The RTO Tug-of-War: How CEOs Can Fix Engagement And Build A Positive Culture

Jamie Dimon is spot-on about workers exploiting remote work. He is one of many business leaders who believe that providing such flexibility for employees has hurt productivity, engagement, and collaboration. However, this is only part of the dynamic.

As a result, some companies are demanding that employees return to the office full-time, or at least part of the week. Dimon is one executive who is taking a hard line. The CEO of JPMorgan Chase gave a profanity-laced diatribe recently regarding a petition his employees signed against the company’s five-days-a-week, return-to-office mandate. Like many businesses in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, JPMorgan Chase allowed working from home and a hybrid schedule. But it announced in January that all employees on hybrid schedules would have to return to the office full-time. Dimon said employees abused remote work, especially on Fridays, when he, the CEO, could not reach them by phone.

There are numerous studies on both sides of the productivity argument. But as pushback by employees across the country against return-to-office indicates, a sense of entitlement among workers is an issue. Deliverables are being missed and employee responsiveness is declining—especially in organizations that lack the sophistication to foster real engagement.

Disengagement didn’t happen overnight during the pandemic  

This tug-of-war between company leaders and employees over return-to-office mandates reflects workplace issues that long pre-date the pandemic. The problems companies have dealt with historically––burnout, interpersonal conflict, leadership struggles, and the absence of accountability––have gotten worse in recent decades. Each of those issues is reflected in U.S. worker engagement statistics that have remained consistently low, hovering mainly in the 30% range in the 21st century. That means on average 70% of team members are passively disengaged, quiet quitting, or actively disengaged, showing up as saboteurs by not meeting deliverables and/or negatively influencing peers.

For companies calling employees back to the office, attendance alone won’t fix disengagement. Leaders must take action to access human potential by ensuring accountability, engagement, and maximized performance once employees return. And leaders need to know how to integrate those improvements without micromanaging, and while creating cultures where employees are enthusiastic about contributing.

I’ve worked with large companies to implement practices that produce transformations.  My approach, combining self-awareness, neurobiology, organizational psychology, and operational systems, is a solution called SuperLoop Praxis. The SuperLoop refers to biological, behavioral, and belief systems that we use to navigate the world. It acknowledges adaptive behaviors that we leaned into when navigating challenging times – such as during COVID. These adaptive behaviors often result in people developing maladaptive behaviors – trapped in patterns of anxiety and reaction that  do not serve them. The SuperLoop Praxis is a means of engaging with the SuperLoop system to improve our well-being, responsibility, productivity, and ability to use our awareness and executive function.

Common workplace challenges stem from poor cultural trends that have taken hold. Creating a healthy culture requires intentionality of the entire workforce. The following five solutions are behavioral and operational practices initiated at the individual and team level. The aim is to positively impact the broader organizational goals and values.

Tenacious trust  

Fear-based hierarchies define traditional cultural power structures, but tenacious trust is the opposite manifestation of that. Trust is centered around accountability, not on a moral or ethical assessment.

Trust means the making and keeping of commitments. When we can steadfastly rely on the others in our organization to keep commitments, this trust forms the bedrock of effective teamwork. Trust is formed by consistently honoring commitments and communicating proactively when challenges arise and affect others.

Our culture is stable when we can trust those around us to do their job to the best of their ability and achieve the best results possible, and where others can count on us to do the same. A stable culture creates an environment where we all communicate consistently and openly when assistance is needed, when the deliverables will vary from what’s expected, or when team members lack the tools to perform a task.

Netflix practices tenacious trust in their operations. Their corporate culture famously centers on “freedom and responsibility.” Their employees are given substantial freedom in their roles, but this comes with high accountability. For example, they allow employees to take as much vacation as they feel is appropriate without tracking it, so long as the employees are upholding their deliverables. This approach relies heavily on the consistency and reliability of each team member to manage their workload effectively and report with transparency.

Courageous communication  

This starts with introspection, questioning whether we are communicating bravely and taking responsibility for our actions. Individual accountability and peer-to-peer accountability are critical elements of courageous communication. It requires that we set aside our conditioned behaviors that have trained us to always look good and project strength. It also calls for us to constantly poll ourselves to determine whether we are being honest with those around us by practicing transparency.

Tools like journaling and group reflective practices are instrumental in developing the competencies for courageous communication. Fostering this kind of communication requires having the courage to confront difficult conversations and ensuring that each team member not only speaks but is also heard.

As an example, under Satya Nadella’s leadership, the culture at Microsoft shifted from a culture of competition to a culture of collaboration. Nadella created a culture of courageous communication by emphasizing practices where teams expressed their ideas and concerns freely. This also had the added bonus of creating a more inclusive environment with a diversity of ideas while also allowing for more innovation and less siloing.

Actionable awareness  

Actionable awareness is the ability to be aware of the truth in ourselves and our environment––and to act on that truth. This includes an awareness of our beliefs, biology, and behavior, enabling us to respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively. Self-reflection helps people realize that their experiences influence their reactions, but those reactions are not unchangeable. It teaches us to manage emotional responses by encouraging self-inquiry.

Actionable awareness allows us to engage in healthy conflict, which is necessary for building psychologically safe environments. Such conflict leads to better teamwork and decision-making.

Individuals and organizations practicing actionable awareness can shift from a blame culture to accountability, improving both personal and professional growth.

This awareness gives us the agency to act appropriately rather than being unconsciously driven by various factors. It’s about recognizing our situations and asking, “Now that I’m aware of this, what will I do about it?”

Authentic accountability  

Authentic accountability involves embracing healthy conflict, seeking constructive feedback, and engaging in conversations designed to resolve issues. It’s a practice that emphasizes acknowledging personal responsibility in any situation. This concept challenges a culture to look inward first before attributing issues to external factors. It’s a reminder that accountability is not about assigning blame but about taking responsibility for your contributions and building credibility and trust.

Companies that want to engage with the “antidotes” to poor culture need to be able to use conflict constructively (and to ensure that it doesn’t become destructive). This requires prioritization of a structured time and process––if individuals are looking to engage with their own accountability, it will enable the entire organization to use conflict as a growth point. Companies like Microsoft and Netflix can engage with freedom and productivity because they use conflict as an opportunity to refine their processes and to remove lingering issues.

Regenerative results  

Organizations that want to create an effective culture must engage in creating regenerative results. Regenerative results draw inspiration from Stephen Covey’s insights on effectiveness. It’s about achieving consistent results and creating the ability to achieve those results again and again. This reliability creates excellence and becomes the ethos of the organizational culture.

This approach involves identifying areas of success for replication in areas that need improvement so that high performance can be consistent across the organization. A practical example of this principle in action was seen at Greyston Bakery, where the marketing team initially focused more on nurturing relationships than on delivering quantifiable results.

However, when they started providing concrete data by consistently measuring and assessing KPIs related to work processes, it paved the way for a more regenerative, results-driven model, emphasizing clarity, honesty, and authenticity.

Conclusion  

All of these solutions are critical to a healthy culture. In the companies that are lacking and potentially have flawed cultures, these elements will combine to create issues that radiate out from the individual.

Neglecting common and persistent workplace issues leads to shortfalls in performance and organizational consequences. Addressing our problems with these antidotes allows us to own our ego and fear and embrace our agency through accountability. An organization has reached cultural health when healthy actions become the default––when we engage with tenacious trust, courageous communication, actionable awareness, and authentic accountability and achieve regenerative results as second nature.

Written by Susan Leger Ferraro.
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