People, productivity and punctuality: Post-pandemic office warfare continues

Brendan Shaw

“If you are still counting on humans to handle your company’s most complicated and high-stakes decisions, it seems like a poor strategy to alienate them ahead of time.”

-          Brooke Masters, “The boss is back”, Financial Times, 18 August 2025.

"A titled leader relies heavily on positional power to get things done; a natural leader is able to mobilise others without the whip of formal authority.”

-          Prof Gary Hamel, London Business School.

The intra-office battle for supremacy continues, as employers across industry battle to regain control of their workforces in a post-pandemic world.

Five years after corporations the world over directed their staff to stay at home to work during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, many CEOs and corporate leaders are now pulling out all stops to regain control of the workplace and their staff.

The agenda has pivoted somewhat as attention in many countries turns to productivity slumps, tight labour markets, and the introduction of AI.

Bosses are taking the opportunity to throw down the gauntlet and dictate to their staff how and when they will work.

History shows that elites, nobility and governments have a habit of trying to stop radical workplace reform in post-pandemic environments. The Black Death plague in the 14th century being a case in point.

Productivity slump

There’s no doubt the world is facing a global productivity slump. Figures from the OECD show that labour productivity growth has dropped across various OECD countries.

The question is: what’s driving this? And what do we do about it?

Is it, as some CEOs have flagged, that wages have been growing too fast against output? Is it working from home that’s been the problem?

Or is it, perhaps, that businesses haven’t invested in capital equipment and new technology sufficiently to let their workers reach their full effectiveness?

Has the rush to spend profits on share buybacks and executive bonuses at the expense of investing in the business led to an unbalancing in the classic drivers of ‘total factor productivity’ that the economics textbooks talk about?

The bosses crack down

There’s no doubt that businesses need to reform, to become more efficient and effective.

What’s worrying is the way that business bosses are reacting to this. Fairly quickly, many CEOs are blaming workers for the deterioration in productivity.

We’re hearing from some business leaders that wages are too high, employees need to be more ‘aggressive’, and that staff have a poor work ethic.

There's a sense in many of the statements from some corporate leaders that they think workers have become lazy and unproductive during the COVID lockdowns and WFH, and it's time to shake their staff up to be more lean, mean and efficient again.

Earlier this month, John Stankey, the CEO telco giant AT&T in the United States, fired off an email to staff that illustrated what many CEOs are starting to say. His memo reads like a declaration in the corporate culture wars as companies try to rebuild themselves as lean, market-based businesses that reward capability, contribution, and commitment.

Amongst many dictates, Stankey said:

“... if a self-directed, virtual, or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and life challenges, you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish.”

Here endeth the era of work-life balance. ‘We’re all in this together’? I think not.

Companies like BlackRock, Amazon and UPS have reimposed mandates for working five days a week in the office for much of their workforces.

It comes amid a slew of job losses in various tech companies as bosses try to improve efficiency and invest in AI. Microsoft boss, Satya Nadella, recently retrenched 15,000 staff, Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai, recently told Google’s employees that staff numbers wouldn’t increase – preferring investment in AI instead, and Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, recently told staff they could expect to work in smaller, ‘scrappier’ teams. Moreover, the CEOs of various US companies have recently promoted their job cuts despite the businesses growing.

One wonders if this newfound aggressiveness, or perhaps the ‘masculine energy’ as Mark Zuckerberg recently called it, is being driven by a deterioration in economic growth, the challenge of businesses in adapting to the AI revolution, and the changing political environment in the US as President Donald Trump rails against ‘woke’ workers.

The Australian banking system is going through something similar in an attempted boss-led workplace cultural change. The CEO of Westpac has called on staff to be more ‘aggressive’, insisted on staff working on weekends and stated that he will work Christmas Day. Meanwhile the CEO of ANZ has called on staff to have greater focus on decisiveness, performance and efficiency in the face of cultural scandals in the company.

There’s no doubt Australian banks need a shake-up, but the question is whether the approach being adopted by some is the right way to go.

The way forward

The push to reform companies to be more productive, the role of CEOs and culture in that, and what role (heaven forbid) workers should have in driving reform has been debated for centuries.

In more recent times, what a competitive business is has been debated in the context of arguments on shareholder versus stakeholder capitalism and ESG.

Is the push for greater productivity going to be won by forcing employees to work on weekends? And will they be paid for it? Unpaid overtime has been one of the under-scrutinised trends in economic development, I believe.

Sometimes part of the problem is not the message per se, but the way it’s being delivered.

Moreover, perhaps the drive to improve efficiency and productivity in business could try to focus on the broader range of factors that improve productivity.

Yes, doing things more efficiently is important. Yes, building a work ethic and collaborative culture is vital. But whether forcing people to be chained to desks at the office 5 days a week, to have their keystrokes monitored, and forcing them to work weekends builds the right culture is open to debate.

Productivity growth comes from a multitude of factors – it’s not just about cutting wages and/or holding wage growth stagnant while forcing people to do more with less.

Productivity in the economy is also about investing in skills and training for your workforce businesses themselves should invest in the capabilities of their staff to adapt to the 21st century. It’s about investing in new capital equipment and technologies to grow the business as well as to save costs.

It’s also about developing new technologies and processes through investing in innovation and R&D. It’s about developing cultural awareness and confidence in business to engage in new export and investment markets and it's about understanding different cultures in a multipolar global economy.

Productivity also comes from investing in the skills and leadership capabilities of management – how do CEOs lead people in a vision and get people excited about where they work? Do business leaders set a good example? Do CEOs have good people and leadership skills? Do they inspire people about their organisation’s mission and leverage the talents and skills of the people they’ve invested in to take the organisation higher? Do they have sufficient empathy? (I can hear the corporate ‘bros’ cringing as they read this).

There doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as much talk about all of this in productivity debates in various countries.

Professor Gary Hamel's challenge to corporate leaders to lead as if they have no power or authority over people is more relevant today than ever.

How do you get people to do things when you have no power or control over them?

A few corporate leaders look almost out of their depth these days. They’re like rabbits caught in the headlights, desperately searching for ways to slash costs rather than build a vision. There seems to be less talk these days about how businesses should develop, invest, innovate, collaborate, build long-term competitive advantage and partner with others to build prosperity.

Surely, at a time when companies are trying to inculcate innovative processes into their businesses, CEOs should be more worried about attracting and inspiring smart people who have the freedom and flexibility to experiment, suggest new ideas and encourage critical thinking inside the company.

Do we all become transactional contractors instead?

The risk is that CEOs get what they wish for.

Workers who have had enough of working weekends, clocking into systems that monitor their attention and keystrokes in the office 5 days a week, and being required to submit to institutionalised presenteeism, may just bite the bullet and leave the business.

They may even become transactional contractors, just like in the aftermath of the Black Death plague in the 14th century.

As one commentator recently said:

"On the flip side, bosses who bang on about how loyalty is passé should not be surprised when their top people start to act like star athletes and offer themselves to the highest bidder."

Watch this space.

#work #business #productivity #post-pandemic #WFH