Have you notice there’s more and more competitiveness in the office? Well, way more than all of us would there too admit. Not all competitiveness is bad though, a good healthy those ensures we all want to do our best and in turn, the company also gets better.
But in more than healthy doses, you end up with a toxic environment where no one trusts each other and you will believe your colleagues will stab your back if that is what it takes to get into the top. You end up with employees overworking and some passing the point of burnout.
In western countries we are now: me, me, me. We all want to be special and be better than the one next to you. We compare everything from the job title (sometimes more than the money itself), to the number of likes and who seems to get it all. Breaking news: it’s not by being individual we’ve succeeded in our evolution!
But why are we getting more and more competitive? Let’s start with kids. Yes, that’s right kids. From the moment parents discover they will be getting a child they are already dreaming if their little querubim is going to be the next Mozart, or the next Einstein and I believe some parents expect all at the same time!
I’m not kidding if I say even with things as silly as an easter hat parents go clearly extreme to ensure their kid’s one is the best (when it’s meant to be about you having fun with your kid doing something together, at least that’s what I believe it is about). Then they bombard the kids with classes of everything and the world from swiming, to piano lessons, horse riding, sports and they complain they are too tired. I wonder where in the agenda it fits pure simple playing? Even my 4 year old gets obsessed with winning all the time even without any encouragement from my side to win anything!
Even in order to get to good schools you need to be top of the top, so no wonder that, by the time the kids are going to uni they are obsessive students who depend on study drugs. Maybe I’m showing my age here, but I remember going to uni was not just about getting a degree but also embracing the last few years before facing work.
I remember when in a big 4 a group of analysts (that’s normally their first or second year), they were dressed full of expensive brands and they would do whatever it took them to be noticed by the senior leadership.
Some do believe this works because only the stronger survive in the end, but if you foster an environment where no one can trust each other, you are losing the economic maxism: “The whole is bigger than the sum of the parts”. We can do more if we work together, but we will only genuinly collaborate and work together if we trust each other (at least on a professional level).
So yeah, parents have a huge role in all of this to ensure the future generations can manage a good dose of competitiveness but without going extreme.
Everyone right now is wondering what the “new normal” will be. Will we be back exactly to what we were just before Covid hit us? I’m not sure about you but I hope not.
I think we should all take some introspective and reflect on the good things we’ve learned in the past 1 year ish. So this is my take on the things that are likely to change as well as what I believe it should change.
I’m yet to meet people that are working less hours from home, even with the kid madness and all the homeschooling. I know a lot of people who disliked the work from home with all their heart and it was purely based on a lack of trust. They believe that if you don’t see your team, they won’t communicate effictively or will be lazy. As I’ve written here many times, if that’s the case maybe you should access if you have the right team. If people are given flexibility on how they are to meet their goal (more hours, less hours, from the beach, from the office) they end up giving way more back. I think for a lot of people who had never been allowed their teams to work from home they’ve seen it’s not only possible but they are also getting more (as a balance) out of it.
Yes we miss the interaction with our colleagues and the 5 minutes discussions over the coffee machine that would avoid a meeting. There was also the buzz of having a clear separation between office life and home life.
So I do believe most of us will want some balanced returned to the offices 2 to 3 days from home for example. Let’s face it, do we really think we can return 5 days a week after more than 1 year without falling asleep at the desk? Not to mention we might not fit in the clothing we had and we can’t just buy everything in one go!
The bloom of local shops
The city right now it’s deserted, people are working from home therefore shopping and staying local. Even when returning back to the office, the new form “friendships” will not just go away. I do believe people will keep on coming back.
Downsizing spaces
If people are not working 5 days in the office, then companies can rethink their office spaces and try to reduce them and operate in an open desk policy. This has already been the practice in big consultancy firms given employees are mainly working away from the main office anyway. That can be a huge cost saving! The challenge will be to ensure people are rotating and not everyone tries to be there tuesday to thursday and nobody Mondays & Fridays.
Coworking
Again, with both of the points above, I do believe the “new office” will be focusing around collaboration more like those startup coworking spaces to foster collaboration among people as going to the office will need to provide a different experience as working from home. If you need to be by your desk doing phone calls or doing a piece by yourself you could well just work from home.
The bloom of the dress for your day (and maybe some fancy coffee machines)
My company had actually started this 1 year before the pandemic and I was in love. For some reason there is this feeling that everyone needs to work in a suit even if we don’t interact with clients and are just working with our internal teams. I’m a firm believes that the level of formality in dressing also cascades down to the way we communicate. Given people have been working from home comfortably (and some of those like myself on Pjs) I would really see this becoming the practice and operating more like those fancy startups where it’s no sin to go in jeans. Ok I’m not saying shorts and flip flops, let’s keep the levels professional, but something more casual for sure. Speaking of startups I once visited the digital offices that had this gorgeous and amazing coffee machine…. I would love to see this becoming a trend as well, especially a lot of us have been either baking bread at home or becoming our own baristas, so surely that coffee that looks like shampoo from the office machines won’t cut it anymore.
I mean for years there was always talk that all the companies were concentrated in the city centers. With more flexibility of where people can work from, I would love to see small company campus being form outside of big cities and allowing smaller communities to bloom. The community spirit will be more important than ever and I just can’t phantom us taking the long commutes and the “no eye contact” with a light heart anymore.
I will never forget the words of a friend of mine when he told me: “Don’t work harder, work smarter”. I think this is a mantra that has stayed with me despite me struggling to follow it.
On this note I was having a chat with my husband around how we couldn’t see ourselves going back to south europe (me spefically) because I can’t tollerate their ways of working. As we can’t travel right now, how about a cultural travel to the different ways of working and use them as a debate if longer hours represent more productivity: spoiler alert, they don’t.
I guess most people’s diagrams will be similar to the one below (you can notice my lack of drawing skills):
For most of us at least (I still can’t compreenhed the vampires out there who are very productive in the evening. At some point at uni that’s the only point I could focus not because I was more productive but because the looming deadlines would trigger an adrenaline to finish), the most productive slot is actually the morning. As per my “how to show your calendar who’s the boss” post, that’s the slot you should reserve for your most important tasks.
Then there’s lunch and we all know after lunch all energy is in trying to diggest so it’s not a very productivy slot anyway, then you focus on the last few activities and after a while there’s a point where if you continue to work longer there is a big risk you’ll do mistakes (negative productivity) and next morning you’ll want to slap yourself because you’ll have to rush to fix the mistakes you didn’t even notice you were making.
I remember once I was doing something in excel and I was so tired I was not even thinking of the best way to get it done, my husband asked me what I was doing and he proposed a much faster way of completing what I wanted (using formulas vs doing something totally manual). If I had not been so tired I could have thought about it too.
So how about a little travel?
Disclaimer: I’m using only the examples of the places I’ve worked from or where I’m familiar with, I’m sure there are many more that could be added here.
South Europe
Not productive at all! I started my career in south Europe and a normal day goes like this (for private workers, for state workers it’s probably closer to the Swedish model ahahahaha):
Arrive to the office around 09h, turn on the coffee and go for breakfast
Around 10h get together in the coffee machine and do a break for coffee (and coffee chat)
Around 11h30 most people are thinking where to go for lunch
From at least 13h to 14h people are out for lunch – except if there are critical meetings or deadlines (not uncommon to have a 2h lunch break). Lunch is always sitting down with your colleagues
Then another coffee break in the afternoon
At 17 something that’s when your line managers will remember something you need to deliver next day
Leave the office between 19h to 20h if not later
Arriving late means something 30m later (I had meetings who were delayed for like 1h30)
Until covid there was no such thing as working from home, if the “boss” doesn’t see you, no one believes you are delivering work
London (or any UK big city)
Most people arrive to the office around 8h30 (I was in the office at 07h because I need silence to start my day)
Between 9h to 10h most people will do a 15m break to get a coffee and have a chat with some colleagues. It’s not uncommon to use this slot to have mini meetings to discuss more confidential topics which can’t be discussed with the wither team
Lunch is mostly at the desks with a quick break outside for a quick walk or some people manage to squeeze going to the gymn. Most people only spend like 30m in total with a lunch break
Most people leave between 17h to 18h given there is a long commute home
Arriving late means 5m delay and people will appologize
Work from home was already quite common before covid
Germany / Paris (Can’t really say about the rest of France)
Similar to UK but lunch is sitting down with your colleagues. It tends to be around 30 to 45m. Work from home was not very common either
North America
Also similar except people will work much longer hours, especially in US
I’ve never worked in North Europe, but would love to, in order to have hands on experience with the swedish model, whereby people work a much shorter work week and parental leave is properly shared between women & men.
Why less is more
If you know you have less hours to achieve your goals you will cut the crap and focus on what you need to do. Unlike south europe where the million breaks and the volume of chit chat would mean every hour @ work was not productive and meetings would be delayed you had no control over your calendar. I remember having colleagues teasing me if I was leaving at 18h! Then there is this culture that you need to stay longer to show to your “boss” that you are very committed and if you know you stay late you will try to squeeze in as many breaks as you want. Then people wonder why they are burnt out!
If you can discuss with the team all the key priorities for the day, then reserve morning to get most of the work done and afternoon for all the other team meetings I’m sure most of us would be able to leave much earlier, spend time with the families and have time for hobbies, which in turn will probably contribute to more creativity at work.
If you are tired and burn out, the longer you work, you will be stressing out that it’s getting late and late and sooner or later you will do mistakes. Sooner or later you will end up burnt out. Is it worth it? Absolutely not.
Do you have any specific cultural views which different from those I’ve shared?
Welcome to the world of working from home. We should all be experts by now given it’s been more than 1 year right? Some people are looking forward to be back in the office and have human interactions again while others are more than happy to continue like this.
From my side, I had already worked from home quite a lot in the past prior to becoming the new normal, especially as I used to travel weekly so the Friday was from home and sometimes I would try to squeeze in a whole week of working from home. After having my daughter I felt the need even more but I was in a project where I had to come up with a million reasons why that day I needed to work from home and let me say that was extremely frustrating. I see the world more goal oriented, either you deliver or you don’t. For all I care people could be working from the beach as long as the goals are met. I know a lot of people will totally disagree with me on this.
Ok, I really want to eleborate a bit more here. I do believe if companies give you flexibility – e.g. if you need to work from home providing your goals and those of your team are not impacted, then you can – then you will also end up giving flexibility back to the company – e.g. cram in weekend work due to a very important deadline. They can’t be one sided only otherwise you’ll just end up with frustration. If you don’t trust the people on your team to be working while at home, then they shouldn’t be in the team, should they? (scrap this point if the employement laws make it next to impossible to get rid of someone even with valid reasons).
Anyway, no matter if you had experience working from home, if you prefer to be in the office or at home, when suddendly all of us were home it impacted us all big time (and for those with kids at home: you guys are superheroes).
Before I carry on and because I love memes, here’s another one
So how do you keep sane if you’re working from home?
Idea 1 – Maintain a routine. You would have one if you were going to the office right? You would live the house give or take at the same time, and return back home at the same time. So the same rules are valid at home as well. Decide what you want to do with your commute time in the morning, e.g. you might want to sleep all of it like I do now, you could do half / half and wake up earlier to have time to enjoy a morning walk so you are by your desk when you would normally be in the office. You should reverse the slot to have your food – you would eat in the office wouldn’t you? So ensure you block your calendar for eating – refer to my show to your calendar who’s the boss for more tips on this – and also define when you will stop your working day.
I think it’s the stopping most people struggle because they don’t have to commute back home and then home and work just blend in as one and the same where you are still constantly checking emails. Well, don’t. Just define a time when you will be stopping – except emergencies – and stop it.
Idea 2 – Find ways to make a clear cut between when you’re in working mode vs at home – It’s so easy to just roll from bed and start working immediately but this means your brain doesn’t have the time to shift from resting time into completely work mode.
You can always do like this guy here (now a meme)
Note: I’ve googled this one, but don’t know who owns the original picture and it’s so good!
Ok, maybe not like this one, but the idea if you do something that allows your brain to move between states (the state where you were sleeping so well and now you have to face work). If you could get dressed and go for a quick walk around the block before turning on the pc that would be great, but it can be as simple as having a quick shower and getting dressed, then stopping by your local coffee machine (in your kitchen) and make your favourite coffee and then turn on the pc. On Lockdown 1.0 I was doing morning yoga before starting my working day, by lockdown 2.0 (given it was winter) I had given up all my energy so just do the coffee bit. Before I start working I also open all the curtains and windows to let the light in before turning on the pc. I check a few emails and then will have breakfast before coming back to meetings as this is something I did a few times in the office – arrive at 07, check emails, and get breakfast at 07h30 downstairs.
Once you stop working the same is necessary. I stop far too late so I can no longer go for a walk outside (I do the walk to take my daughter to school in the morning), but I just shut the lid of the pc and go to the kitchen. The moment I live my desk I know I’m done and I won’t be coming back to this desk until next day. On the weekend I put my personal laptop on top of the work one so I know even if I’m sitting on the same desk, I’m doing non work stuff (like writing this post).
Idea 3 – Do breaks! You would do breaks to speak with your colleagues or to get another coffee, so why not do the same at home? I do reserve slots on my day to chit chat with my colleagues, sometimes we even do camera content. The current favourite is to show who has the funniest background. I can’t recommend this enough, but try to connect to people and reach out to them to ensure they are ok.
Idea 4 – Find “a space” that will be your working area – When lockdown started, I didn’t had a desk. My husband already worked from home for a few years so he had the office and no space for me so sit and place my pc. So my office for a good 4 months was my daughters IKEA chair and I would have the laptop on my legs.
Eventually I ended up buying a small desk and moving some furniture around so it would fit in the living room. I know the concept of having an office in your home it’s something which most of us can’t really accomodate, so just find a corner in the house where you can fit a small desk and a comfy chair so you can work. If it’s the kitchen table (because no space for even the tiniest desk) then ensure you get a comfortable chair for your back. I currently have a corner of the living room which has my desk and a frame on top of the desk and I have a plant too. But if you’re spending so many hours, make it comfortable and accessorize it to your taste. You can even put some shoes around like you would in the office (or not).
Idea 5 – Make the most of it! – If you are not in meetings you can have your favourite songs playing in the background and you won’t be disturbing your colleagues and no need for headsets, you might even squeeze in a quick dance! Do you need to make the laundry? Then just go for it. Comfy clothing? Yes bring it on.
Idea 6 – Let go of any perfectionist idea – There’s no time for it and you’ll have to compromise somewhere, so just accept what is key and what needs to stay behind and not be done, because no one can have it all, no matter how many books say “here’s 5 leaders that have it all”, they don’t.
Finally I would take the time to think about what you believe the new normal will be and what you would like to maintain even when we return to normal life. For me it was already clear I wanted to work regularly from home a few days (prior to know this was going to be happening) and now I’m convinced this is what I would like to do so I can take my little one to school and can help out with dinner (which I never did in the past during the week).
Also, I used to use my commutes to read books, so I’ve decided to shift that to the evenings before falling asleep and quite happy to have done 17 books already from January to now.
So what’s your new normal? Whatever it is, stay sane.
FYI, you're TBB 