It’s Summer 2021 and Chancellor Rishi Sunak just warned the young…’ home working may hurt their career’.

A popular response to the BBC article has been… ‘The only thing that’s changed is people now have to be good at their job to get promoted, rather than being loud and vocal in the office’

Nobody has explained better the dangers of hiring/promoting people based on just their performance metrics than Simon Sinek…so we are just going to let him do it…

So what is there to worry about?

If organisations no longer choose to value contributions other than performance metrics, it can become a toxic work environment. There is also less opportunity to interact with leaders in the organisation and to identify a mentor.

However if you are junior staff you are probably kidding yourself into thinking that you would be getting much face time with senior staff back in the office.

The up side of this though, is that you are more able to choose your mentors, as a result of the time you get back by not having to interact with the office asshole. Just find someone appropriate on the internet, and have their best TED talks on loop from your home office as a start!

We assess organisations largely based on feedback on their leadership, so we can tell you that not all of them will have good leaders, therefore being able to find a mentor that’s right for you is valuable.

Is the role of managers/leaders now different?

After a certain point less training is required, and people are able to just get on with it…..so then what?

If you’re not able to sit there with them and answer their questions whilst catching up on an hourly basis, what is the best way to Lead, Support & Improve them (see our people framework). Of course you are able to do so on chat messengers and email but it’s far too tempting just to ignore them!

You now have to be very careful not to develop relationships that just feel purely transactional, and that the only thing you talk about is the targets. Otherwise you are unlikely to inspire the loyalty needed in your organisation to keep the momentum going.

Most importantly, are you performing well at home?

Now as we have already discussed, this isn’t just all about metrics but your own standards of productivity.

Do you honestly feel like that if you continue to work from home ever day that you are going to get everything you want from a career. Some questions to ask yourself…

• Do you feel inspired and motivated
• Do you trust your line manager
• Does your organisation have a plan for the future
• Am I encouraged to be constantly learning/improving
• Am I making meaningful connections with people

Finally, think about whether any of those things would actually be any better, if you were in an office environment.