As the vaccination campaigns around the world gain traction and companies start thinking about a post-pandemic future, the possibility of returning to the office looms.

The pandemic and the changes it imposed on how we work now provide a unique opportunity to take a more flexible approach to work; but not all companies and managers are capable of taking advantage of it. For many of them, the fact that 65% of people who have experienced distributed work during the pandemic want to continue working that way, and that 33% like the idea of hybrid models that combine distributed work with the office, and that only 2% want to go back to working full time from the office, like they did before the pandemic doesn’t necessarily carry much weight for many companies: the workforce will do what we tell them to, and what they want is not a priority.

If you work for a company, how would you evaluate its attitudes towards distributed work as we exit from the pandemic? Here’s a sliding scale of companies and their approach:

1. Cave dweller companies: prehistory is the time of the corporatists, for whom the only thing that matters, whatever happens, is to go back to working as we did before March 2020. The fact that many of us have adapted well to distributed work, enjoying significant advantages such as not having to commute or sit in traffic jams, is the least of it: from the perspective of the industrial revolution, shop-floor managers, these people are probably looking to continue with distributed working because it allows them to somehow “get away with it”, and this must be avoided at all costs. In fact, they may well have forced their employees to return to the office when it was not even safe to do so, and have had them working with their masks on all day. All for the sake of micromanagement.
2. Reluctant companies: the default plan is to return to work under the same conditions as before the pandemic, although in some cases they may make exceptions to allow some employees to continue working from home. Initially, however, these companies will likely do nothing to implement any measures to encourage or facilitate distributed working. The result will be that people who opt for distributed work will likely see their career opportunities stymied.
3. Generalist companies: they might propose policies that allow workers who so wish to continue with some level of distributed work, but these will be of a general nature, consisting of specific rules to which all workers will have to adapt equally. They may consider the loss of certain benefits if people opt for distributed work, and usually they will not make any changes or rethinking of any kind in their offices.
4. Open companies: these are willing to make flexible arrangements with their employees according to their needs, adapting to some of their preferences, and are considering remodeling their offices or even their entire organizations to adapt to a very different reality to that which existed before the pandemic. Some may even see such openness as a competitive advantage and a way to improve their ability to attract talent.

That said, even within the most traditional and conservative organizations, there is some recognition that things have changed for good, particularly in light of the progressively more flexible working practices being implemented by big tech companies such as Microsoft or by the US government. We are talking about a dimensional change in the way distributed work is perceived, which will even lead to changes in organizational hierarchies. As workforces become more distributed and asynchronous, the traditional role of middle management in monitoring productivity and optimizing individual performance becomes increasingly redundant and unnecessary.

On the other hand, many employees feel burned out as these ultra-conservative companies try to force them back into their offices, making them, in the medium term, candidates for higher turnover, especially the more value they perceive they have in the marketplace. In turn, this will lead such organizations to experience the dreaded Dead Sea effect, which occurs when a company’s management practices result in the most competent workers leaving for greener pastures, while the least competent remain with the company.

Which type of company do you work for?