Why RTO mandates are bad for teamwork and collaboration.

It’s long been accepted that psychological safety is the foundation for effective teamwork and collaboration. Only if individuals can share openly, challenge directly, ask silly questions, admit mistakes, and ask for help can they tackle challenging problems and develop original or innovative solutions.

Google’s Project Aristotle is often cited as a critical study in establishing the importance of psychological safety. If you’re not familiar with this, it was an internal project at Google back in 2012, to help them understand the key features of their highest-performing teams.

They assumed team performance was mainly down to hiring the smartest people and giving them experienced managers and unlimited resources. But, after studying over 180 teams, they discovered that the magic only really happened when teams had psychological safety, meaning people felt safe to take risks and speak up without fear of judgement. They identified four additional factors, but the foundation of all their highest-performing teams was psychological safety. In other words, trust.

And here’s the problem with many recent RTO mandates. They are not accompanied by clear data-driven reasons for the reversal in policy. They are not delivered with a clear business case to explain the real benefits of in-person working. Instead, leaders talk generically about the need for more ‘face time’ to encourage greater teamwork and collaboration.

BOOM! That’s the problem! They are wrong. The foundation for high-performing teams is psychological safety. Trust. Not physical proximity.

Sure, face-to-face work is important at certain stages of collaboration, but it’s not the essential ingredient. That’s trust. And, by failing to cite clear reasons for removing people’s flexibility and instilling old practices, leaders are shattering the very thing they need to fulfil their desire for better teamwork.

Without data or a clear business case, they are essentially telling their people, “We don’t trust you to work from home … we want you in the office where we can keep an eye on you.” Or, even worse, the RTO mandate is increasingly viewed as an underhand and unethical way of downsizing.

And so, as people march back to the office, leaders are left scratching their heads in bewilderment as to why engagement, productivity and collaboration aren’t shooting through the roof.

They’ve failed to realise that without firm foundations, that very roof will soon come tumbling down. Then, people will need to head back home to work after all.

According to Unispace Global Workplace Insights, 42% of companies with RTO mandates have higher turnover and 29% are struggling with recruitment. Other surveys suggest that 8 in 10 employers lost talent to return-to-office mandates (ResumeBuilder).