Are you in the office?

firm policy is 3 days a week for advisors, 5 a week for staff unless they get permission (which everyone will get). I think this is a step in the right direction from our original policy of 5 days in a week (I'm at one of those banks whose CEO got flogged for mandating return to office too early), but in my opinion not far enough. the issue is this - it treats all business units, teams, and individuals the same and is very top down (the worst way to make decisions). for example, in PWM we get together for strategy and then all pretty much go our own way, like individual contributors but all rowing the boat in the same direction, unlike say a football team where everybody has a different job but works in unison on the same issue simultaneously.

I also realize that culture is important, but culture does not need to be built 5 days a week in person, culture comes from all sorts of things. it could be a happy hour after work, it could be through some in person 1:1 mentoring, or in my opinion, it could be gestures, like your boss actually giving you the autonomy to set your own deadline with a project, figure it out yourself, and once you get it QC'd, report back to the client yourself. it could also be a boss saying "hey you guys have worked hard this week, everybody log off this friday at noon, have a good weekend!" culture is not "we look at each other on the phone and computer all day and for those reasons I feel closer to you," fuck that, it's unique to every team. 

on new business/new opps, if I were a younger employee and trying to figure it out, the above poster hawkeye has a good point on being seen. I would see what days most of the senior people are in the office and be seen on those days. I personally don't give a flying fuck but many people do and so you should cater to that. if being "seen" increases your chances of advancement, fine, but I question the premise on whether that should even be the case.

I know that the serendipitous pop-in has value, and sometimes good ideas come completely out of the blue and work best when people are together. but is the possibility of that a reason to dictate a policy that straps people to their desks 100% of the time? I think no. I think you leave it up to the team and then find ways to bring people together to actually build culture, like offsite retreats, team dinners/lunches/happy hours/special events, strategy meetings, or at a minimum, have a reason for coming to the office instead of just "we're an office culture."

one other thing I'd like to address that I've heard from my senior partners "I want people back in the office because I like seeing people in person." just like saying you'll never come into the office and only want to be 100% remote, this is incredibly selfish as it shows no empathy for people's personal preferences and assumes that the world and therefore the policies should revolve around what YOU want. this is why I think hybrid is the answer, have team meetings for sure, but when I look back on the years and years I spent in the office with my team (we're going on a decade together now), the amount of times where the office was a necessary social outlet for me was near zero. have your own friends, it's not the employees' responsibility to entertain you. if you actually care about people, you should respect if somebody doesn't want to come in 5 days a week because she just discovered her husband's having an affair and they have 3 kids and a 45 minute commute and you're an empty nester with a 5 minute commute and work 25 hours a week on a good week.

finally, lest I sound too complainy without offering solutions, if you want some ideas on how to manage this, here's what I'd do

1. poll your team, ask what they would do if they had a magic wand, what policy they would do and what they would do personally
2. list all responses up for people to see and see where there's a central tendency
3. ask people with particularly strong views the possible pros and cons of their idea and the idea that's completely on the other side (100% remote to 100% in office)
4. for the hybrid people, ask specific thoughts on what that means, because hybrid could mean no set hours just project based, it could mean normal hours but from wherever, it could mean certain days mandated in office on or off a schedule, lots of things

the keys her are building consensus. nobody will be 100% happy because nobody ever is 100% happy, but if people are heard, respected, and have input, the decision will have much more staying power

TLDR - neither extreme (100% remote or 100% in office) is correct, it should be bottom up decision not top down, if you're early in career, do what people whose job you want do until you have independence, if you're a team leader, seek others' opinions rather than dictating