I was recently featured in CHRO DAIL along with several other leaders as we discussed:
Hybrid work has forced organizations to rethink what fairness means when some employees are in the office and others are not. Getting this balance right requires clear policies that focus on outcomes rather than arbitrary attendance rules. This article brings together insights from workplace leaders who have successfully implemented in-office norms that respect flexibility while maintaining team cohesion.
Define Purpose, Not Presence
The fastest way to lose people on office expectations is to write one rule for everyone and call it fair. Sales does not work like engineering. A team mid-launch does not need the same week as a team in steady state. When you flatten all of that into a single attendance mandate, people do not read it as consistency. They read it as a leader who does not understand the work they actually do.
So I stopped setting the rules around location and started setting them around purpose instead.
The guideline that changed things was simple. We do not come in to be seen. We come in for the work that is genuinely better in person. Each team names what that work actually is. The decisions that need real-time tension. Onboarding a new hire who is still finding their footing. The messy early thinking that quietly dies over a screen. Then they protect time for it together. The rhythm differs by team. The principle does not. That is what makes it feel fair instead of arbitrary. Everyone is answering the same question, even when they each land in a different place.
The routine underneath it is a quarterly check, not a memo. Each team revisits two things out loud. What was the in-person work that earned our time this quarter, and did our schedule actually reflect it. Most teams discover their pattern had drifted. They were gathering out of habit on days that did not need it, and scattering on the days that did. Naming it resets the rhythm without a new policy handed down from above.
The leaders I work with tend to find the same thing once they try this. Their problem was never flexibility versus consistency. It was that they were enforcing presence instead of defining purpose. The moment the purpose is clear and owned by the team, the consistency takes care of itself, because people follow what they helped build.
So here is the question worth sitting with before you write your next office policy.
Are you asking people to show up, or have you told them clearly what is worth showing up for?
Most expectations fail on the second half. People will meet a standard they genuinely understand. They resist one that was handed down to them without a reason they can actually feel.
About the Author
Dr. H. Gearl Loden is a nationally recognized leadership coach, keynote speaker, and Superintendent of Nixa Public Schools in Missouri. A finalist for the 2025 AASA National Superintendent of the Year and a former State Superintendent of the Year, Dr. Loden brings more than 30 years of educational leadership — including transformative turnaround experience — to every coaching engagement.
He is the founder of Loden Leadership & Consulting Group LLC and author of Before It Breaks: The Seven Pillars of Trust Every Leader Must Build, an Amazon #1 New Release. His coaching work equips superintendents, executives, and emerging leaders to build cultures of trust, clarity, and lasting impact.
What’s Next for You?
📘 Get the Book
Before It Breaks is your roadmap to building unshakeable trust before a crisis demands it.
Order Your Copy
📊 Take the Free Trust Assessment
Discover where your leadership stands across the Seven Pillars — and what to strengthen first.
Take The Assessment→
🌱 Join the Growth Alliance
Join thousands of leaders receiving weekly insight, coaching tools, and leadership strategies through the Growth Alliance Newsletter.
Join Free →
May your leadership journey be rich with purpose, relationships, resilience, and discovery.
Impactfully,
Gearl
