Good morning.
Labor Day is just three weeks away and will mark the start of another skirmish in the war between workers and managers over return to office. It’s a war because workers and managers have very different perceptions about performance during the pandemic. In a report on hybrid work, Microsoft asked employees whether they were being productive at work, and 87% said yes. But when the company asked leaders whether they were confident their employees were being productive at work, only 12% said yes. That’s according to a recent report from human capital research firm i4cp, which you can read here.
Kevin Oakes, CEO of i4cp, told me yesterday that “a lot of this boils down to trust. Do I trust that someone is working for me fully if I can’t see them?” That’s part of it, but I think the trust question goes deeper than that. Human beings are social animals, and meetings in person matter. While traveling in Abu Dhabi last week, I was able to resolve a half dozen issues that had been festering for months because I was there in person, engaging people with all five senses, and creating bonds that virtual meetings cannot. People who haven’t already built a reservoir of trust can resolve differences and misunderstandings better when together in person.
That’s why more and more companies are calling their employees back to the office—including the poster child of virtual work, Zoom, which is asking employees to return to the office two days a week. Oakes says he’s not a big fan of “peanut butter spread” policies forcing people back to work. But he does acknowledge the need for in-person meetings to build the trust that allows organizations to operate smoothly. “It’s a question of how you do it.”
Separately, Just Capital has a new report out giving kudos to four companies that are leading the pack in efforts to ensure gender diversity—by publishing data around women in their workforces, on their boards, and in their supply chains, and then making measurable progress to improve those numbers. The four? Citigroup, Accenture, General Mills and The Hartford. Each had female representation in their workforce at or near 50%, and each had above 40% female representation on their boards. Worth noting two of the four—Citigroup and Accenture—also have women in the top job. Just Capital also found that the percentage of U.S.-based companies that publicly disclose their EEO-1 data on racial, ethnic and gender diversity had tripled between 2021 and 2022, from 11% to 34%. (Companies are required by law to submit these reports to the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission but are not required to make them public.)
And speaking of in-person meetings, Fortune recently convened the Fortune Founders Forum in Deer Valley, Utah—on the eve of our annual Brainstorm Tech event—to give entrepreneurs an opportunity to build trust and share best practices for operating in a disrupted world. You can read profiles of the lucky 29 here.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
