The WFH Revolution will not be Twitch Streamed
Disclaimer: I have read a number of comments on this topic that all say the same thing so let’s get it out of the way now — No, not all jobs can be done remotely. However for those that can be done remotely, this article is for you.
I’ve been working remotely for the last sixteen months and despite some stress brought on by homeschooling or no childcare options for a few weeks/months I have to say I love it.
I’ve always enjoyed working from home — because of two big (at least to me) benefits.
Benefit #1: No commute
Before the pandemic my commute was like many others. Up at stupid o’clock in the morning so that I could get the dog sorted, the kids fed, myself dressed and if I was feeling dangerous maybe even shaved (a time consuming activity that made me miss a train more than once by seconds). Then it was bundle everyone into the car, drop the CEO of the partnership off for her train while I brought the kids to creche. A mad dash back to the station to catch my train. Crammed into a carriage, fighting for elbow space, so that I could stare at the sweat covered walls for thirty minutes. Rushed breakfast at my desk reading the nightly mails and into work mode.
So carefree, so stress free. No, wait — it wasn’t. Repeating this in reverse then for the homeward trip always resulted in a nap on the sofa being required after dinner to have some energy levels for ‘downtime’ before going to bed and doing it all over again.
A nap that was basically taking time away from being with my kids and normally happened without me even realising it. I would sit down on the sofa for a minute, to catch my breath, and blink…then be woken thirty minutes later.
BC (Before Covid) I tried to do at least one day a month from home for sanity reasons. It meant a later start to my day, but still having the kids dropped at creche. It meant time to eat my breakfast while chatting to my dog and then reading the nightly emails. It meant finishing work later then normal but still having time to pick up the kids without it being a big rush from the office to the train to the creche.
It meant no naps on the sofa — more play time with the family.
With the pandemic I’ve been able to do the same five days a week. Yes, as I pointed out, there were stressful periods. Particularly as we tried to entertain two children and do our jobs. Juggling parenting and work in the same eight hours is no easy task, but juggle we did. When the options of childcare returned the working day became a breeze. Up later than stupid o’clock, breakfast with the family, drop off at creche, read the nightly mails and away we go. Finishing later then normal and still having time to spend with the family.
‘Later then normal’ — I’ve used that phrase twice now and I think this is the key thing a lot of the ‘Return to the office’ (RTTO) Managers are not realising. If a person has to collect their children then working in an office means there is a hard cut off point every day. I’m not entirely sure when it happened, but 9–5 jobs morphed into 9–6,7,8 jobs overnight. This isn’t something that works for parents. Chances are working parents are running for a train/bus so they can make the last pick up.
But if they are working from home and the last pick up is still 6pm well that’s a different story.
The RTTO Managers need to start looking at these ‘pros’ of the remote worker instead of the perceived ‘cons’. It can make the difference between somebody staying with your company and somebody looking for a remote job — particularly now they have seen what a remote job actually looks like.
Benefit #2: No distractions
Yes, offices are social places. But I do not buy into this myth being perpetuated by the RTTO crowd that ‘random interactions in the hallway lead to great ideas’. Just as WFH is not for everyone, random distractions are also not for everyone. One of my pet peeves about the office was when people would just drop down to your desk to ask for updates on things. Open plan offices are the worst for this. I had heard before that there was an unwritten rule if a person was wearing headphones it should be considered a ‘do not disturb’ in open plan offices, but the reality is people think a tap on the shoulder to ask for an update that could be requested via email or <insert instant message application here> is acceptable.
What these distractions do is derail productive work.
As to the ‘new idea’ theory — I myself come up with ideas when I have quiet around me. I’ve come up with good ideas while on a Zoom call with two of my peers and we just tossed thoughts around.
Hallway aren’t the crucible of idea creation — people are. Give people ways to communicate and they will come up with ideas, location be damned.
In my current company there is a culture of ‘coffee calls’ — thirty minute calls designed to not talk about work but keep relationship building going. From these calls great ideas have come — not a hallway in sight.
But then why are so many articles popping up about the return to the office?
The Experiment Has Failed
It seems that despite the Great Work From Home Experiment of 2020, which was performed in less than ideal conditions to great productive success, there are still people trying to say it was a failure and normal service should resume. They have lists that detail why it is a failure.
Employees saying they are stressed working and minding the kids. That they are not able to go out and about after work and miss socialising. That the current health situation is getting them down.
Newsflash — those issues are not likely to happen during normal times. People cannot go out and about because everything is locked down. They are stressed doing parenting and work at the same time because creches are closed and companies haven’t changed deadlines to factor in stressed parents. These are not the pristine conditions an experiment of this nature should be ran in. To truly see if the WFH Experiment has failed we need to not be doing it under pandemic conditions — let’s run it in 2022 when everyone is vaccinated and things are open again and people can work without their bundles of joy running under foot. Then see how many of these ‘valid reasons’ for going back to the office remain. The way I view them they are straw-person arguments from the RTTO crowd.
And again, to stress, remote work isn’t for everyone. But the choice of it should be.
Micro Managers
These are the biggest supporters of returning to the office, those managers who cannot assign a task and trust it will be done on time. They need to see bums in seats and assume if they can’t see you sweating you’re not working. I recently read an article were a manager of this type said people were ‘entitled’ now and if they couldn’t binge two hours of Netflix during the working day they complained.
I haven’t binged two minutes of Netflix during the working day. My line manager trusts me to get the job done, I get the job done. Then I finish up at a normal hour and don’t commute to spend more time with my children. Managers that are making sweeping general statements such as this person don’t trust their employees to work out of sight.
Hire the Talent
The remote work model means you have a much bigger pool of talent to hire from now. If you don’t need people to be in the office you can literally hire them anywhere. I worked for Sun Microsystems back in the day (kids, ask your parents) and there were two permanent remote workers on the team. They’d be in the office once a quarter for a few days but it worked and worked well. Why limit your employee pool to those willing to commute for two hours a day in one direction. The people have shown that we can do this from our homes — embrace that.
I’ve often said that I don’t care where people get the work I assign out done as long as they get it done. If I ask for something to be ready by a certain date and it isn’t, but I was not kept up to speed about delays, well that’s a manager conversation to have with an employee. However you will be surprised at just how little oversight people need when they are treated like adults.
I’ve gotten in trouble in former companies for having WFH arrangements with people on my team when the official policy did not allow for WFH. What was the end result? People on my team trusted me more, performed better and delivered on time.
Then as other teams saw it working with my team, they started to request it as well from their managers. Soon policies were changed, but it took a change agent to come in just go against the status quo first.
Sometimes management knows best.
Expand the timezone
In my line of work one of the big things to have is a ‘follow the sun’ model. In the past this has meant hiring entire teams in different timezones so that batons could be passed as the Earth spun and people went home. But imagine for a second if you could hire your team from all over the place. Yes there are some logistical elements to work out with having teams in multiple timezones but we are a smart race, we can do it if we put our mind to it.
In my former company I had people based mostly in Ireland with a couple in the US and one then in Poland. It worked perfectly, all it takes is a manager willing to manage outside the box. Never once did I have an issue with tasks not being completed because I wasn’t able to see the folk doing the work — the trust worked.
People are not resources
This sub-title I feel is an important one. People sometimes get referred to as resources when discussing teams and projects.
“Oh we cannot do that because we don’t have the resources.”
“How many resources are you looking to hire?”
Resources are things that cannot move and think for themselves. We’re talking metal, trees, oil. Those are resources.
People on the other hand are people and if they are being told that the way they worked for the last year, to the benefit of the company, is suddenly not viable anymore well there is many interesting conversations coming in the future for some managers. If working remotely is only something that can be done when it suits a company and not an employee watch as those ‘resources’ walk out the door to find companies more trusting.
I feel this isn’t a conversation that is going to just disappear. As more companies ‘demand’ people return to the office more people are going to evaluate just how important the office was to them in the end. There will be some losers in this revolution for sure, but something tells me they won’t be the ‘resources’.
