Killing flexible working?

Swipe back or get fired

The fight has become real and it’s definitely not a stress free one. These are the news we have seen over the last few months

So it seems we have to surrender to the wishes of the big companies and all return to pre-pandemic and be back in the office.

But why are companies demanding employees to be back?

They mostly cite that in-person collaboration is invaluable and it fosters innovation. The reality is, there is probably a political aspect of local governments pushing bigger companies to bring their employees back as it hurts the economic centers and the businesses around them if people work from home.

In my mind there is an aspect of trust too. Let’s face it, for a lot of people they don’t trust what they don’t see and they believe if employees are home they are slacking and not being as productive, even though again and again there are studies that comfirm otherwise.

The impact for the employees

While there are indeed very good reasons to be in the office as a team, to brainstorm together and foster more personal relationships or welcome new joiners into the team, companies have failed to really articulate where it really improves performance.

Working from home ended up blurring the lines between rest and work with many employees struggling to switch off and working much longer hours. Yet it is interesting that despite all of this, the reality is they still prefer to maintain such arrangements. After all flexibility is the key. Being able to make a choice and adapt to the circumstances can be quite invaluable.

However, what they are being told is that if they don’t swipe your card they could be fired (said no motivational speed ever). This adds a lot of unwanted stress, unless you a) prefer to be in the office and b) you actually believe the reasons the company is sharing with you to return.

Sourced from: https://www.usemultiplier.com/blog/empower-employees-to-fight-return-to-office-stresses

The fight back

The reality if employees are not convinced of the ask so they are fighting back. A good summary can be found in this BBC article here

Not even the looming recession or mass layoffs which have been seen in the news the last few months are stopping “the fight”. If you know something works why would you give up on it?

The fight is not new, has just escalated since covid. For years many working parents have tried to get some flexibility to be able to support their families, but it was a long lost battle in which one of the couple (mostly the mum) would give up working to be able to support the kids while the other half would put on all the long hours in the office.

Will be interesting to see how the fight continues and to which extend employees will get united (beyond specific areas where union exists – anyone living in the UK will know of all the strikes we’ve had for more than 1 year). Will they go to the office as asked but then stop adding all those extra hours in the evenings and consequently reducing productivity? Or will they quit and search for places where the flexibility is being offered?

After all, right now we have globalization and the world can be your oyster.

Be careful with what you wish for

As we have seen in several studies, productivity had increased with flexible working and remote working. On average, companies have benefited from increased performance and productivity as the days have become a lot longer even if employees need to do breaks middle of the day (go to the doctor, get the kids from school).

If employees are doing something to tick a box, it won’t certainly make them any more collaborative or innovative, on the contrary. Instead, they will use their commute to search for companies which still offer the flexibility they value. And they will jump out when the opportunity comes.

The companies that will succeed long term, are those that are willing to embrace new ways of working, thinking and collaborating together and are not bound by the rules of the past. Adapt or die.

Further reading

• Time here
• Forbes here
• Multiplier here

Other articles I wrote on the topic

• Leaders of tomorrow
• The great resignation
• Return to the office
• You can’t have it both ways
• I don’t trust you therefore I need to see you
• The future of the office

You can’t have it both ways

It’s really interesting to realize that the “new world ” we were expecting – a world post covid – looks more and more like old world.

There is a major difference though…. we’ve seen how it could be!

Before covid

Most of us were in the office Mon – Friday with a clear separation of home and office modes. We would leave the office and call it a day.

Some of us had worked the odd Friday from home and it felt amazing, but it was more an exception rather than a rule.

You were expected to be in the office every working day no matter what and going to doctor was something you had to plan months in advance, it felt almost has hard as if you were asking if you could be naked in there.

We didn’t know any other reality

During covid

We suddenly had to work from home full time, from our kitchens, from our sofas, from our beds. We missed our daily commute where we could listen to podcasts, music, catch up with your favourite series or just sleep. It all blurred up.

The number of emails increased like a never ending tsunami.

New joiners would come and leave without meeting anyone in the flesh.

The instant chat was bipping like a disco.

Meetings became the modos operandis. If you need something, book a meeting.

As a consequence, most of us ended up working longer and longer hours. The time spent on cummuting went into working, with the flexibility to take / get the kids to school, take them to their after school clubs or even a change to say hi to the neighbours.

Post Covid Year 1

As covid rules started to ease, it was the age of hybrid working. At the beginning there was quite a lot of freedom. People were encouraged to try to return to the office and for many of us it was pleasent to return back a few days to interact with the colleagues. The coffee chit chat was back, it felt refreshing but also less productive.

Where we stand now

Bit by bit, we are being asked to be there full time. Why? I don’t quite know. The only thing I can think of is because the ones making the decisions don’t know any other way. I struggle to compreenhed why companies can’t embrace flexibility. It works both ways!

You can’t expect your workes to do the same hours they were doing from home AND return more often to the office.

An article from guardian (here) says that more than a third of the workers would quite if they were asked to return full time.

Give me an article that shows that being in the office increases productivity

Yeah I’m waiting…..

No?

Here’s some that shows remote working does:

• Business news daily https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-more-productive.html
• And another here

There’s really good reasons teams should get together in the office – at least once in a while:

• To establish relationships
• To welcome a new joiner – and here I would suggest different team members rotate the days so that the new joiners gets to interact with everyone in the team, get to ask questions and as a consequence learn from different people.
• As I wrote in the future of the office here the office should be it’s own experience, with a valid reason why it makes sense to go. Celebrate success together, team lunch, team brainstorming, you name it.
• I tell you what is not a good reason: To tick a box and because the ones on the top making a decision can’t embrace new ways of thinking.

Why are people reticent to embrace being back in the office more often:

• Because it’s expensive – yeah my friends, it’s expensive to go to work even if you bring your own breakfast, lunch and snacks
• Transport is totally unreliable – As I type, I just discovered there is another train strike next week in the UK with only 1 train an hour in my area. There is no way I would be able to drop / pick the kids from school.
• Because we don’t see the value in it. When I go to the office I want to chit chat to my colleagues, which is the point of going right? But this means I am less productive or sometimes I don’t even get the chance given I’m in the office while in back to back meetings with a remote team all over the world.
• It’s exhausting – the time spending in commuting is no small ask. On a good day it’s a good 2h20 per day lost, which I could have used to sleep and / or work a bit more while having the chance to be more present with my own family.
• No infrastructure – Where do we leave the kids? Let’s face it, costs are going up everywhere, we can’t just simple fund enough after care hours. It’s also not fair on the kids to leave them in after school care until 19h because the parents don’t have a choice. The way I see it, we should embrace decentralization and having smaller centers close to schools and embrace community life.

I’m pretty sure this list could be augumented a lot.

I am curious to see what will happen to the talent pool once they send more applications to companies offering flexibility. I do believe we have the power to strike back and change the paradigm of work. We can work differently, there are other ways, not just the old way.

We need to embrace the leadership skills of tomorrow and not be afraid to do different. We need different, we need better!

@champagnecruze

*Pulls up Linkedin – Which one are you? 😂 #generations #corporate #workhumor #workfromhome #relateable

♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

Return to the office – An update

I guess I wrote back about the return to the office last year before everything went pear shape again with Omicron. So here’s an updated view after returning on a weekly basis.

Disclaimer: I am fortunate enough that I can return at a more smoother pace (e.g. once a week) and don’t have a rule (yet!) that I need to be there X number of days like other areas of the business.

So here’s how a day looks like

Wake up at 05h30 – not used to that anymore. I struggle to open my eyes and comprehend which planet I’m on. I realize it must be Monday and indeed I have to get up (a good 5 or 10m later).

Leave the house at 06h20 for a 20m walk to the station. Fortunately the sunrise is earlier and I feel less afraid to walk in the dark so early in the morning. I rarely see a soul.

The train commute is pretty nice. I manage to read on the train – a part I quite miss from the old days.

I reach the office at around 07h20 (1h after I left home). It is very quiet and I really enjoy that. I have time to eat my breakfast at my desk, reply to a few emails and prepare my day ahead before I go into meetings and more meetings.

At 08h30 I call home so I can speak to my daughter. I feel sad I can’t take her to school. This was quite a big change for all of us, where I can now be part of the daily routines around my daughter and take her or get her from school. I rarely had the chance to do that before given the commute times to / from home.

From 09h onwards it’s meeting crazy but I can say it felt so nice to have the team meetings in person. We were just so happy to see each other in person or having a quick lunch together. We are social “animals” after all. We develop in a pack, by working together. This is at the source of our evolution, so even the most introverts will miss some sort of face to face interactions.

We’ve all agreed that if we could teleport to the office we would go more often.

One item I find myself doing quite badly in the office, is barely drinking any water as the ladies room is too far from my desk and not something you can go quickly and come back while in a meeting. So it’s not uncommon to leave with headache.

At 16h00 I shut down everything to catch the train home so at around 17h10 I’m back home for any final meetings and close any outstanding work. In the past I would leave at 17h30 and that was it, no more working after, but I struggle with that. Also I guess I’m not mentally ready to commute into rush hour. Not yet.

By 21h00 I don’t know again which planet I’m on and I struggle to stay awake.

Future of working

I wrote about it a few times and I will say I have not changed my point of view at all. The future needs to be flexible. I don’t believe there is one size that fits all. We all have our own needs and we all achieve efficiency and productivity in different ways. Some people say they are more efficient in the office because they get less distractions (e.g. chores to do or kids), I am less efficient in the office because I find myself wanting to interact to people and loose more time move round and about plus the commuting back.

The technology is out there, the whole covid situation has shown to the most sceptical of the leaders that teams can work remotely. Yes there is a lot you develop while working physically together. Going to the office needs to be an experience on its own that helps to drive a very specific purpose than the nature of the work done at home.

I do believe that companies that do not embrace flexible working – and come on, flexible working is not the odd day working from home – will fail to attract the best talent or retain those that they have.

Companies that offer flexibility will get flexibility in return and an increase in productivity. Also if people work from different environments, that will encourage diverse ways of tackling new situations and challenges.

So cheers to flexibility, we all need it. If you don’t trust your employees, look yourself in the mirror.

I went back to the office and here’s what I found

Yap, after 19 months I went back to the office. Luckily for me it was my choice to actually return as opposed of being imposed to be back 2 or 3 days a week (or even the full week!).

Here’s what I found:

1 – I did enjoy my morning commute despite an uber early start. I left the house at 06h15 and walked the 20m to the station and even managed to arrive 10m before the train. It was busier than I was expecting for a 06h40 train, but still quite manageable. I didn’t read much like I used to as I just wanted to watch through the windows.

2 – The best part of the day was actually the experience of being in the office (despite me battling the whole day to try to connect to the headset as no one could hear me in the meetings – seems sound quality is better at home). In my “section” I was the only one, the only people passing by was the cleaning staff or the coffee staff. I managed to get a desk with window view and could watch people passing by downstairs as if it was a normal day. I even had my first face to face meeting! I think quite a lot of people are really missing those face to face interactions, even the introvers like myself. I almost went lunch outside with another colleague but given the business of meetings just managed a panini at my desk. (Did anyone notice the prices going up by quite a lot or was I the only one???)

3 – On the way back home though was a different story. It really felt almost proper rush hour. The trains were quite busy, you had people running to the door and that’s when I’ve realized that actually I’m not ready to be back on a regular basis. Yes I’m craving after work pub as much as everyone else, but am I really ready? Don’t think I am. If I bring the virus home and my daughter is off-school I would really struggle to work big time. If I will be back? Probably, but not regularly – not while I can avoid it.

Which now brings me to the point of: why are people being forced to be back?

And I’m referring to groups of people that can do their work remotely (and are not mandated by any regulator to physically be in the office) – for a lot of people work from home is definitely not a choice. But for those that is….

Why?

Why can’t leaders recognize that if you want flexibility you have to give flexibility back. The employees with a good transfereable (and sellable) skillset will jump to whichever company allows them flexibility. Do you really want to loose your best resources because you can’t trust them to work from home? Were they actually rolling their fingers for the last 18 months or were people in general working a lot more? (I wrote about it here on “I don’t trust you therefore I need to see you“)

Is it because leaders tend to be extroverts and therefore do not recognize there are a lot of introverts out there that feel a lot better and more productive being at home without all the social exposure in the office? (good article about it here)

Seriously it should be a choice and leaders should have try to find the best solution for their team, not just what’s better for them as individuals!

I find that it’s up to us the younger generations to show there are so many other alternatives that work for the company. Going to the office should be an experience by itself, for team bonding and for specific reasons like a dynamic workshop and removing people from the day to day activities and discuss specific topics together (my views on the new office here).

Just because it’s the way things were done before it doesn’t mean they need to go back exactly as they were!

Return to the office

I’m pretty sure most of you have seen this viral video already, but I’ll share it anyway

Hands up if you feel like this dad! I certainly do!

Why does it feel so hard to be back into the office?

We got used to work from home and work with comfortable clothing. While we are social creatures, we do adapt pretty easily, so we’ve managed to adapt to be able to hide ourselves. Even with the meeting here and there on camera, we didn’t had to pretend to be spot on at all times. And this could be all the way from working on our comfortable clothing (dear PJ’s I’m looking at you), to not having to hide the tired look from your face.

I know there’s a lot of people out there who would love to be back into the office and to the hustle and bustle, sushi takeaways for lunch and all the lot, well I don’t. Well, not on a regular basis that is.

If I go back to the office – and I am so lucky I don’t have to return right now – I will struggle to take my daughter to work, I won’t be able to have lunch on my table with my husband (even if it’s just 15m). I won’t be able to give my daughter a hug as she comes from school and I won’t be able to get so much s* done at work either!

I know a lot of people are having to return even if on a flexible basis not because their work always demands that to be the case but because there’s still a lack of trust on the employees (as I wrote here).

I will actually be in the office this month for one random day (mainly to see if I can find my shoes and the stuff I left in the office and because I’m curious to know how it feels like to commute back) so I can write all about it another day.

I do hope somehow we move forward and drive towards a new flexible future that works for everyone (I wrote some of my views here).

Happy Sunday (because there’s no happy Mondays).