The Price of Staying Home

All right, the 10 Minute Talent Rant is live. I’m James Hornick joined by Jeff Smith, and we are on the clock. The 10 Minute Talent Rant is our ongoing series where we break down things that are broken in the talent acquisition and hiring space. Maybe even pitch a solution or two. Before we dig in, all of our content can be found at talentinsights.hirewell.com. We’re going to get, everyone’s going to be angry today. Yeah. We’re going to make a lot of people really mad. A lot of online people, whatever. It doesn’t matter. They’re not real. Episode 106, the price of staying home. Meaning what we’re- what Jeff and I are doing. I feel the need to say that

like before we start this little rant, Jeff and I are literally in our basements right now. We are remote workers ourselves. Right. So feel free to come at me anyway if you want to. Just gotta call a spade a spades sometimes. But yeah, we have not talked about remote work in years.

I have to say it was the most played out overdone topic where every pro remote work advocate, which we are. I was definitely a big pro remote like in 2021, I was all on board, like talking about it a lot. But it hit that point where it’s just like anyone, any company that wasn’t doing full remote was like the devil or something like this, the rage just was way too much.

I mean, I bought into it a little bit. I can’t say I didn’t. I mean, look, the job market has, it’s shifted. We had this post COVID hiring frenzy and it’s kind of moved to, I mean, I think it’s a better more measured approach and companies are just essentially prioritizing responsibility over rapid expansion at all costs.

And the bottom line is the lack of free money or not- interest free money has almost all to do with it, right? Yeah. And that’s, I think the nuance here too. So caution, this is going to be a nuanced discussion because like the business environment, it’s not just about getting people back in the office. There’s actually monetary reasons, things happening behind the scenes.

But again, today, we’re talking about remote work coming with concessions for the 1st time in years, and so was on-site work on the flip side. So listen- all of our angry commenters screaming into their vacuums on both ends is, nauseating. All right. So first, we’ve got this, you know, changing job market, right?

And like I said, prior, you know, this post COVID thing was all about growth, like interest rates were nothing. Now, we have this focus on responsible, fiscally prudent, like scale, which is a good thing. Responsible growth, a scary thing that no one wants to hear about. Yeah, you’re right. It’s not bad.

It’s just it’s all the rage right now. Everyone’s doing it. Yeah. And with that focus, more companies are emphasizing in-person collaboration. Look, it’s never going to be universally agreed upon at this point. The evidence comes in our comment section, you know, from your post James. But, it nonetheless is where the market’s going.

Yeah. And I guess whether that there are given takes of remote work right now and of going in the office of both sides of it, it’s just that’s the different dichotomy we want to talk about. It’s not just saying, hey- we are not saying everyone needs to go back in the office. So I just need to point that out.

Yep. For sure. Like workers are realizing that for the first time in a while, you might have to accept a lower salary to work remotely. Like, there has to be a concession there in a lot of cases. And some of them want that or are willing to concede that. They’re offering it up freely, and we’re placing candidates all the time that

on the totem pole of things that they want, that’s number one. That’s fine, a personal choice. So we’ve theorized like this also means on the flip side that companies may or will have to pay a little bit more to get employees back in their car, back on the train to come back on site. The logic was flimsy, low anecdotal, but then, but then you found

banger! And then it became codified. If you guys didn’t hear the news, Cameo came out and they are paying employees $10,000 to return to the office. So it’s not just theoretically they’re paying more, there’s, Cameo’s the first company that’s come out and said we are paying employees more to get them back in the office because that’s what it’s actually taking right now.

And paid parking and free meals. Gotta be honest, paid parking would actually, I’d love paid parking. I’d definitely go to the office more often if I could get there without having to pay. Every discussion about this everyone says, well, just cost so much more to go in. There was a study that came out in the UK last year,

workers spend a quarter of their salary going back into the office, like between the cost of commuting on the trains or whatever, as well as like the amount they pay for lunches and everything that kind of associated with that. Like it is a real expense that people, they finally kind of quantified. But

yeah, that’s what it’s taking right now for Cameo to get their people back in the office. And I don’t like, I don’t want to hear like, “Oh, they’re being, people are being coerced back. And it’s like a broad”, like stop. The company is literally putting their money where their mouth is and saying, we’re incentivizing people to come back to work and we’ll pay for it.

That’s it. That’s all that’s happening. So, we’re also looking at this other interesting thing that, again, there’s some self reflection for me, and maybe you too. Like, the 40 hour workweek versus, like, the four day workweek. So if we break this down, the pandemic revealed- our opinion- that most jobs don’t require 40 hours of work.

I mean, even everyone, I think everyone agreed with that. Like the amount of people who are like pro- like the pro remote people are saying, it turns out jobs aren’t 40 hour, everything should be outcomes based. We’re going to get someone who’s like, “Oh, you might not be working 40 hours a week, but I’m working 52 hours”.

Okay. Okay, Rob. So when people cut out like the distraction factory of office life, like, I think there’s a broad realization that actual workload can be completed in less time, especially when we got AI bots doing your notes for your podcast for you. I mean, how much time that just saved us.

I know. Literally. Literally it took us, it used to take us 75 minutes to prep for this. Now it’s done in 15. Yeah. I need to say we wrote all this, all the things we’re talking about, but just the organizing of it. Oh my god. Anyways. You’ve got this shift, like employees are thinking, well, if I can be more efficient, I don’t need to work more. And employers are saying, well, if we can be more efficient, you should get more done and salespeople and performance incentive laden individuals, like these are the folks that thrive in this mindset.

Yeah. For everybody else, like, you know, companies and employees included, everything just kind of feels unfair for no real reason. Yeah. And I guess the thing is, you can’t have it both ways. Like, I totally agree that most jobs are probably, I don’t know, we’ll just make up, say 30 hours a week, when you cut the distractions out.

Now, there’s value in those distractions, which we’re going to talk about here in a second. They’re not just distractions. But realistically, what that means is like, it’s either A) those were really just more fractional roles or B) companies can probably get- only needs 75 percent of their team. Because, I hate to say that like option C, like having everyone work just four days a week is a bull market phenomenon.

Like that was great when there was unlimited money, companies were in super growth mode, you know, when things like that didn’t matter when you had all kinds of extra margins and things baked in and you didn’t have to worry about it. But when we come crashing down and, you know, what the SPX is down like 150 points this week or whatever, like these are the grown up conversations and decisions that businesses actually have to make.

Yeah, you have to scrape together that extra 100 to 200 grand every month like that’s yeah, that’s the bottom line. Anyway. So you mentioned it. So there’s this social and professional cost of remote work, right? You good lead. Going to the office is not, I mean this in all seriousness- it’s not just about getting the work done.

Like you’re actually developing key business skills, key social skills, how to interact with people, how to have difficult conversations with people, all that kind of stuff. And it has actual value. Yeah. Newsflash, if you are rage typing online and arguing with others about this, like you’re the one who needs to learn business skills.

The people losing their minds in the comments section about remote work, however, needs to do it, they’re the ones that don’t have the business and social skills to operate in a mature fashion. Anyway. Yeah, like the bottom line is learning and maturity, just baseline maturity. They suffer in fully remote environments.

Like, I’ve seen it. I, you know, they’re- I can’t refute it anymore. Yeah. The value of office culture, if I can kind of break it down simply, it’s like “water cooler talk”. Like you’re developing social, like- people say, well, you can develop social skills outside of work, but you don’t develop how you,

how you handle difficult co-workers in difficult situations, you can’t just like ghost them like you would a friend. You have to work your way through it. And having to see people in person every day when you have like this kind of situations makes you more adept at how to kind of deal with situations like that.

Yep. Learning and osmosis. Like we didn’t really talk about this yet, but like, I don’t think there’s anyone who’s going to disagree that like, you know, junior salespeople is the best example. The career acceleration, but really I think it’s for any skillset. You learn more about how to do your job and how to grow in your career when you can learn things hands on from other people in person, because there’s so many things that are missed when people can’t overhear or oversee what’s happening.

And I really worry, like, as a total side note, like, everyone will agree with this part too- junior workers and new hires are the ones who are most disadvantaged by working remotely and trying to grow an organization when the most organic parts of that, like your newest people and your youngest people can’t learn at the rate they used to.

It’s very difficult long term to create an organization that’s going to grow. You can’t just keep sniping off like senior performers from every other organization forever. Yep. And, you know, the other piece to this is like there’s a reality check happening for remote work too. There is a skills erosion.

And I think like two years ago, at the peak of all this, companies weren’t sophisticated enough to like really dial in to see if somebody was full of bullshit or not, like when they were vetting them. But they’re savvy now. I mean, they are employing the same things we employ in terms of behavioral based questioning, making sure that, you know, interviewing remote workers is thorough and in depth.

And they can dial into whether or not you’ve been productive versus whether or not you’ve been kind of coasting on the gravy train for a little while. And look, the answers to these questions snuff out like who’s been passive for the last two years. And it’s a long amount of time to be sitting on your hands and companies have gotten wise to it.

The last point I kind of want to make is not everyone is capable of working from home. And I can even self reflect, look at myself. It’s not for everyone. But like my own example, I started working from home two days a week before all this was trendy, in 2014. My productivity skyrocketed.

My billing numbers doubled. I launched a whole new practice here at Hirewell, which put me on to like our marketing recruitment practice, which put me on a different career trajectory because I learned about marketing. Then I launched our own Hirewell’s internal actual marketing function. It was great.

I could not have done that in my twenties though. I like I didn’t know. I was immature. I didn’t know my head for my ass. I would have cut so many corners. Like I was a- I hate to say like I was a different person then because you know, you’re always the same person. But like, I didn’t yet develop the business or social maturity in terms of how to handle responsibility and stay on task and stay productive without feeling the pressure that like I was not being seen or being seen or whatever.

And I think that anyone who can’t self reflect and think back- if anyone who thinks, “Hey, I was capable of working remotely from day one”, I don’t think you’re being honest, just saying that. Or you just haven’t had the experience to know any better. Like that’s part of the problem too. Look, the end of the line is the biggest team remote advocates, you know, they tend to be this group of self motivated, experienced workers who already have the necessary skills. Yeah.

They themselves are fine with it, but I think they sometimes falsely assume that means everyone else is too. Yeah, takeaways. What do you got for us, Jeff? So we’ve got the whole two things can simultaneously be true. One, not everyone is capable of working from home, as we just kind of referenced, nor should they.

But also, two, employers will have to pay more to get people back into the office. Whether they like it or not. Times, they are a changing while- that’s the takeaway.  Yeah. We are short on clock. That’s a wrap for this week. Thanks for tuning in the 10 Minute Talent Rant, part of the town and say series, which is always available for

replay on talentinsights.hirewell.com as well as YouTube, Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify and Amazon. Jeff, thanks again as always. Everyone out there, we’ll see you soon. Sorry to everybody on the, you know, “we have to work remote train or else, you know, we’re being oppressed”, our bad. Later.