Recent survey results on business approaches to work-from-home arrangements make for great discussions. Conversation can cover how such arrangements affect workplace culture, the recruitment of talented people, and the ability of the business to spot bad actors and and monitor how employees use personal and work-issued devices.

There can be a lot of disagreement over the topic of work-from-home arrangements, with some feeling strongly about people being together to collaborate and foster better working relationships between departments, and others feeling strongly that less stress and no commute times translate into more productivity and happier employees.

What does the data tell us, and what risks need to be taken into account?

WFH patterns

A survey of 4,500 US companies’ return-to-office policies conducted by hybrid-workplace software company Scoop found they are requiring just 2.5 days in the office on average, while nearly 300 require employees to come in on specific days.

Of those, just under a quarter ask employees to come in on Mondays, with many more stipulating staff be in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Just 7% tell employees to come in on Fridays, according to Scoop.

According to Scoop’s findings, among the most accepting of hybrid working are technology companies, 75% of which are fully flexible. Other industries that are most flexible include media and entertainment, 55% of whose companies are fully flexible, as well as professional services at 52% and financial services at 41%.

Companies in the states of Oregon, Washington and Colorado enjoyed the most work-from-home flexibility.

The power to request continued work-from-home policies following the pandemic remains with employees, Robert Sadow, Scoop’s chief executive and co-founder told the WSJ in May.

Companies in the states of Oregon, Washington and Colorado enjoyed the most work-from-home flexibility, with 59% of Oregon companies offering full, flexible working. At the bottom were southern states such as Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana, with Alabama requiring 52% of companies requiring workers to be full time in the office.

Interestingly, you’re most likely to find fully flexible work opportunities at small companies, the survey showed, as 63% of businesses with under 500 employees offer fully flexible work, versus just 30% of companies with 500 to 5,000 employees. In keeping with those findings, you might remember that in January, Disney’s Bob Iger told his workforce they had to do four days in the office as of March 1. And Starbucks’ CEO, Howard Schultz, told office employees they had to do a minimum of three days a week by the end of that month.

Productivity

“Thriving employees are what will give organizations a competitive advantage in today’s dynamic economic environment,” according to Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft. In the preface to a report from the company, based on a global survey, Nadella said that creating a culture and employee experience to meet the needs of today’s digitally connected, distributed workforce requires a new approach.

He believes the hybrid work environment is here to stay, and companies need to build upon that reality.

73% of employees say they need a better reason to go in than just company expectations, and connecting with colleagues is a key motivation for working in person.

Last year, Microsoft surveyed 20,000 people in 11 countries and analyzed data from its Teams application, LinkedIn labor trends, and Glint People Science findings for its September 2022 report. The resounding message was to have a policy that puts people first, because when employees thrive, the business thrives.

In terms of productivity, they found that the number of Microsoft Teams meetings per week had increased by 153% globally for the average user since the start of the pandemic, and they said there is still no indication that this trend has reversed, suggesting this peak could become the new baseline. On top of an already high meeting load, overlapping meetings (being double-booked) increased by 46% per person in the past year.

They also found that 85% of leaders say that the shift to hybrid work has made it challenging to have confidence that employees are being productive. And as some organizations use technology to track activity rather than impact, employees lack context on how and why they’re being tracked, which can undermine trust and lead to what experts have called “productivity theater ” – which involves employees essentially being always on the computer, whether being truly productive or not.

Metrics

Microsoft cannot find any data to support a drop in worker productivity through more at-home work, since hours worked, number of meetings, and other activity metrics have all increased.

A full 73% of employees say they need a better reason to go in to work than just company expectations, and connecting with colleagues is a key motivation for working in person. 84% of employees would be motivated by the promise of socializing with coworkers, while 85% would be motivated by rebuilding team bonds.

Employees also report that they would go to the office more frequently if they knew their direct team members would be there (73%) or if their work friends were there (74%).

But more remote work means more reliance on communication channels like Zoom and Teams, so Microsoft (nor surprisingly) advises businesses to build a digital employee experience to help employees stay connected to each other, to leadership, and to the company culture, no matter where they’re working – one with modern communication tools that can handle these tasks.

Regulators advised reminding employees of their confidentiality obligations with respect to customer information and to train staff on increased cybersecurity vulnerabilities and potential fraud risks.

The video and audio tools upon which we depend to communicate with our colleagues, customers and business partners need to be monitored, though. And not so much for productivity purposes – because time spent on them says nothing about the quality and impact of that time – but for tried and true compliance and legal purposes. Those include any potential e-discovery needs, ongoing compliance with recordkeeping regulations, plus a realistic need to monitor and detect internal threat actors.

When you add remote employees to your workforce, your network geography and risk exposure for cyber attacks expands. Mobile devices, wireless networks, and even inadvertent disclosure of data in public spaces expose the business to vulnerabilities that can result in data loss. Having data transfer policies and practices that apply to everyone and are easily understood is one step in the right direction, as are the supervisory tools and processes for tracking data as it moves and becomes securely archived.

Data-sharing

To avoid any confusion, set clear guidelines around the use of data-sharing tools and the activity itself – not just between employees and third parties, but as between employees working in different locations as well.

During the Covid-10 pandemic and the remote working resulting from it, regulators such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Securities and Exchange Commission issued advisers and shared best practices its member firms were instituting to help covered firms grapple with these new work arrangements.

These advisories stressed reminding employees of their confidentiality obligations with respect to customer information, including complying with material non-public information requirements. And they reminded businesses to train staff on increased cybersecurity vulnerabilities and potential fraud risks in a remote work environment, and to monitor their most critical vendors by possibly engaging a third-party oversight team.

These directives remain relevant and helpful as the world adjusts to a new reality of “working from anywhere,” especially as (for now) a tight labor market provides more fertile ground for such arrangements.