For the past 18 months or so, publications such as Business Insider, Tech Crunch, even Forbes have been writing nonstop articles on the topics of employees demanding to work remotely, refusing to return, or flat out leaving their jobs due to being dissatisfied for a variety of reasons.
There is some truth to what these publications write; however, the lines in the sand aren’t anywhere near clearly as drawn as they’d have you believe. As a consultant who interacts with clients in all industries, I’ve observed how they return to ‘normal’ operations or create a new ‘normal’ for their companies. Managers, bosses, and company owners are uneasy about allowing their employees to work remotely for fear of losing control, and thus, the future lies somewhere in the middle, in what is being called hybrid-office.
Most companies I interact with are owned and/or run by Gen-Xers, both male and female. They tend to have kids in high school or college. To them, work has been a place, mostly, and you perform work in that place. Still, more specifically, it means constant personal interaction, scheduled conference room meetings, stop-by-cubicle (or office) meetings, and even the impromptu, meet-in-the-hallway on the way to the latrine meetings. This is considered ‘work’ — lots of meetings, lots of dialogue, lots of face-to-face.
When these companies all went remote, most of the Xers business owners I spoke to seemed pleased with how things were going for their businesses. The world didn’t come to an end when they couldn’t sit around a conference room and yap for large chunks of the day. Work was getting done, and employees were productive. They discovered Teams and Zoom. Everyone started using webcams on laptops they didn’t even know they had. In hindsight, there seemed to be a novelty to it all.
The pandemic dragged on; most of these companies experimented with a return to office plan, then the cases would spike, and everyone would go back home. But one thing was clear, the executives, owners, CEOs, Directors, etc., were not comfortable with this setup, and old habits die hard. Aside from the desire to go back to in-person meetings, they have heavy printing and filing needs. Although primarily unnecessary, it’s just how they’re used to operate. When they entered the business world, that’s how things were done, and they simply aren’t comfortable doing things any other way.
Shifting to the workforce, many of their employees are millennials, and just as the publications mentioned above write about, they prefer to work remotely. There are many reasons for this, but many don’t want to return to the office. Some will begrudgingly go back; most are okay with a hybrid setup, where two or three days are in the office, and then the smallest subset won’t return.
Employers sensing this have decided that the best way to handle it is to compromise on the hybrid setup. My dad used to tell me that a compromise is just a term for two parties not getting what they want. So many of them have been working on this, and if my dad were alive, he’d say, ‘I told you so.’ Below are some of my observations.
Currently, four different generations are present in the workforce, from Boomers to Zoomers, who work side by side, which is a first in history. They coexist, but that’s about it. In my experience, the most significant rift within most companies is not based on race or gender but generational. This rift has only grown deeper now that Boomers and older Gen Xers are working in the office full time. Covid explosion is damned; they’re going to come in, print, and meet. The recurring topic is that the younger workforce, millennials, and Zoomers, are not working; they’re lazy and stay out of sight to avoid doing work.
So now parts of teams are on-premise and others remote. There’s a lot of in-person interaction in the office that the remote users aren’t a part of. As a result, the rift grows as there’s a lot of badmouthing going on. In addition, there are some jobs in a company that can’t be done remotely. Finance people have to come in to print checks, use the check scanner for deposits, access the safe, etc. Operations people come in to check the mail perform routine maintenance. IT techs fix printers and provide end-user support. People to sort mail, send mail, etc. You get the picture.
As the pandemic has dragged on, so has the apathy about doing these parts of their job. Sometimes it means going through the commute just to get the mail. “I’ll just go in tomorrow…”. Procrastination levels have never been higher.
I’ve seen messages in Teams channels such as “If anyone is going in, can you please restart this printer.” There’s nothing wrong with asking for help. There are a lot of ‘favors’ that the remote users ask from the on-premise users, which eventually wears on the on-premise uses and creates dissent.
The generational, cultural, and political view division aside, there are even more complicated logistics such as space planning, mileage/expense reimbursement policies, technical logistics, etc. When you hire new employees, you must provide a flexible setup. Do you have enough cube or desk space if they plan to work in the office full time? What do you do for the hybrid employees? Do you reserve them a cube, or do you build out commuter style, quick plugin stations? What kind of hybrid model do you implement? Do you allow the remote employees to decide what days they want to be in the office, or do you have firm days? While writing this article, I came across this article, and I’m not surprised at all.
The problem with the hybrid work outlined in the article is that the employer is still primarily inflexible. It’s almost as if they just begrudgingly told employees that they could work from home on Tuesday and Thursday and then have to be in the office on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Employees have spoken. They don’t want remote or hybrid work; they want to decide when, where, and how they will work. They want to determine how and where they want to do their job and want management to accept it. Essentially, both parties don’t get what they want. Employers don’t get the finger-on-the-button type of control over their workforce, and the employees don’t really get any flexibility and a sense of power which is what they really want.
If you’re a company decision-maker, owner, or leader, you have several options:
- Stick to your guns. If you’re authoritarian, set in your ways, then come up with a flat set of rules, be very clear with your expectations, and let the chips fall where they may. Expect a lot of turnover. You will likely lose some talent, but no one is irreplaceable. So long as you hire correctly and explain to all your workforce what your expectations are. You also want to try to single out people who *need to work* and not just look for something. If you select this, you won’t feel out of your element, but you’ll probably have a lot of animosity among your ranks. When hiring new employees, you want to identify candidates who *need* their job and depend on it to feed their families. The power balance shifts in your favor if you seek out this type of employee, and you will have the most success with designing your company exactly how you want it to operate.
- Come up with a modified version of the first point, where you’ll set a new, semi-rigid half remote and half on-premise employee presence. This will appease some employees; however, this is just a compromise and may result in neither the management nor the workforce getting what they want.
- Relinquish control and allow your employees to create their schedules, places to work, and work environments. This will require the leadership to really take a leap of faith if they’re not used to this arrangement. So long as you have personnel that has a proven track record of meeting their deadlines, deliverable dates, etc. This should not be a problem.
All three of these scenarios will undoubtedly require some compromises; Some on the part of leadership, some on the employee, and in most cases, from both parties.
The key is transparency and communication with your staff. Don’t be afraid to explain to them that you had just entered into a long-term lease that you may be stuck with, space may not be necessary. If you’re more comfortable interacting with your employees face to face, ask their input as to how both of your wishes can be met. Lastly, you simply won’t be able to accommodate everyone, and as a result, you will have employees resign, and that’s okay.
