could avoid all being on the road at the same time during the same stretches of the day.

That schedule from 8 to 5 (or beyond, if the workday is interrupted, excessively, with hours in between for lunch) always left me in a state of shock. A working day that is an echo of the 20th century and by which office workers all over the world are governed. Office workers who perform intellectual labor, not physical labor, and who carry out their work with a computer and a telephone. Mobile equipment not dependent on any fixed infrastructure.

And from there, a series of questions were brewing in my head: Wouldn't it be more beneficial for society to create more diverse schedules, that not everyone in an office has the same schedules, that they are staggered, that all workers' arrivals and departures do not coincide, that all workers' arrivals and departures do not coincide?

Many have been thinking about the same subject for quite some time. And one idea on the table is that of the 4 working day week. This would force companies to rethinking scheduleswith models that are more similar to those of current factories, restoration or retailwhere workers are accustomed to having movable days off.

In the most basic organization of schedules, if half of a company's staff does not work on Monday and the other half does not work on Friday, the following would be achieved to unclog those days in the flow of comings and goingswith 3-day weekends. If the day off is already more rotating, the advantages of mobility, reduction of traffic jams and improvement for the environment skyrocket. Of course, it must be recognized that this idea implies an initial economic cost for the companies that apply it, which not all of them can bear.

But going back to my cabal in the car on the way to the office in the pre-pandemic, the common schedule was only part of the problem. The surface one. A problem that was a consequence of a bigger problem. Office presence: Was office attendance necessary when the work to be performed, thanks to today's technology, could be carried out from any location?

The pandemic gave us the answer. No. A resounding no. Thousands of studies, evaluationsThe results of the study, spreadsheets and accounting tests during the health crisis by the COVID-19, have shown what, in fact, the vast majority already imagined, that telework, or remote work does not mean a reduction in the performance of tasks by those who work with computers and telephones as their main tools.. Fear of lower productivity, the great corporate excuse against this type of work, had vanished under the reality and the studiesThe company's own corporations had been forced to carry out during the pandemic.

In general, during the pandemic, it was shown that productivity goes up in remote work mode. But nevertheless, the return to the office and the 8-5 schedule has returned after the vaccination of workers. We are back in 2019.

Why?

Large technology companies, such as Apple, Google o Amazonthe same as have profited during the pandemic thanks to the introduction of teleworking, have been the first to announce that it is necessary to back to the office. Into the fold. The excuse, which sounds like corporate marketingis to facilitate the casual information exchange (the one that happens in the hallways, in the coffee shop or in the restrooms), which is where "great displays of collaboration" seem to occur.

The same design of the Apple's large headquartersThe giant ring, that giant ring, is designed to facilitate this "sociability at the service of creativity in corporations". It makes sense. Just like putting game tables, relaxed décor and free food makes it easier for workers to spend more time in the workspace than at home.

The ultimate goal of these actions is not to make the lives of workers more pleasant, it is that spend more time in the officeand thus generate more. I have purposely omitted mention of the word "more". productivity. Because you don't really look for that.

The productivity is a mathematical calculation with a catch. Basically it refers to the amount a worker generates in relation to the cost, in time and expense, of carrying out that task. If I make a video in 10 minutes at home I am more productive than if I take 2 hours in the office. So, where is the logic? If a company has to increase its expenses in facilities, electricity, water, air conditioning, food... to keep its workers "locked up" as long as possible, the mathematical calculation that is productivity decreases in contrast to leaving them "free".

Corporate culture based on middle management positions

Coordinator, supervisor, area manager, inspector, service manager... Intermediate positions born in offices for elitism. For example, after World War II, the most important companies in the United Kingdom were managed by generals where the military hierarchy was the basis of everything. How is a company manager going to talk on a one-to-one basis with a subordinate, an accountant, a warehouse boy, a clerk? Unthinkable.

Middle management positions have sprouted up to become a parapet between operational staff and management. The MBA were constituted as a validation sticker by which anyone, with the money to pay for it, was capable of heading a work group or a department in a medium to large company. And if, in addition to holding an MBA, you were already friend of, cousin of, brother-in-law of, son of... the position of "xxxx manager" was your destiny. First an intermediate position like "Supervisor" to, with the MBA in hand, move on to "Manager".

The work of a position of middle managementThe role, which on paper should be to coordinate a group of people, knowing the capabilities and limitations of each one, in order to organize their tasks as efficiently as possible and lead the projects, while being able to effectively communicate the results to management and coordinate collaboration with other departments, in practice is far from that.

The majority of middle management positions are limited, as it states Ed Zitron in this article a "walking around the office, keeping an eye on people and speaking on behalf of their subordinates in meetings". The life of a pre-pandemic middle management position was that placid.

A middle manager in a software company doesn't even have to know how to program, that's what programmers are for. In a design studio, he may not even know how to use Photoshop's magic wand, or in a publishing house, he may not even know what kerning is. And in reality, they don't need to, if what they do, they do well (see paragraph above). But the reality, as we all know, is far from that.

And then came the pandemic. And with it, telework. And with it, the digital evaluation of tasks through Zoom, Teams or in Slack, where it became very clear who was actually doing the work.

The work monitoringthe boss's sole occupation mediocre needs workers to be in the office. Otherwise, their position becomes meaningless. The middle manager must supervise and monitor a group of people, take ownership of the team's achievements and sell them to management as a personal triumph. The mediocre middle manager does not create anything, does not know anything, he only transmits what is decided in the meetings to their group and they must carry it out.

Middle management positions have proliferated in offices over time. The manager has a junior managerwhich, in practice, is an intermediate position to the one reported by the supervisorswho also act as intermediary positions between them and the coordinatorswhich, once again, is another intermediate command between these and the officerswho are the ones who finally develop the work.

But there are not only mediocre executives in middle management positions. We found great professionals in management, supervisory and delegated execution positions. Those same who have encouraging the 4-day work weekthose who have seen how the teleworking allowed to reduce operating coststo improve the personal satisfaction of your employees and increase productivity.

Logically, this has been seen more in small and medium-sized enterprisesthan in large corporations. The number of middle management positions in these companies are much smaller than in financial, technology or service corporations with hundreds, if not thousands, of employees. These middle managers have seen their supervisory jobs jeopardized, and also its visibility.

If you don't walk around the office, if you don't meet with the CEO, if you don't have lunch with your fellow managers, how are you going to thrive in your climb to higher paying positions.

Walking, lunch, travel and spreadsheets are the main occupations of middle managers that have forced the return of the workforce to the office. For self-interest. For survival. It is the corporate culture based on mediocrity.

Cover image by Zane Lee at Unsplash