Nervous CEOs

Remember David Solomon, CEO of Goldman-Sachs?  Not a fan of WFH.  Neither is Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase & Co.  Now Cathy Merril, CEO of Washingonian Media, has weighed in.  

I am not a disinterested observer here; I believe that CEOs are getting nervous about the change in corporate culture that will occur if their employees work from home.  Specifically, they are nervous about a change that reduces their ability to abuse their employees' time, health, family bonds, and mental health in support of greater profits and bonuses for themselves.  When someone like Dimon writes that working from home “doesn’t work for young people... It doesn’t work for those who want to hustle."  "Hustle" is corporate-speak for "giving up everything in your life to enrich the stockholders."  It's hard to "hustle" at home, I guess, but it's certainly possible to work effectively. 

Merril goes a step further - well over the line, I think.  She notes that if an employee does not participate in the office culture...

...management has a strong incentive to change their status to “contractor.” Instead of receiving a set salary, contractors are paid only for the work they do, either hourly or by appropriate output metrics. That would also mean not having to pay for health care, a 401(k) match and our share of FICA and Medicare taxes

Read the whole thing.  Merril's tone and purpose is chilling.

There is a lot of talk about things that can be accomplished in person that can't be done remotely, mostly focused on the ephemeral value of breathing the same air as the person or people you're meeting with, and the serendipitous connections that can occur at the water cooler.  Nowhere (and I have read a lot of this) is there any deeper analysis of why being in the same physical space is so significantly more effective that we all have to go way our of our way to gather in that space.  If digital communication as a whole has done one thing, it is to provide us all with the means to have almost any kind of interaction with others that can possibly be imagined.

I found Merril's article in a link from Kevin Drum, and a comment in that post puts this whole thing to rest, I think:

It is possible to foster a collaborative environment online, but you have to work at it and use the proper tools.

Right.  Any questions?