Maybe I’m just very lucky. I had plenty of jobs in my younger years where remote wasn’t an option – waitressing, geriatric care and factory work – but since starting my professional career almost 18 years ago, I’ve always had jobs where, if I wanted to work from home occasionally, I was trusted to do so.
In the words of one former Director of mine, “G, if I didn’t see you for six weeks, I wouldn’t worry. I know you’d turn up in week seven with the [mandatory carbon disclosure] filed, a detailed report for the Chief Officer team, and a cracking plan for the rest of the year”.
As the schools prepare for start of term, the ongoing debate of home versus office has again hit my radar.
I’m always surprised by the emotional charge that seems to accompany this conversation, with employers pointing out that working together, as a team, used to be considered normal and – in many cases - is actually still what staff are contracted to do. The employees on the other hand point to lack of flexibility, changed expectations post-pandemic and pressing costs of childcare.
Of course, in the example of permissive flexibility I gave above, I’d already earned my manager’s trust. I expect he’d have been less accommodating if I hadn’t already shown a natural bias towards sticking with a task until the job is done.
Or maybe, he hoped that working from home would mean I asked fewer difficult questions. I’ve always been the popular one!
But most managers would say they trust their team – after all, “I hired them”.
So why do people become so impassioned about returning to the office?
The Covid-19 pandemic was not a happy time, but every cloud has a silver lining, and for people who had never before been able to work from home, the shimmering side-effect of the lockdown was a sudden window into a different world, a more flexible construct.
Undoubtedly there are those who abused this benefit. Who took the opportunity to log on but switch off. Most did not.
The problem isn’t really whether professional individuals can deliver on the projects they are tasked. The problem is poor managers and an office culture that’s forgotten our tribal roots.
All jobs have natural cycles of peaks and troughs. Ask any accountant planning for year end, retailer checking stock for Christmas, or teacher prepping for important exams. It’s typical to have times at work with very little to do, punctuated by periods of frantic activity.
Ebb and flow is not just normal, it suits our nature. We need occasional adrenaline from meeting a challenge to feel fulfilled, but we also need time to manage our energy and regain our strength.
After all, curing mammoth meat ready for winter can be blooming hard work.
Sadly, somewhere along the line in our shift from agrarian to industrial to commercial culture, we started to train our managers to believe that a productive forcework is one where all our time is spent in a steady state of robotic output.
Under the suspicious gaze of insecure leaders, millions of office workers pretend to be busy, even at times when they’re not.
Such a pretence results in a slow decline in output over time, as teams get used to spinning things out, and taking the long-cut. This obviously has a deleterious effect on business: tasks take longer, costs to serve increase, quotes to clients climb ever upwards to cover those rising costs, and the whole corporate system – bit by bit - grinds gradually slower.
As well as being harmful to profit, management by timepiece totally sucks for people.
A culture where staff feel the need to keep up a constant pretence of productivity creates the conditions for psychological or emotional struggles. If apply ourselves deeply and earn the feeling of achievement from completing a complicated demand, we retain our sense of purpose.
For those in this trap of being valued for presenteeism over production, working from home came as massive relief. Away from the office, without their screen under constant surveillance, staff began to lean into the natural ebb and flow of their work. This shift might have been subconscious, but we felt it nonetheless.
So what would I do, to encourage people to sit side by side on a regular basis?
Humans have designed societal structures around contribution to the tribe for as long as we have walked on solid ground. And it is precisely this history I think we should tap into.
Most people, in any job, in any sector, could name the teams or individuals who don’t make useful contribution – or at least, not as useful as they could or should.
Even if management don’t admit it to themselves for fear that they’d need to have a “difficult conversation”, deep down, they know. They know who thinks first about themselves, and who will happily roll up their sleeves and share with the group.
Whether it’s the person who’s always “far too busy” to update their customer files, or the one who hears a request for a report to be redrafted and claims it to be a deep personal attack. The rest of team suffers when they don’t pull their weight.
If we can’t trust someone to deliver the work they are tasked with, efficiently and effectively, we shouldn’t keep them on the team.
Once we remove that culture of self, we can start to employ techniques from centuries past. We build a village.
A village where everyone has a different talent. All these talents are useful and, importantly, used. We each play to our strengths. We also play for the parish. We understand the cycles of our employment, and support one another during seasons of high demand. Sometimes the blacksmith drops tools to help the farmers with harvest.
We also, sometimes, just play. We have festivals and even whole weeks where we take a leisurely approach to work.
Playfulness is essential. The ability to tease each other respectfully, to laugh when you need a release. After all, our best ideas come to the fore when we don’t try to force them.
The other must-have ingredient is teamship. Shared responsibilities, group projects. The knowledge that if my workload is high, my colleagues will chip in. The knowledge that they will hold me to account if I don’t do the same for them.
We don’t need comfy chairs, or complicated coffee machines. We don’t need Friday fuddles* or team table-tennis tournaments – although break out room perks are always welcomed.
For staff to accept, or even look forward to, days in the office, we need to work less like robots and more like humans.
Humans are designed to hunt in packs. To use everybody’s strengths and to allot work accordingly. Then to relax together, when the work is done, charging our bodies and minds ready for the next battle.
Work from Home versus Return To Office is a debate that shows no sign of going away any time soon.
Whichever we choose, we, as Business Leaders, need to accept the occasional workload lull as a positive thing.
A slow day in the office allows people to breathe. To think. To play. To produce.
As always, wishing you love and profit,
G
*fuddle: a Yorkshire word derived from “food huddle” to describe a in-office social activity usually over lunchtime, where each member of the team contributes a different dish. These could be co-ordinated from a list, or for the more adventurous, pot-luck.