Where to work?
How do you work best - from the office or from home? For me, I seem to be the most productive when I work “remotely” - not from the office or from home. Yes, I can be productive from both the office and from home - but I tend to notice that I become even more productive when I’m working from a coffee shop or other remote location. (My favorite “remote office” is The Flying Joe in Perrysburg, OH.) This type of environment allows me to be “alone-together”: I’m alone but the energy and activity within the coffee shop help me to be productive. I realize it is not the same for everyone, but it works for me.
For years, many organizations and managers have avoided having to make the decision about employees working remotely. However, COVID-19 is requiring all organizations to revisit this decision. How do employees work best? What is best for our organization? Talking with a number of leaders and Human Resources professionals, I’m hearing a bit of a mixed bag. Some have realized that their teams can be very productive working remotely and are planning to maintain that format. Others have suggested that the “Zoom” environment does not work for their culture and they plan to bring people back into the office. What’s the right decision?
(Note: I recognize that manufacturing roles cannot be moved to remote so I’m speaking mainly of non-manufacturing roles.)
For companies planning to move to remote work, there are some important considerations:
- Corporate culture: is your corporate culture set up to support remote employees?
- Systems: do you have the IT systems in place to support long-term remote working?
- Management/leadership: do you have the leadership in place to support leading remote teams?
- Employees: have you talked with your team to see how they work best? How are you handling professional development?
- Working space: working remotely doesn’t have to mean working from home. Could an employee work from a shared work space?
There are many more considerations to take into account when considering remote work. And remember, working remotely doesn’t necessarily mean working from home.
Personally, I believe it’s going to be hybrid - a blend of some in-office and some remote. This offers the organization to continue the in-office interaction that may be important to the company culture, but also provides an employee the opportunity to spend time working in an environment that works best for them. Of course, it will depend on the organization and the employee base.
In the end, I believe the focus needs to be on delivering results. If your internal and external contacts are getting what they need, and the culture can support it, where that work happens should not matter.
How do you work best? How is your organization planning to move forward?
I started at a new company in April after the pandemic began, so I haven't even been to the office or met my coworkers in person. They had to learn how to implement new processes quickly at the beginning of the pandemic, as most everything was done on paper and then scanned. Furthermore, the transition occurred at year-end close. It seems to be working well, as I have not heard much in the way of issues. The benefit of having the remote option while also saving lots of paper seems to be an incredible win for the organization. Even though measures are being taken to transition back to the office, they are giving the power to the employees to choose what works for them. We remain well connected as our CFO and managers encourage "socializing" with other coworkers regularly through calls and chat. This can be non-work related, helping boost morale and to check in on the well-being of every employee. We have a department meeting every week led by the CFO and VPs where we have contests, share our hobbies, and ask any questions. We also have a group chat to share pictures, a team step challenge to keep us active, and one team member a week that writes a blog update to the group. Although I started alone, I never feel alone.
We are using CovidComply.com to manage our return to work process. It includes COVID training for all employees, daily employee health checks and reporting, a wizard template to create and publish our own customized COVID mitigation plan, tracking tools, notifications and alerts. Our HR manager monitors, makes updates and manages it all from a simple dashboard. Plus it comes with a digital marketing kit so we can promote our COVID preparedness efforts to our customers and the community. #CovidComply #returntoworksafely #reopening #covid-19 #reopen
Our 250+ caseworkers will be Working from home until at least the end of The Year, and will certainly be A major discussion point in Next year’s contract discussion. Nobody meets in person any more. We all discuss business on virtual platforms from our respective offices.
I've worked in a hybrid of being in the office for things like meetings but mostly from my home, car or a hotel. I like the mix of alone time to work on ideas to share with the group for improvement. I agree that more people will want to work away from the office (especially those open floor plans!) but I'm wondering if managers can adjust. People who were good at certain tasks are often promoted to manager. This is helpful for jumping in to help with tasks and deadlines. I think this kind of manager may need a lot of support to transform into a leader who manages things like communication, developing others, coaching, compassionate accountability and so on. This all comes down to the culture of the organization. Great discussion!
For me the lesson learned is that it’s not about when or where but results. My team has flexibility they didn’t have prior and are knocking it out of the park!