As COVID rates continue to fall and vaccine uptake rises, businesses are increasingly grappling with questions around return-to-work.
Apple demanded employees come back three days per week starting in September. Google announced a “hybrid work plan”, allowing some workers to spend three days per week in the office and two teleworking. These moves have prompted a flurry of activity among Silicon Valley counterparts. In the tech world, where remote work is arguably the most feasible (demonstrably so, after the past year), a perceived lack of flexibility on the part of one company opens the door for others to recruit potentially disgruntled employees. (Twitter, for example, made headlines in May when Jack Dorsey proclaimed employees “can now work from home forever”.) Tech legend Marc Andreessen of Mosaic and Netscape fame has likewise posited that the rise of remote work represents “a permanent civilizational shift.”
Still, old habits die hard. Companies in more traditional corners like Wall Street and corporate America generally have adopted varied and in some cases far more hesitant approaches. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan recently announced that the financial firm will, with 30-days advance notice, begin bringing vaccinated employees back to the office in September. Big law is a mix of hybrid options and phased approaches, with firms like Baker Hostetler shooting for a firmwide full reopening on Sept. 7.
While COVID has shone a spotlight on questions around remote work, they aren’t new. Way back in 2012, then-new CEO Marissa Mayer stirred the pot when she required Yahoo! Employees into the office. Why? “Face-to-face interaction among employees fosters a more collaborative culture – a hallmark of Google’s approach to its business,” per the internal memo cited by The New York Times.
The difference now appears to be that employees may have the upper hand. As the COVID pandemic recedes, millions are quitting their jobs in pursuit of more money and greater flexibility. In May, more than 700,000 white-collar workers left their jobs – the highest monthly number ever, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fed up with feeling overworked or generally burned out after a grueling 2020, work-from-home provisions are a key part of their calculus. Nearly half of workers under 40 said they might leave their job unless their employer let them continue to work from home at least part of the time, a Bloomberg-Morning Consult survey found.
Where then does that leave employers? While overarchingly, some industries can operate with workers anyplace, in others in-person interaction is important. Take ours, for example – we’re content creators and in sales, so humans engaging IRL sparks the work that we do. But the core issue with post-COVID back-to-work isn’t really how hard employees will or won’t work, or whether creativity that will or won’t flow.
It’s not just what you decide about work-from-home or flex/hybrid policies. It’s how you communicate it, and who you bring into that decision-making process. First, don’t make “top down” decisions. Rather, engage all levels of staff to gain input and consensus to help map this delicate journey. Then, after you decide on your plan, communicate by cascading it through the organization, prepping managers and supervisors with prescriptive talk tracks to commonly asked questions. Next, be sure to communicate your plan in person. I get the irony here. By in person, I mean through Zoom or Teams. Then follow it up in writing. Finally, be sure to explain that this plan is fluid and will likely evolve and change several times over the next year as we all re-patriate ourselves back into our physical working environments.
We all need to admit that “office” work will be forever, indelibly changed post-COVID. With a few exceptions, hybridized environments are going to be the norm, as will be specificity around why and how people should be together.
As US job growth picks up amid the COVID downturn, employees know a company’s willingness to offer them flexibility comes down to culture, personal responsibility and trust. The message around how a company chooses to operate and work with their employees to strike the right balance goes beyond the tactical day-to-day to the lifestyle and mission these newcomers choose to engage, and companies who do this well will safeguard their reputation and lay the groundwork for a committed workforce for years to come.
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June 25, 2021 at 11:08PM
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Back To Work: What Really Matters Amid The Scramble To Go Hybrid And Return Employees To Their Desks Amidst The “Great Resignation” - Forbes
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