Working from home or stuck at home? The polarising realities of the great ‘return to work’
As autumn embeds, giving us its annual gift of the cough and cold season in a much more treacherous way than usual, even the tentative steps taken to get back to office means a clear gap in employee experience is emerging.
The difference between those who can, and feel ready to, return to office versus those who cannot or don’t is clear. Because of this, I seem to be having a lot of conversations that are exploring the question of how we can help those who are still home based to stay feeling connected.
Typically, in answering that question businesses have several barriers to overcome:
- The rainbows have faded, or they are gone completely from peoples windows, as has our enthusiasm for Thursday night connection with neighbours as we clap our NHS. The same trend can be seen in workplaces, the initial burst of social zooms and team quizzes have started to die down. Numbers have dwindled and sessions dropped.
- Our enthusiasm in building confidence in the value and security of getting back to office means we don’t notice how we are isolating those who can’t do it. Every message from the CEO saying they were delighted to be back in the office, or tweet about #connecting or #makingthingshappen, can have the opposite effect for those not able to engage.
- We forget the negatives of staying at home as we mourn losing the positive in our own return to work. In a recent conversation, I was shocked to hear that the shielding person I was talking to had been told by a colleague that they were lucky to still have an excuse not to commute. The total lack of appreciation of the cost in social isolation, disconnection from purpose and anxiety for their loved one’s health in the current context astounded me.
So, what can we do to help improve the experience those ‘stuck at home’?
- Set collective goals for how we want work to feel, not how you want it to look. Let’s face it, we are already in world where local downs and controls and seismic shifts in government guidance happen in a matter of days are our reality. If we try to sell one vision of how work will look over the next 6 months, we will be disappointed. Focus more on the core experience you want to create with your team and explore with them how you can work in partnership to create that experience.
- Facilitate informal conversations – It may not be viable to have a quiz night every week anymore but consider what you can support to replace that. Can you encourage teams or project groups with isolating or shielding members to host informal catch ups or routine update conversations that help keep everyone informed and connected on progress or required support?
- Watch your comms – Flip your bids to encourage people back to the office into a focus on partnering with you people in creating a new normal that will work for the vast range of needs and pressures your people are facing. Make sure you consider and engage those still working from home. Acknowledge and discuss the work being done to keep everyone connected. Remember those daily or weekly briefings during lock down, consider what made them so important then and check if any of those things still stand to decide what parts of those you want to keep doing.
- Role-model fostering connections with all – It is so easy to drop back into the habits of using the informal and accessible connections we get from just being near others and forget that some of the people we used to do that with are no longer in the office with us. When you are making decisions or gathering insights remember to see past those you bump into in the office and think about how you ensure you connect with and involve those at home. Take the time to get their views.
- Make time in your diary to be available to others – one of the biggest grumbles I’ve heard from those still working from home is the challenge of getting space in diaries of colleagues. Think about how accessible you are, can you create some space where you make yourself open to those you can’t just grab you (at a 2m distance obviously) as you pass their desk to pop to the loo.
The biggest thing we need to remember in this time, is how individual the needs of our people are, so whatever we are doing, we must not only be driven by what we would want in the same circumstance, but ensure we are really being analytical and planned in identifying what people with those vast range of needs would benefit from.
I’d love to hear your views on what is or isn’t working for you. Comment here or feel free to give me a shout on Paulab@employeeexperienceproject.com or T:07572 480829
