Desk cowboys will win out over remote workers

Aunique technology. Inspirational management. A strong balance sheet, or perhaps a powerful brand. There have always been lots of factors that investors and company managers look at when they are trying to work out which businesses will be the big winners in the decade ahead. But here is the one that will really count – whether it is heading back to the office or not.

Over the last few weeks, a clear split has started to open up between the companies determined to get people back to their desks as fast as possible, and those that are making working from home permanent.

Sure, there are advantages to working from home. Staff may well be more productive, they will have a better work-life balance, and, although it is rarely mentioned, it is cheaper as well. But anyone who has skin in the game should make this bet for the 2020s. As the decade unfolds, the desk cowboys will win out over the home bodies. Why? Because they will be more innovative; they will have better teams; and they will have shown that winning counts for more than anything else, and in business, as in so many of life’s endeavours, that counts for a lot.

With vaccines still rolling out, even with a few bumps along the way, and with economies, at least in Britain and the US, coming out of lockdown, companies are starting to make decisions about whether they want to make working from home permanent or whether they want the staff back at the thirtieth floor water cooler as soon as possible.

Everyone has learned a lot in the last year. With video conferencing and shared documents and spreadsheets it is possible for people to work effectively from home in ways that wouldn’t have been possible even 10 years ago. You can even have a team-building quiz, dinner, or treasure hunt online without too much difficulty. Lots of companies are deciding that they don’t need to go back to the old office routine. Such as? BP has said that 25,000 of its staff will be expected to work from home two days a week. HSBC has started shifting staff on to home working contracts, and so has Lloyds. And Revolut, the finance app, will not only allow staff to work from their kitchen table, but from a beach bar overlooking the Aegean as well if they want to – for up to 60 days a year they will be allowed to work from anywhere. The list goes on and on.

And yet not everyone is signing up to the WFH revolution. David Solomon, the boss of Goldman Sachs, has described it as an “aberration”, and expects his people to get back to the office faster than you can say “triple eurobond swaps”. Google said this week it was accelerating plans to reopen its offices, and that it expected staff to “live within commuting distance” of their workplace. Amazon says it plans to return to an “officecentric” culture as soon as possible, and plenty of City firms are planning to get their trading and dealing floors operational again as soon as they can. In fact, over the months ahead, there will be two types of company, often within the same industry: the desk cowboys and the home bodies. Here is the interesting question, however. Which will be more successful?

There are lots of positive advantages to working from home. It has worked surprisingly well during the pandemic, with little loss of output. It turns out that many staff prefer it, and there is some evidence they have been more productive as well. And although chief executives announcing the switch usually dress it up with some flannel about work-life balance and staff well-being, let’s not forget that it can be better for the bottom line, at least in some ways; those office buildings were expensive; and over time “home” might be Manila or Cape Town, which will mean the staff will cost less as well. Commercially, it is not necessarily a stupid decision.

And yet, against that, the desk cowboys will have three huge advantages. First, they will be more creative. Working from home will be fine for a while, but ultimately it will be very sterile. New ideas, projects and products have always emerged from clustering people in the same place and sparking ideas off one another. Very few people think creatively by themselves, and those that do are usually artists of some sort rather than commercially minded executives.

Next, it will be a lot easier to monitor and motivate employees, and weed out anyone who is not performing. Sure, companies are developing all kinds of sophisticated techniques for measuring home working staff (some of which are dangerously intrusive, and may well be ruled illegal). A whole mini-industry has sprung up providing online motivational and team-building sessions, some of which are apparently quite good (the Zoomed “escape rooms” are meant to be a laugh). Even so, it is very hard to believe that will ever be as good as daily contact.

Finally, and most importantly, the companies that are getting back to the office are putting winning above everything else. The staff might prefer working from home, and taking a couple of months to try out Rome or Rio. But their employer has decided it couldn’t really care less, and pushing its products up the sales charts, and hitting that 30pc growth target, is the only thing that really matters. And while that might not be great for the people or their families, it is likely to be a lot better for shareholders and customers.

It is clear that we will not go straight back to the office as lockdown finally eases. A few companies will, while many others will opt for some form of hybrid model, while quite a few will keep people perched on the edge of the kitchen table forever. We will find out over the next few years which model works better.

Here’s the bet that the smart money should make, however. The companies that go back full-throttle will also be the big winners – and that will start to become painfully clear as the decade unfolds.

‘Working from home is fine for a while but ultimately it will be very sterile’