The pluses and pitfalls of team-led return to office approaches

By Sara Guaglione

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to companies’ returns to the office — even across departments at a given company. Some publishers are adopting team-specific policies, and while they are designed to make the return to in-person work more accommodating, they can also create complications.

After what feels like an endless cycle of media companies setting dates to bring employees back to the office — pushing those dates back and putting plans on ice due to COVID-19 waves — some publishers have seemingly given up on a company-wide policy with set timelines. Instead, companies including Dotdash Meredith, Dow Jones, theSkimm and NBC News said they are leaving it up to team leaders to decide their hybrid work policies.

While this gives managers the flexibility to determine what hybrid schedule works best for their teams, the discrepancies among different teams under one company have the potential to leave employees feeling frustrated, with unequal expectations from their bosses.

“Having individual managers determine their department’s workplace location, versus a company-wide approach, could present problems. Namely, creating a workplace environment that leads to inequities — both real and perceived — as well as microcultures — both good and bad,” Kate Bullinger, CEO of management consultancy United Minds, said in an email.

Publishers’ team-specific policies

TheSkimm requires employees to come in three times a month but the specific days are coordinated with managers.

At Dow Jones, “RTO plans are still underway,” a spokesperson told Digiday last month. The company is “taking a team-driven, leader-led approach, assessing what flexibility and office use means for each business unit.”

At Dotdash Meredith, employees are encouraged to come in three days a week but “individuals and groups may have different arrangements,” according to an email CEO Neil Vogel sent to employees in March.

A Dotdash Meredith employee told Digiday that they are in a “privileged position” where their boss “doesn’t care” how often they come into the office. And while this provides “some leeway for me and others on the team,” it’s also “a huge problem,” according to the employee, who was granted anonymity, along with other media employees named elsewhere in this story, to speak freely. “It’s random to enjoy a perk because [employees like me] happen to have a boss that is more flexible than somebody else’s boss. It’s not an ideal situation,” they said.

Digiday spoke to an employee who is a member of the NBC Guild, which is affiliated with the NewsGuild of New York and represents digital news employees at NBC News. Employees in the union are not required to go into the office and can do so voluntarily, the employee said.

But another NBC News employee who is not part of the union told Digiday they are going in two days a week of their choosing, due to their manager setting that policy.

“If our manager wants us in the office, we go into the office,” they said. “I don’t feel that emboldened or supported in raising the question of why. Managers just want you to follow the rules, and they …read more

Source:: Digiday