Presence is not productivity: making office time count

There's an old joke about a man searching for his keys under a streetlight. A passerby helps for a while, then asks where exactly he dropped them. "Over there in the dark," the man says. "But the light's better here."

Managers do this with attendance. Whether someone is at their desk is easy to see. Whether they're getting anything done takes real work to find out. So we count the first and hope it tells us about the second.

The office debate misses the point

Return-to-office policies are now a fact of life across government and much of the private sector. The arguments are familiar. One side points to collaboration, mentoring, culture, and accountability. The other points to morale, commutes, recruiting, and the cost of the space.

Both sides have a point, and most managers don't get a vote anyway.

What you do control is what happens once people are there. And here both camps make the same mistake: they treat location as the measure. A full office proves nothing. Neither does an empty one.

Measure the work

If you can't say what your team should produce this month, you can't tell whether they produced it, from the kitchen table or from headquarters.

• Define the outcome before the work starts. I laid out how in Lead with the goal.
• Agree on a few measures that reflect the service, not the activity. See How to measure customer experience.
• Review them regularly, and coach to them.

A manager who knows what the team is accomplishing can lead it anywhere.

Make the commute worth it

If people travel an hour to sit on video calls wearing headphones, you've added cost and gained nothing.

Use in-person time for what it does best: welcoming new hires, working sessions on hard problems, mentoring, and the conversations that build trust. Protect quiet time for heads-down work, wherever your policy says that work has to happen.

Watch who you're losing

Flexibility has become something people weigh when they choose where to work. Whatever your policy is, the people with the most options are the first to leave.

If you can't offer flexibility about location, offer what you can: flexibility in schedule, work that matters, real development, and a manager who knows what they do all day.

Show up smart

The debate was never only about showing up. It's about showing up smart.

Where people sit is the easy thing to see. What they accomplish is the thing to manage. Go look where you dropped the keys.