WeWork’s CEO seems to think employees who want to work from home are less engaged than their in-office counterparts. The claim is baseless, unfounded, and not true.

The coronavirus pandemic forced businesses to make a lot of changes in a short amount of time. Employees were sent home to work and technology became the way to keep businesses moving. As the pandemic lingers on, the end is in sight in many places, which begs the question: What will life look like after the pandemic? Many businesses have decided on how to bring employees back to the office, if that’s the route they chose, while others are on the fence as to what is the best route for them. WeWork’s CEO, Sandeep Mathrani, seems to think that people who want to work from home are less engaged in their work than those who prefer the office.

“No one is saying they don’t want to go to work. They are saying ‘I wanna go to work two or three days a week’ and ‘I’d like to work from home a day a week,'” Mathrani said during The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything festival on Wednesday.

“It’s also pretty obvious that those who are overly engaged with the company want to go to the office two-thirds of the time at least,” he added. “Those who are least engaged are very comfortable working from home.”

Mathrani was named WeWork CEO in early 2020, after former CEO and founder, Adam Neumann, was ousted. It’s also important to note that WeWork’s business model is based on filling office spaces. The reason that matters is because he is incredibly off-base. An employee’s desire to work from home has incredibly little to do with being engaged in work, and much more to do with the flexibility it provides.

For instance, working from home could allow a parent to avoid paying costly childcare fees. It could allow a parent to be more involved in their children’s school activities. It allows a disabled person the freedom to schedule appointments and know that they can still get their work done. It allows adults who are home-bound for whatever reason to still earn a wage and support themselves.

Those scenarios apply to only a portion of the remote workforce, however, with others simply preferring to do their work on their own time or with less distractions. Being in the office doesn’t hold some magical value, being in the same physical space has no bearing on how engaged employees are with their work. People may want a day or two in the office to socialize or get a break from children or the same scenery, but it has nothing to do with engagement. Engagement has to do with motivators, and an office (not to mention the commute) aren’t great motivators for the majority of people. 

To put it simply, if the office (or perks of being in the office) is the thing keeping you engaged, then you are already disengaged from your work. Think about it, your going to the office has zero to do with whether you are able to do your job. Unless there is a specialized piece of equipment required to do your job, you can likely do everything you need from home. You are engaged when you are able to work, you are interested in what you are doing, you are supportive of the company you work for and its goals, you feel that you are part of a team with a role to play and that your work is valuable to the company. There are a variety of ways to be engaged in your work, and none of them have to do with your physical location.

Is it easier to collaborate in person? Sure, there are benefits to having an office presence. But engagement isn’t one of them. Yes, WeWork is going to have the opinion that employees should be in the office, that’s how they make their money. But saying that employees who work remotely are less engaged is a an underhanded tactic founded on zero facts. Remote employees are actually MORE engaged most of the time, because they get up and take breaks, they work when their brain is at its peak (not everyone thinks their best at 8am), they are happier because they are more engaged and involved at home, which transfers into their work.

Let’s be clear: there are absolutely businesses that need an in-office presence and work better that way. But there are plenty of businesses out there which can benefit from having a remote or hybrid workforce. Twitter, Facebook and Google have announced a work from home option for employees. But let’s also be clear that employee engagement has nothing to do with physical location, and everything to do with how a business interacts with and treats its employees.