As companies struggle to entice more Workers to come back into the office one CEO is creating an office environment to Encourage more employees to show up in Person we're going to talk to him right Now his name is Seth bizmergnick he is a CEO and the founder of conductor and we Were just talking a little bit earlier Because we've done a lot of Stories on How do workers feel do they like hybrid Do they like stay at home and overall When you see these surveys people like The idea of staying at home at least for A portion of the week Why do you think it's important for People to come into the office It's well from a company's perspective It's important because you want your People which generally is the biggest Place where you invest your resources And your money you want them to be Helping each other and working together And while you can be very productive at Home doing your job it's very hard to Help the person sitting next to you and The group that you're in it's really Hard to collaborate on projects right And I think for individuals you know the Workplace for many especially folks that Are you know out of school building Their career it's a place where you won You get great professional development You learn School you learn communication Skills speaking skills you learn how to
Interact you learn how to use you learn How to you know do certain things that You get in the office right it's also a Place to build community it's place to Build friendships it's a place to build Network all of that becomes Significantly difficult if you're 100 of The time you know on Zoom or behind a Computer yeah and when we talked earlier You said yeah you could be productive at Home but that collaboration is is just Not the same so then what were some of The hurdles that you thought of when you Thought okay I'm going to approach the Staff I'd like to see all of them coming Into the office for at least a portion Of the week what were some of the Hurdles you identified and then what Have you been doing to overcome those Hurts absolutely so we spent a lot of Time listening to people about what they Really wanted it and it wasn't black and White it wasn't just that we want to be Home we want to come in yeah they want Different things like so for example Um a benefit of being remote is that you Can kind of go anywhere in some cases so What we did as part of our strategy so Our strategy is you come into the office Three days a week your home or anywhere You want effectively two days a week but You also have a month in the year which We call YOLO which is you can go Anywhere in the world the whole office
Shuts down all of our offices shut down And you can have a remote experience Without having to fully give up the Community of actually going into an Office there's a lot of different things That we've done to make it so we could Sort of meet the flexibility desires of Our people while also creating the Collaboration community that we are Looking at and it's also the office like The office space is being transformed Right yeah we have we did invest in a New up so we made a big decision which Was to invest in a larger better office Here in New York city so we just signed A 10-year lease which is pretty exciting Yes uh and I mean a lot of people are Sort of trying to unload their leases Now a lot of companies so this is Different yeah we're a little crazy in That sense Um and uh but if people are going to Come in it's got to be a great Experience and the big the reason why People come in is to come in for each Other right cook the coffee and you know The extra things are nice but they come In for each other they come in for the Friendships they come in for the Community and ultimately to do great Work for customers right it's very it's Really hard to work together on projects That really make a difference when You're doing it entirely all day and
It's and it's partially entirely on on Virtually and some of that is just Because body cues and looking at each Other and some of that it just gets Draining being you know staring at a Screen for the entire day so you know Part of this though is kind of like Speculation it's like your best guess Right but This costs money and you gotta sort of Somehow figure out why this is a Cost-effective way of spending that Money Um has it been was it difficult to argue Listen we don't need less office space We actually need more well for us we we Look at the data as well so every half Year we do a survey with all of our People and we get these scores which are How engaged are you engagement is is Really commensurate with how much you Believe in things how much are you Willing to put in the effort we look at Your belonging do you feel connected do You feel part of the organization and For all of the years up until when the Company all went remotely due to the Pandemic we had very high scores high 80s 90s when the pandemic came we went Down to in the mid 50s and people were Feeling disconnected they were feeling Not part of the company they're feeling Disengaged and actually it wasn't until We started bringing people back into the
Office not everybody but people back Into the office right we're starting to See those numbers actually change so I Would think I from my perspective while It could be nice to save money on office Space I think the bigger risk is to uh Is around attrition engagement and Really making sure our people feel Activated and excited to do what they're Doing every day that's how we do our Best work and that's that's really the Most uh you know sort of profitable Thing for us to do yeah so that's so Fascinating Um well good luck I'm gonna be watching Do you think hybrid's here to stay Absolutely absolutely absolutely I think It's definitely not going to be five Days in the week across the board and I Think starting school and spending the Rest of your 30-year career sitting in Your living room is probably not the Case either right I like YOLO months I'm Down with that Um thank you so much Seth thank you very Much for having me
