World Wide Technology cofounder and CEO Jim Kavanaugh says he moved away from judging commitment by office attendance and toward a role-specific hybrid approach. The shift, described in a Fortune interview published October 3, 2026, reflects his effort to keep high expectations for work while giving employees more flexibility and trust.
Why Kavanaugh reconsidered a full-time office expectation
Kavanaugh says he once watched who arrived early, stayed late, and was still in the parking lot after 6 p.m. He expected high performers to put in long hours and believed visible presence mattered. The pandemic prompted him to rethink a blanket expectation that everyone work from the office full time, Fortune reported in its October 3, 2026 interview.
His position is not that effort or accountability no longer matter. Kavanaugh told Fortune, “I still believe in work ethic, and putting the time in and doing whatever it takes to get the job done, but at the same time, culturally, we need to trust our employees.” He describes flexibility as compatible with completing the work, including when personal responsibilities require an employee to adjust their schedule.
What WWT’s hybrid approach means
Fortune describes WWT’s approach as hybrid, with expectations shaped by “dynamic personas.” In practice, the reported principle is that in-person work may be more useful for some roles or business units than others, rather than applying one attendance rule to everyone. The interview does not publish a current schedule or a universal number of required office days.
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WWT’s own April 15, 2024 explanation of dynamic personas describes grouping employees according to the work they do and the services and technology they need. Its methodology lists inputs such as job descriptions, location, work style and hours, employee interviews, security and mobility needs, applications, and support requirements. Those groupings can help an organization plan remote, hybrid, or office-based support.
That public methodology helps explain the term, but it is general guidance from WWT—not a disclosed rulebook showing how the company assigns each employee to a persona or what each group must do now. Fortune’s account does not provide those specific internal details.
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Trust does not mean abandoning accountability
Kavanaugh’s argument is that managers can expect results without treating time in the office as the sole proof of commitment. He told Fortune that employees should be treated “with a level of trust, like adults,” and said they may handle responsibilities such as taking a child to a doctor’s appointment, then work later to finish the job.
The distinction is between measuring visible inputs—such as hours or cars in a lot—and assessing whether people are doing the work. A flexible policy still needs clear responsibilities and a way to judge work quality; the interview, however, does not describe WWT’s specific performance-management measures or establish that its approach has produced measured results.
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When does bringing employees into an office make sense?
The useful question is what employees are expected to accomplish together. In the Fortune feature, New York Federal Reserve research economist Natalia Emanuel asks, “What are they actually trying to accomplish by bringing employees into the office?” She argues that requiring a commute without a clear purpose can be demoralizing, particularly when employees spend the day on video calls instead of working together in person.
Management professor Kevin Rockmann of George Mason University’s Costello College of Business offers a different but related caution: he says a forced attendance rule can signal distrust to employees. These are expert perspectives presented in the feature, not proof that every office mandate has the same effect. For employers, they suggest making the reason for an in-person day explicit—such as collaboration, mentorship, or work that benefits from being done together—and matching attendance expectations to that purpose.
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What is known—and what is not—about WWT’s policy
Fortune reported that WWT had $20 billion in annual revenue and more than 12,000 employees, providing context for the scale of the company Kavanaugh leads. The same report gave his estimated net worth as $7.7 billion. These are figures attributed to Fortune’s 2026 feature, not an audited company filing or a measure of the hybrid policy’s success.
- Reported: Kavanaugh reconsidered a blanket full-time office expectation after the pandemic, and Fortune describes WWT’s current approach as role- or business-unit-sensitive hybrid work.
- Not specified: WWT’s exact current attendance rules, how it assigns employees to personas, or the required office frequency for any particular role.
- Not reported: Measured results showing how the policy affected productivity, retention, collaboration, or other outcomes.
WWT also publicly describes hybrid-work strategy and services, including dynamic-persona work and workplace technology. That page explains services the company offers; it does not verify the details or results of WWT’s own employee policy.
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