Return to Office Does Not Mean Improved Mentoring

Here’s the true path to junior staff success

Many leaders, driven by memories of pre-pandemic times, believe that forcing employees to return to the office will naturally lead to mentoring and development. For example, consider what Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in spring 2023 on the On With Kara Swisher podcast after the company demanded that sales and marketing staff come to the office four days a week: “For our new employees who are coming in, we know empirically that they do better if they’re in the office, meeting people, being onboarded, being trained. If they are at home and not going through that process, we don’t think they’re as successful.”

We’re seeing many tech, finance, and other leaders make similar claims and adopt similar policies. However, senior staff have found that they can be highly productive outside the office, and many of them now resist the idea of returning.

…

Want to continue?

By logging in you agree to receive communication from Quality Digest. Privacy Policy.

Create a FREE account

Forgot My Password

Comments

WFH Works

Good article. I believe that insisting on an "office" presence is micro-managing, which is a close cousing to "Theory X" management, which is directly contradictory to the teachings of Deming, Imai, etc.

The bogus pretense that it "improves collaboration" is dead-on-arrival, unless the company culture is inherently collaborative. And that's not going to happen under Theory X micro management.

The sole exception of course is factory work, because very very few can be operated remotely. And of course those service industries that are directly customer-facing.