Autonomy, Autonomy, Autonomy
The return-to-office debate continues, with many workers favoring remote or hybrid arrangements while some managers insist the home-based are missing out on collaboration, serendipity, and mentoring.
No one is all right or all wrong here. I’ve worked remotely on various projects for more than two decades, but I also benefited greatly from in-person mentoring and training after graduate school, so I see both sides. Without the network I built during years of in-office work, my opportunities would have been far fewer and lesser. But it’s undeniable that commuting eats time that could otherwise be spent with family and friends—and employees are usually uncompensated for that time. COVID exposure remains a risk of working in-office, long COVID is very much unsolved, and building ventilation isn’t yet what it should be.
Given these factors, the five-day-a-week in-office schedule isn’t likely to rise phoenix-like anytime soon, and commercial real estate landlords would do well to accept it and start repurposing suitable office buildings for residential use. But the biggest factor in employee satisfaction and engagement may have nothing to do with geographical location, but with autonomy.
How about some examples?
Sure. Consider a fully remote job that monitors every keystroke and records employees at their workstations all day. Compare that with an office-based job that offers weekly manager check-ins, flexible hours, and meetings across a variety of client sites within a city.
Which job sounds more appealing? The second job is less monitored and offers far more autonomy. For some people, that could be a game-changer.
And yes, if you require employees to come into an office five days a week, monitor their keystrokes, micromanage their schedules, and generally treat them as if they were children, that’s the worst of all worlds. You’ll likely lose your best performers over time—and you’ll never even know who never applied.
How about a more concrete example?
Sure. One of the most successful office environments I ever experienced was at Hacker School (now Recurse Center), a self-directed developer retreat that was based in SoHo and is now based in Brooklyn (and currently remote!).
Their office setup wasn’t, on the surface, too different from a typical coworking space:
Rows of open desks that were first-come, first-served;
Conference rooms that could be reserved or used on an ad hoc basis if unreserved;
A communal kitchen and two bathrooms;
A library space with bean bags and books for quiet work or reading.
But my productivity in that space was phenomenal, despite many of the alleged sins of open work spaces: high ceilings that let noise carry, high visibility of people and screens to passersby, limited storage space for belongings.1 The difference was intangible: autonomy. Everyone who attended that workshop could work on whatever they wanted within the universe of open-source programming, however they saw fit, with whichever other participants coalesced around the project.
The success of Recurse Center had relatively little to do with the office; it was the self-directed nature of the endeavor that propelled it.
Not everyone can do what they want when they want all the time.
Okay, let’s talk about more typical work environments. Harvard Business Review touched on autonomy’s importance in a 2021 article called, pretty darn clearly, “Forget Flexibility. Your Employees Want Autonomy”. Also, a 2020 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that autonomy increases productivity and mood.
Just as Steve Ballmer famously identified the importance of developers way back in the early 2000s (though execution on that vision was arguably perfected by Satya Nadella), the importance of autonomy is paramount. With it, people can be productive almost anywhere—in an office, at home, or on the road. Without it, high turnover and lack of engagement will rule, no matter where people are working.
Not everyone prioritizes autonomy first.
Of course, some people want and need more autonomy than others. Those who need the most autonomy may favor sole proprietorships and independent consulting, and those who feel a greater need for security may favor large organizations with great benefits. None of these choices is inherently superior or inferior. But even within a relatively structured role, autonomy in that role is likely a determinant of job satisfaction and engagement.
After all, most people hate micromanagement. Even the worst dictatorships in history couldn’t keep their citizens from eventually reclaiming autonomy. In a corporate environment, it’s much easier: people just leave places that don’t respect their autonomy.
So, as the remote-work debate rolls forward, keep in mind that it’s not about catered meals or office redesign or minimum-days-here and maximum-days-there. It’s about autonomy—trust in the people you put so much effort into hiring to organize their own work life in a way that works for their life.
Autonomy, autonomy, autonomy. I’m ready to chant it on-stage if you are.
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Extra, Extra!
Tangential extras for curious readers:
1. Autonomy in the workplace has positive effects on well-being and job satisfaction, study finds - by the University of Birmingham - an older study from pre-pandemic.
2. Satisfaction on the Job - Autonomy Ranks First - by Philip M. Boffey in The New York Times - NYT was onto this back in 1985. Why are we still so bad at maximizing productivity through employee satisfaction?
Note: I attended in the prior office space in SoHo; I’ve never been to the Brooklyn office space.