Is Home Working The Elephant In The Room?
Photo by Ferdi Rizkiyanto (Source DeviantArt)
The present Coronavirus crisis has gripped us all with uncertainty and in particular many business are grappling with how the workplace will change in this rapidly changing world. The big elephant in the room for many business owners is how have a remote working policy that recognises its workforce as individuals and empowers its people. So, as a business leader, how do you offer as much flexibility as possible?
This article explores the latest predictions of how the workplace is changing and what that means for you, your people and your business moving forward.
The spirit of the modern age
Before we get going, let's take a step back first. It's not just the coronavirus pandemic that is creating all the mayhem - there's a bigger picture in play to understand! Let me explain:
The spirit of our modern globalised era is reshaping all of us in different ways. There is:
growing distrust in our systems
less disposable income
rising levels of fear in our society
Add to this climate change, Brexit (in the UK), the ongoing march of technology, AI, as well as rising inequality and fewer jobs are all straining our political systems.
And then on top of all that we have the pandemic of course! But, the real issue here is not this current crisis. That has only speeded up what is actually going on everywhere anyway.
Governments have had to wake up and spend more time and money preparing for future global crises. Taxation to pay for recovery will likely squeeze the pay in peoples' pockets even more; ergo, less spending on 'wants', more on 'needs.' Besides, as history moves in cycles, so the real challenge may be adjusting to a rapidly changing world over the long-term.
All this mayhem may have radical knock-on effects on our businesses as well as our personal working lives. Working from home (or possibly local business hubs) more of the time will become a rising trend. There also seems to be a growing interest in rebuilding and reinventing our local communities. So where does this leave business owners and staff alike? - in other words, it’s like an elephant in the room. For staff, where does this leave the daily commute to the office? These are all good questions and they deserve answers -read on.
Perhaps one good thing to come from this dreadful pandemic is it has given us a glimpse of future opportunities that might very well help us build back better businesses.
For example, in the UK more than 60% of the adult working population (42% in the US) have been working from home during this crisis. People have got quite used to this way of working, and with the threat of a second spike looming, we will have to carry on home working for some time to come. Companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Siemens and many more have made the headlines by opting to let employees work from home permanently until after the coming winter of 2021.
Indeed, on thing is for sure there’s a big shake up our conventional view of the workplace coming over the horizon - and it can’t be ignored. Business owners will have to face the elephant in the room thing!
Here are the emerging thinking trends right now:
Building back better businesses
Home working will mean business owners will need to offer as much flexibility as possible
Suppose business leaders today want to stay as leaders tomorrow and be relevant. In that case, they will need to focus on building a community of coworkers where the people-factor matters. Let me explain:
As co-founder of InspiredCEOs (a growing community of small business CEOs), we are supporting leaders to think in different ways. We are supporting one another to work with diversity, and take on new views points. We believe in this rapidly changing world, leaders must shift mindset and attitude to become more flexible and adaptable to the way work will be done.
As a real example, Microsoft recently announced new guidance for remote work and it has potential to change how the company works for years to come:
““Moving forward, it is our goal to offer as much flexibility as possible to support individual work styles, while balancing business needs and ensuring we live our culture.
Summing this up as an attitude, it’s...
Offer as much flexibility as possible”
Up-skilling drives high performance
Soft skills will be critical to drive high performance teamwork.
The coronavirus-crisis forced us to work from home, we quickly realised that virtual coworking sky-rocketed production. Some enlightened CEOs I talk to who 'saw the light' quickly adapted to engaging even more with their people and their needs. And it makes perfect sense to refocus and redefine the way people are managed. For years this has been the elephant in room. But, today, the name of the game will be less traditional hierarchical management of people, favouring more 'self-starting' people types, along with much flatter and less 'managed' structures. Personally, I think this is about high time.
The 'penny dropping - aha' moment here is the case for supporting smarter people. That means spending more cash on upskilling employees. Over the next 3 years, learning 'softer skills' will be the spur to drive high-performance team working. But since the 2008-12 financial crisis (not to mention the accelerating disruption from the digital everything revolution, and for the UK - Brexit of course), up-skilling got pretty much ignored (back to that elephant in the room again). That spending should be a high priority business agenda item moving forward.
Employee Engagement
Employee motivation will redefine itself in the next few years. And finding new ways to encourage synergies from afar is going to become a key leadership trait to nourish our future workforces.
Building meaningful relationships, EQ and empathy with coworkers using virtual meetings will continue to shift the prevailing mindset around collaborating profoundly. Again, the past this has been the elephant in the room, and can’t now be ignored either.
As already mentioned, nobody guessed that this shift to virtual coworking via Digital Platforms like Zoom or Teams would be so highly significant. Moving forward, it will continue to redefine and reshape the way we do the stuff of work and our working cultures for everyone everywhere. These habits will need to be nurtured and improved too continually.
Less, not more management
Virtual coworking productivity and creative collaboration habits haven't formed through any design, or by hierarchy. They have been created through people naturally working together without the need for micro-management.
Ultimately this leads to flatter organisation structures and a trend in more inclusive, and less formal ways of working (another old elephant that’s been in the room for too long). We will need to learn how to continue to support and direct people and projects effectively in this way.
Leaders will have to rethink management, hiring and training.
More informality and transparency
Another factor is that more informality is the 'new normal' behaviour for professional office work cultures from now on. Haven't we all got used to seeing our colleagues in Tee-Shirts? We don't blink at all when we see peoples' dogs, cats, children, and other halves pass across our screens. The whole working from home thing has made this informality acceptable, and what's more, we all seem to like it - and it's here to stay. I think that's actually a good thing.
It all points to a trend towards more transparency in companies too. That will drive new cultures in which everybody matters. Those that don't deliver stick-out more in open cultures. As the unwritten rule here is: "We all perform better together."
So, companies will need to completely reimagine what it means to build highly productive, profitable, and diverse workforces. That circles back to training again and need of blending ways of developing staff effectively both virtually and face to face.
There is also a large downside from too much home working however; that Zoom Burn Out for example, is a real thing and that a high percentage of people (employees and employers alike) want the flexibility to both meet face-to-face as teams at an office location say, and work from home on other days. Many CEOs are considering strategies to do just that and are being welcomed by most employees too.
But, as Autumn approaches again in the western hemisphere, COVID cases are rising fast and this is creating a dilemma. In the UK, Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has recently said to the UK nation, ‘work from home if you can!’ There is another prevailing thought though, suggesting the flip-side of that - ie work from the office while you can, one or two days per week and work from home for the rest of the time. The proviso here is that people can get to the office safely and that the office is safe to work from. In the future, post COVID, the flexible balance between working from home and some soft of hub-office is likely to become the expected norm.
Hiring new staff
New staff hiring processes will need reimagining as well. Smarter onboarding to snag the right talented people with the right attitudes will become vital. Selecting the right person will be much more than competency, skills or experience - another old elephant that everybody knew was there). Instead, it will be about the fit, soft skills, emotional intelligence, teamwork and attitude.
Employees want more freedom
The high productivity gains through homeworking for many businesses will test the argument for employees to work from fixed office locations too.
Many major cities will continue to witness dramatic falls in demand for office space, meaning falling rents and new startups taking up opportunities to reinvent and repurpose city office space.
Forward-thinking companies will seek new ways to build some kind of distributed team models that will thrive in rapidly the changing world. Besides, many talented people have had their eyes opened to the real possibility of making lifestyle choices to move out of busy city life. This has been another unmentioned elephant in the room for far too long - surely, it can’t be ignored any longer?
People now realise that by not being tied to a city location for work means they can move to larger homes with more outdoor space for far less than a small pokey flat in a major city - bonus!
Again, all these aspects re-enforce a drastic rethink about office space. Current thoughts being centred around: transient, informal, smaller open areas, or hubs and spoke type offices that provide all the safety aspects, to meet risk-free face to face. Potentially this may result in more offices relocating out of expensive real-estate city-centres too!
Contract versus employed
Trends are likely to mean more flexible working and perhaps more contract over full-time workers. In the UK, this may very well test the government IR35 initiative that favours employed workforces over the self-employed. Businesses will need more flexibility, not less. Thriving businesses will be those that embrace the rapidly changing nature of the workplace. It's watching this space for the time being.
Reduced commuting and mental wellbeing
Working from home and virtual co-working has sky-rocketed production.
Reduced commuting will have a positive impact on wellbeing and the environment alike.
Stress in the workplace has been rising steadily in the last 20 years, but has been another ignored elephant in the room. So, less travel from home to a place to work will have many upsides - reduced stress, wear and tear, as well as less traffic, quieter roads and cleaner air and perhaps a clear sky. This trend again supports the need to adapt, build empathy, to lead once more to flexible working already mentioned.
As remote working becomes a trend-setter, more people will choose to balance work and home life for wellbeing and reduced stress. Moving away from city life to live in smaller rural towns, the countryside, or by the coast for lifestyle reasons will inevitably enhance family values and overall wellbeing. In the UK, we are already starting to witness this shifting mindset.
Portfolio part-time roles
The next three to five years will see the rise of the Portfolio Economy
This blog has emphasised that employees will want smarter ways of working. Anyway, doesn't everyone want to avoid burn-out through the expectation of extended office hours? People are now savvier of the need for a balance of work, and family life and the link to mental wellbeing is evident. The notion of the employer having the upper hand is likely to be readdressed. Therefore, Business leaders will have to pay far more attention to staff wellbeing than before the crisis.
This may lead to a higher demand for part-time positions driven by an emphasis on purposeful family life. Moreover, I predict that the trend of Portfolio Executive freelance type careers will increase as people redefine and reinvent themselves around what they want from their working lives and how they wish to reshape their careers and lives.
Conclusion
As we enter 2021 and beyond, the way we do the stuff of work will radically change and many of the old elephants in the room cannot be ignored and longer. They will need to be faced and addressed to keep the best talented staff in your business so you can all flourish. In this rapidly changing world, everybody will matter.
End
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Supporting research
The research for this article was conducted to support the Finex 2020 - a Virtual Summit & Networking Hosted by Aaro Middle East and CFO.University. This was held on 9/10th September 2020
I was invited to be a guest speaker sharing my perspective and experience as cofounder of the InspiredCEOs a community of SME CEOs. The following supported and augmented my research.
6 key traits leaders must develop for the future of work
In the era of remote work, we still need offices
Remote work is changing the way productivity is measured
How Covid-19 exposed 3 big flaws in the way we work
How the recession will actually affect your day-to-day life
This is why we still need to keep having virtual meetings after we go back to the office
Andrew Jenkins - PDX CEO
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