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As return-to-office mandates gain momentum, many organisations are discovering that location is not the decisive lever for performance. At Metisphere, we observe that the real question is not where people work, but how leaders lead.
Hybrid work can thrive when leaders are equipped to build trust, align expectations, and foster performance, regardless of location. This article offers perspectives on how leadership capability may be the critical lever to navigate this evolving terrain.
Reframing Return Mandates: What Are We Really Solving For?
Mandates often emerge as a response to concerns about culture, collaboration, or accountability. Yet without deeper inquiry, they risk addressing symptoms rather than causes. Leaders may benefit from first asking: is this a location issue, or a leadership challenge?
Microsoft’s Work Trend Index (2023) 1 found that 85% of leaders found it challenging to trust employee productivity in hybrid settings. This can often be due to unclear performance systems, rather than actual output. Instead of scrapping remote work and mandating presence in the office, stronger leadership frameworks may provide a more effective solution.
Proximity Bias: A Silent Barrier to Equity
In some teams, physical visibility is still mistaken for impact. This can reinforce bias in recognition and development, with remote team members inadvertently overlooked. Gallup’s 2022 Global Workplace Report2 highlights that remote workers often receive less feedback and fewer growth opportunities, despite comparable performance.
A more sustainable approach may be to strengthen how performance is defined, measured, and discussed, supporting fairness while reinforcing clarity.
Leadership Capability: The Missing Link
Hybrid work success likely rests on leadership, not logistics. Effective leaders foster environments where people know what is expected, feel psychologically safe, and understand how their work connects to team and business goals.
Key capabilities may include:
- Clarifying what success looks like and communicating it regularly
- Building trust by following through on expectations and modelling consistency
- Creating communication rhythms that support visibility, not surveillance
- Providing feedback in a timely, constructive way
- Using in-person time intentionally for connection, not compliance
The Future Forum’s 2022 Pulse Report3 supports this: employees with location flexibility report 29% higher productivity and 53% better focus.
Culture is Built Through Intentional Moments
Culture may not reside in a location; it lives in shared experiences and behaviours. While hybrid work offers flexibility, leaders may still wish to prioritise opportunities for co-creation, relationship-building, and learning that often flourish through informal, face-to-face interaction.
Designing these moments, rather than assuming they will emerge organically, is likely to help maintain a sense of connection and shared meaning.
Closing Thoughts
Return-to-office mandates alone may not address the root issues many leaders wish to solve. In place of defaulting to policy, organisations may benefit more from investing in developing leadership capability.
Metisphere offers bespoke strategic advisory services designed to facilitate sustainable and positive behavioural change; ensuring that individuals, teams, executive groups and organisations are productive and engaged. Get in touch at https://metisphere.co/contact/.
References:
- 1 Microsoft (2023). Work Trend Index: Hybrid Work Is Just Work.
- 2 Gallup (2022). State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report.
- 3 Future Forum (2022). Pulse Report.
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