The fastest way to get your employees to stop working for you is to micromanage them and track their every move. I have written posts on this before, but let me reference an expert, Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton and #1 New York Times bestselling author, who posted this on LinkedIn: 

That’s a lot of studies! Companies who change the rules that employees signed up for will alienate their workforce. Mandated RTO inevitably sparks a backlash, and yet this seems to be the current trend. 

By Andrew Barker, Editor at LinkedIn News, “RTO plan stirs backlash at Amazon”

In the wake of the surprise announcement from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy mandating a return to the office five days a week, employees are making their voices heard — including on LinkedIn. According to The Wall Street Journal, an anonymous Amazon engineer told the paper the mandate “stands against data that people are still productive out of the office,” while others worry Jassy’s planned reduction of managers will be a cover for layoffs. Citing an internal Slack message, Business Insider reports that one employee notes Amazon’s new in-office policy will actually be stricter for many workers than pre-COVID: “It’s just going backwards.”

If you’re looking for what not to do regarding corporate culture and creating a good place to work, check to see what Amazon is doing first. They will frequently be leading the pack in the wrong direction.

But at least they won’t have to do a big layoff because their top performers will quit and go elsewhere.

And Big 4 accounting firm PwC is going to start tracking employees in the UK starting in January 2025. This company was one of the first to adopt a remote culture during the height of the pandemic, and now the pendulum has swung in the completely other direction. 

According to CNN:

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will start tracking where its employees in the United Kingdom work, in a bid to dial back its current work-from-home culture.

Staff at the UK arm of PwC, one of the world’s “Big Four” accounting firms, were this week informed by management that the new policy would take effect on January 1.

A memo sent to the company’s 26,000 UK employees on Thursday and shared with CNN said the measure was being taken to formalize the company’s “approach to working together in person.”

Consultants are highly educated, hard-working professionals. They frequently work crazy hours. In the US, it has been hard to hire and keep employees at the accounting firms, according to my clients. Firms who treat their employees like competent professionals should be able to cherry pick top talent from competitors.  

If you hire competent professionals, treat them like adults. Respect them and their ability to get the job done.

If they are not meeting expectations, then you can ask them to make adjustments, but don’t change the rules halfway through the game. 

Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash