Satya Nadella not too enthused about permanent WFH; says ‘overcelebrating’ surge in productivity, ‘lack of touch’ can have adverse impact

A major chunk of the global workforce is in quarantine. Employees are trying their best to fulfill their professional responsibilities while working from home. Several top bosses, tech moguls and CEOs of tech giants have given their two cents about how the work-from-home scenario might pan out. However, no corporate boss has raised a red flag about remote working quite like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has.
In a candid interview with The New York Times, Nadella shared his thoughts on remote working and the rather adverse impact it can have on the psyche of the employees. For starters, the top boss felt that switching from office set-up to work-from-home mode will be ‘replacing one dogma with another dogma’.

Further commenting on the scenario, Nadella posed, “What does burnout look like? What does mental health look like? What does that connectivity and the community building look like? One of the things I feel is, hey, maybe we are burning some of the social capital we built up in this phase where we are all working remote. What’s the measure for that?”

In the no-holds-barred interview, while Nadella acknowledged that the productivity of the Microsoft employees has gone up it isn’t something to ‘overcelebrate’. The Microsoft top boss feels that the increase in productivity comes at the price of burning the social capital.

Nadella also touched upon the ‘lack of touch’, one experiences when they are working remotely. The 52-year-old tech mogul said that he misses walking into a physical meeting, which gives one a chance to connect with the person next to him ‘for the two minutes before and after.’

‘That’s tough to replicate virtually, as are other soft skills crucial to managing and mentoring,” added Nadella.

The Indian-American business executive also spoke at length about how offices are likely to cope with the pandemic. He feels that this would happen in three phases, The first phase will be responding to the immediate impact with office closures and cost cuts.

The second phase, which Nadella calls the ‘recovery’ phase, which in his opinion is already underway at some workplaces is all about ‘dial’ and ‘switch’. “There will be lots of movement of the dial, back and forth,” said Nadella.

In the third phase, called the ‘reimagining phase’, innovations born of necessity during the previous two phases will emerge.