Remote working is dead. Long live the young remote workers!
Remote working, hybrid working, back-to-office: whichever way a company chooses with the end of the state of emergency, being able to find the most effective way to organize itself without compromising either employee well-being or performance is nothing less than a necessity. We asked Roberto Degli Esposti, Managing partner of Performant by SCOA, to give us a picture of how this new-normal is shaping up, and a widespread concern emerged regarding what seems to be the biggest challenge for today’s managers: how to train tomorrow’s managers in such a fragmented situation?
It’s no joke: as of April 1st, working from home is no longer a right but an arrangement that must be agreed upon between companies and employees.This is a sign that the state of emergency from COVID-19 is finally over (which is undeniably good news), but it also opens the door to a necessity from which companies cannot shy away: re-organizing themselves.
The world is no longer pre-pandemic; we have all become accustomed to working remotely, we perceive the benefits in both our work and personal lives, and the work-life balance that working from anywhere other than the office allows is an issue that cannot be ignored. However, these are not the only topics that deserve attention: performance, engagement, and the sense of belonging, must also be taken into account for organizations as neglecting them could risk stunting their growth.
It is undeniable that while there is unanimous recognition of the usefulness of working from home, there is also the fear that remote working will fray relationships and make it more difficult to assess, grow and retain talent.
So what has been the response of companies to these risks, especially in these two months of ‘return to normality’? Perhaps the easiest and most dangerous way at the same time: asking employees to go back to the office.
Back to office: what is happening in Italy?
Let’s do a bit of history. According to the Remote working Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, in 2019 there were 1.15 million Italian smartworkers. Then came the pandemic, with the lockdown that forced everyone who could to work from home, even when the restrictions ended, the number of remote workers remained very high: 2.8 million in 2022 to 3.58 million in 2023.
An army of smartworkers equal, if we were to make a comparison, to the inhabitants of Rome and Turin put together.
In 2024, we witnessed the establishment of the hybrid work trend for the majority of companies (adopted as a new normal by 68% of Italian organizations according to the Hays Italia Salary Guide). However, alongside this trend, another emerged that opposes it: the mandatory return to the office, either full-time (chosen by 31% of companies) or for 2 or 3 days a week.
As evidence of this shift, in addition to the news from overseas that it was the digital giants such as Meta, Google, Disney and Zoom that imposed the return to the office at least 40% of the time, one can take a look at the job listings on LinkedIn: if in 2022 22% of the job ads were looking for people willing to work full remotely, in December 2023 this figure had fallen to 8%.
Remote working? Not a job for young people
Generally, one would think that those most affected by the ‘smart working fever’ would be young people. But this is not the case: Istat’s BES report published in mid-April and covering data for 2023 shows that the main proponents of remote work in Italy are actually individuals aged 35-44, employed in highly specialized sectors.
If we were to paint a picture of the typical remote workers, we could say, in addition to their age, that they hold a university degree (university graduates work remotely in an average of 11.2% of cases, compared to the national average of 6.1%), that they work in communications (15.2%) or in finance and insurance (12.3%) and that they live mainly in the north-west (8.5%) or north-east (7.8%) of the country (the remote working average in the south is 4.2%, while it drops to 3.8% in the islands).
The perception that smart working is solely a ‘Millennials’ trend isn’t just limited to us, but is also emerging at the European level. According to the Talent Trends for Europe 2023 study conducted by ACCA, while only 1 in 3 workers between the ages of 25 and 57 are back in the office every day, back-to-office has become a reality for 64% of Gen Z.
A figure that does not make everyone happy, as 9 out of 10 workers say they want to work from home at least one day a week and are even more productive remotely.
So why are these people who went through high school or university entirely through distance learning, used to living all the nuances of their lives online, now being asked to make an effort to return to in-person presence,, even at the cost, at times, of losing a talent who prefers to work remotely? There is only one concern: growth.
Managers of today, Managers of tomorrow: what about young people?
Recently, as Performant, we have been involved in a project with a consultancy firm focused on developing macro-rules to manage what we now refer to as the “new normal” since the initial signs of the pandemic’s end. This new normal in the professional sphere entails a way of working that considers the benefits and conveniences discovered through remote work, while ensuring effective performance and alignment with shared values and objectives.
From the interviews we carried out with people of different seniority levels, different roles and experiences, a comprehensive and interesting scenario emerged regarding the time that needs to be spent in the office (or, for those positions where this is the case, at the client’s) and the reasons that drive or hinder back-to-office working.
There are those who say (especially among the more junior roles) that they are more productive from home, those who instead (mainly senior roles) point out that the office is a place where it is possible to discuss and find new ideas, those who complain about the time and expenses required to reach the office, and those who argue that the company should create more fixed intra- and cross-team meetings to motivate people to come back.
But there is, as we said, a concern that cuts across all locations, all age groups and all roles: how will those who started working during the state of emergency develop the management skills needed to grow if they never interface personally with colleagues? What kind of managers will they become if they continue to prefer remote working?
It is indeed a question that is common to all levels of the hierarchy: : while younger individuals appreciate the flexibility to potentially reside in cities other than their headquarters, they also experience feelings of isolation and a lack of involvement in company activities. Despite the narrative that career opportunities are equal regardless of location, those who frequent the office undeniably have greater access to opportunities. And it is not only a matter of relationships (even if seeing your manager in person just once a year is certainly different from seeing him every week), but also of acquired skills, because going to the office means having the opportunity to grasp that passive learning that comes from observing, hearing, being told what is happening on other people’s projects.
For this to happen, however, it is not only the juniors who have to return to the office but also the seniors: what is a junior doing in the office if his/her senior or his/her colleagues, in general, are not there or spend most of their time on calls with people far away? There are managers willing to spend hours on shared screen calls to impart their knowledge to potential successors, but even with some management experience, it becomes apparent that virtual mentoring is not equivalent to in-person interaction, and it is not always practical.
So, will the need to train tomorrow’s managers lead to the death of remote working?
Remote working will probably not die altogether, but companies must adapt their practices to suit varying contexts, needs, and organizational sizes. It’s crucial to establish tailored approaches that uphold high performance standards.
Most importantly, what needs to change is the way of performing the role of manager: something very different from the leadership style. One can have a very direct leadership style, for example, and yet, as a Manager, leave the space and create the conditions for those in a lower hierarchical role to grow and learn all the skills they will need one day.
There is a truth that should not be forgotten: we do not know in ten years’ time what characteristics future Managers will need, so claiming to train them the way people were trained up to ten years ago does not make much sense.
All you can do today is get them involved, find ways of sharing knowledge both remotely and physically, rescue them from isolation, and make them share the meaning of what you do. Give them the chance to develop their own managerial styles, allowing us senior professionals the chance to be pleasantly surprised by their innovative approaches to efficiency that we may not have considered before.
Working from home is not dead and most probably will not die. Whether the Managers of the future will not die, therefore, will not depend on where they work, but on how the Managers of today will be able to adapt to the needs of the new generation.
