The battle to get back into the office is showing little sign of abating as remote workers assert themselves and bosses become tougher when it comes to personal demands. But one CEO sees the tug of war from an unusual angle: Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines.
When asked if business travel had returned to pre-pandemic levels, Bastian told Semafor this week that it was “about 80% back”. But overall, he noted, demand for air travel is “extraordinary” as passengers return to the skies with a vengeance.
He also explained how the shift to remote and hybrid work schedules had impacted his industry, even as CEOs push the return to the office.
“New work patterns mean people who previously couldn’t because they were in the office Monday through Friday are traveling,” he said. “When I talk to CEOs and they complain about how difficult it is for them to engage their employees, I say, ‘I know where they are.’ They’re on my planes.’”
Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary believes remote work is here to stay and will change the way projects are managed as 9 to 5 days is no longer the norm. “You say to someone, ‘Look, you have to have this ready by 12 next Friday,'” he told CNN in March. “You don’t really care when they do it… as long as it gets done.”
This gives remote and hybrid workers the flexibility of when to work—and when to travel or have fun. Stanford researchers documented how golf courses on Wednesday afternoon saw a 278% increase in golf play between 2022 and 2019, with the most likely explanation being that “employees use golf as a break while working from home.”
That doesn’t mean workers who access the links during standard office hours are less productive, the researchers found — it could just mean they spread their work out over a longer period of time, perhaps working late into the night or very early in the morning. The same logic seems to apply to catching a flight as well.
Remote work vs. office rent
“Working remotely means instilling trust and accountability in employees and fostering a culture of accountability and initiative,” said Chris Herd, CEO of Firstbase tweeted last week. Herd, whose startup helps companies set up, manage, and access devices for remote workers, argues that the term “remote work” is obsolete kidnapped Meaning “work from home” when in fact it is “work from anywhere”. He agrees that companies benefit when their employees meet face-to-face, but he believes a better and cheaper way to do this is to work remotely and hold biannual off-office meetings rather than long-term office leases and insisting employees live nearby.
The story goes on
If his advice were generally heeded, it would likely benefit the air travel industry, as remote workers would fly to staff meetings and have more freedom to travel overall. Herd also points out that remote working allows companies to tap into a much larger talent pool, giving them a significant competitive advantage over time.
Amazon, for example, is going in the opposite direction. Some staff are reportedly having to relocate to comply with a return-to-office obligation, enforcement of which began earlier this year. Workers at the Seattle headquarters went on strike in late May to protest the mandate, but Amazon executives didn’t mind.
With the resumption of face-to-face work, “there’s more energy, collaboration and connection, and we’ve heard that from many employees and the businesses around our offices,” Amazon spokesman Brad Glasser told Fortune.
Herd expects CEOs to relax their RTO mandates and make more use of remote work as office leases expire. tweet on Friday: “Tell me when a company’s large office leases expire and I’ll tell you when the CEO announces it’s transforming into a distributed company.”
If he’s right, that could be good news for airlines like Delta.
This story was originally published on Fortune.com
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