It seems to be all the rage right now - more and more employees are demanding for Remote Work.

In many organizations, the employees are getting what they demand and the organizations are trying to figure out how to adapt.

However, some of the power player companies are starting to demand employees come back to the office.

It appears that Apple is becoming one of these companies, pushing to require employees in the office 3 days a week.

Tim Cook's Reasoning

Even with a petition signed by 1,200 Apple employees against moving back into the office, Tim Cook seems undeterred.

Tim cook has gone on record saying, "You have to collaborate with one another because we believe that one plus one equals three. So that takes the serendipity of running into people and bouncing ideas off and caring enough to advance your idea through someone else because you know that'll make it a bigger idea."

Essentially, ideas become better with collaboration.

It can also be beneficial when you aren't sure who you are going to run into, but it could end up being the right person at the right time.

At least, that's according to what Tim Cook is saying.

Does It Make Sense?

I actually believe that what Tim Cook is saying is valid.

The crossing of information between teams and people can be truly beneficial to the ideation process.

Also, his point about about serendipity works very well with how Flow States occur.

Novelty is one of the Flow triggers that can spark Flow States. The more interesting the ideas, the deeper those Flow States can get.

Plus, Group Flow is the deepest state of Flow that you can be in.

So, the reasoning behind Tim Cook's decision does make a lot of sense.

Is It The Right Decision?

Even though the reasoning Tim Cook is right for pushing employees to come back, I actually think the decision is wrong.

Really what it comes down to is the implementation of the idea.

See, one of the reasons that employees have been doing so well from home is because of how beneficial it has been to well-being.

This includes Apple Employees who have pushed the company to new heights in the midst of the pandemic.

In a previous article I mentioned the scientific reasoning of "why" everyone's well-being has improved by working at home.

What Tim Cook's decision is doing is simply working against the science, and it will end up working against his goals.

See, by forcing employees to come to work, it will create fear and anger by employees.

This will then end up creating Disengagement at work, and more than likely will quickly become Active Disengagement.

When enough of these employees become Actively Disengaged, it will end up setting the company back on all it's progress that has been made.

This will then lead to employees saying, "See, we were right the entire time!"

What To Do

However, there are two ways to overcome this.

The first would be to work on fixing the work environment so that employees are actually enticed to come back.

If employees choose to work in the office, then you avoid this issue completely.

However, this will likely require a HUGE betterment of leadership across the company. Yesterday I talked about the terrible statistics around the state of Leadership around the world.

Since 80% of Leadership Development fails completely (due to lacking an understanding of Leadership Evolution), it is unlikely that this will happen or be effective on the timeframe that Tim Cook is pushing for.

The next best alternative is for Tim Cook to get creative.

Essentially, there is a MAJOR opportunity (not just for Apple but for ALL organizations) to figure out how to create that serendipity and cross-pollination of ideas in a Remote environment!

This, truly, is something that could be a game changer for any organization.

If more Leaders could actually create Group Flow on their teams THROUGH remote work, AND they also designed a way to create those unplanned moments across teams - THAT would be how the next game-changing organization would stand out.

They would likely be ablet to hand pick anyone they want for their team, and employees would desire to work there in troves.

Instead of working against employees, which will always fail in the long-term creating resentment, work WITH employees and innovate!