Matt Ellis

Last September I announced mandatory return-to-office. Five days a week. I called it a "culture-first initiative." Culture means presence. Presence means badge swipes. Badge swipes mean metrics. Metrics mean I can prove something to the board. I don't know what. But I can prove it. The announcement went out on a Tuesday. I sent it from my home office. In Aspen. I have an exemption. "Strategic leaders require location flexibility to maintain global perspective." I wrote that policy. HR approved it. HR approves everything I write. By Wednesday, 340 employees had updated their LinkedIn status to "Open to Work." I called it "natural attrition." Natural attrition means they quit before I had to pay severance. Very natural. We lost 47 engineers in the first month. I told the board it was "alignment correction." The people who left weren't aligned. With coming to an office. That I also don't come to. But that's different. I'm strategic. The office costs $4.2 million per year. Empty, it was a write-off. Now it's a "collaboration hub." I measured collaboration. Average daily Zoom calls from the office: 7.4 per employee. They commute 45 minutes. To take calls they could take from home. But now they're "present." Presence is culture. I've never been more certain of anything. A senior engineer asked why we couldn't stay remote. She had metrics. Productivity was up 23% during remote work. I said, "Productivity isn't everything." She asked what else mattered. I said, "Serendipitous collisions." She asked how we measure serendipitous collisions. I said, "You can't. That's what makes them serendipitous." She stopped asking questions. Then she stopped showing up. Then LinkedIn said she's at a company that's "remote-first." Good luck with that. They'll learn. We installed badge tracking software. It cost $380,000. It tells me exactly when people arrive. And when they leave. And how long they spend in each zone. I check it every morning. From home. The data is fascinating. Average arrival time: 9:47 AM. Average departure time: 4:12 PM. I sent a Slack message. "Core hours are 9 to 6." Arrival times shifted to 9:02 AM. Departure times shifted to 6:01 PM. Productivity did not change. But the metrics look better. Metrics are culture. We have a "hybrid" option now. Three days in office. Mandatory Monday. Mandatory Wednesday. Mandatory Friday. That's called "hybrid." Because Tuesday and Thursday are optional. But there are "anchor meetings" on Tuesday and Thursday. Attendance is "strongly encouraged." "Strongly encouraged" means mandatory without the liability. I learned that from legal. The head of product asked if he could work from home when his wife had surgery. I said, "Of course. Family comes first." Then I said, "But let's revisit your Q4 performance targets." He came to the office. His wife understood. I assume. I didn't ask. That's personal. The CFO asked about ROI on the RTO policy. I showed him the badge data. "Presence is up 340%." He asked if revenue was up. I said, "Revenue is a lagging indicator." He asked what the leading indicator was. I said, "Badge swipes." He nodded. The lease renews next year. Seven more years. $29 million committed. We needed bodies in the building. Now we have bodies. Fewer than before. But present. Morale is down. Glassdoor says we're "hostile to work-life balance." I told HR to respond. They wrote, "We're a high-performance culture that values in-person collaboration." That's corporate for "the review is accurate." But it sounds like a rebuttal. The CEO asked if RTO was working. I said, "Absolutely." He asked for evidence. I showed him a photo of the office. Full desks. Glowing monitors. Bodies in chairs. He smiled. "This is what culture looks like." It looked like a stock photo. Because I got it from a stock photo website. The real office has 40% occupancy on a good day. But he doesn't know that. He's also remote. We're both strategic. Next quarter I'm proposing a "collaboration bonus." $2,000 for anyone with 95% badge-in compliance. The bonus costs less than the turnover. And it shifts the narrative. We're not forcing people to come in. We're "incentivizing presence." Incentivizing means paying people to do something they don't want to do. It's different from mandating. Legally. The employees who stayed are "loyal." Loyalty means they have mortgages. And kids in school districts. And RSUs that haven't vested. They're not loyal. They're trapped. But on paper, it looks like loyalty. And paper is what the board sees. I've been doing this for 22 years. I know what culture looks like. It looks like butts in seats. Butts in seats mean control. Control means management. Management means me. RTO isn't about productivity. It never was. It's about seeing people. So I know they exist. So I know they're working. So I know I'm in charge. That's culture. As long as the badge swipes go up and to the right.