Our Post-Pandemic Return to the Office of the Future
Before the pandemic I used to describe office zombies as “working at home from the office.” Headphones on. Eyes glued to their monitors. The only things missing were a bathrobe and bed-head. Maybe a cat.
Focused? Absolutely. But oblivious to the people and activity around them.
“They may as well be working from home,” I used to say.
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Before the pandemic I was deeply skeptical about the value of our modern collaboration spaces... with their formulaic “open layout + bright colored accent furniture = innovation.”
“That big glassy conference room,” I’d say, “is perfect for that one dude who needs to make a call. He’s getting world-class privacy in there-- the way he turns his back to the glass wall and cups his hand over his phone to protect from the echo, echo, echo….”
Were we co-located pre-pandemic? Absolutely. Engaged? Not really. Not when most meetings could be pre-recorded on YouTube.
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Before the pandemic I would regularly question whether we even knew how or when to collaborate, co-located or otherwise.
I took great pleasure in writing “Do Not Erase” on clean white boards.
And got greater joy when others added “Please.”
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Then the pandemic happened.
And nothing changed.
What We’ve Learned So Far We Already Knew
I can’t speak for other industries but in banking-- and especially in banking tech-- there are three groups in the post-pandemic work-from-home debate: the get-me-back-to-the-office-immediately crowd (the Stir Crazies), the let’s-stay-home-forever folks (the Pajama Bottoms) and the overwhelming majority of the rest of us: the somewhere-in-betweens (the Hybrids).
All three have reasonable starting positions:
Stir Crazies: “Our business partners can’t (or won’t) do their jobs remotely so they will inevitably trickle back to the office. And like dominos falling, when they do, we’ll need to return with them because co-location allows us to better manage their expectations. Plus, physical proximity forces empathy which in turn leads to better business outcomes.” Note: you can substitute “business partners” with senior managers, key stakeholders and the ace up everyone’s sleeve - clients.
Pajama Bottoms: “The pandemic showed us what we’ve known all along: we can do our jobs effectively while virtual. We have numbers to prove it. We were all more productive from home because we used our commute time to work and when we weren’t in meetings, we had real focus, undistracted by office noise and activity. The kicker is that the pandemic’s move to virtual everything also leveled the political playing field for talent in regional and satellite offices -- as long as they were able to time-shift.”
The Hybrids: “Everyone works differently. And thanks to the pandemic, we’ve all learned that the office has its strengths and weaknesses, as does working from home. We can and should leave it to everyone’s best judgement, as long as they get their work done.”
You’d think that the Hybrids would be the most pro-flexibility but scratch below the surface and you quickly realize that they lean Stir Crazy and have unrealistic expectations of the Pajama Bottoms. Their meet-in-the-middle position is usually to address the shortcomings of working-from-home with mandatory weekly or monthly in-office-time, designed for teams to collaborate and connect face-to-face.
All three groups are nostalgic for pre-pandemic normal.
But normal was the problem.
We’re Breaking Up - It’s Not You, It’s We
It was never about where you work. It was about how we work. Together.
Before the pandemic, we regularly struggled with the how. We struggled with connection and collaboration, employee engagement and employee autonomy. So after the pandemic, we can’t default back to struggling.
If we want to make a real case for change, then we need to discover (and scale) sustainable digital alternatives to four huge positives of the in-office how:
We can break bread together-- ie., not be in “work mode” with each other (+1 human connection)
We can whiteboard in a way that picks up subtle facial signals and body language from everyone in the room - i.e., eye contact, fidgeting, crossed arms, yawns, etc. (+1 collaboration)
We work harder when others are around, although we’re loath to admit it (+1 social influence, +1 engagement)
We signal trust-- passively communicating that we’re actually working-- by just showing up at the office (+1 autonomy -- because autonomy needs transparency and trust). Note that the closest virtual equivalent to this is keeping your video on during meetings.
The other, more complex positive is that our in-office life is necessarily immersive. It might be distracting but we passively experience deeply relevant data and activity that enriches what we do at work. That immersive quality to real life (I can’t believe I started the sentence that way) also guides our how. It informs our norms and values. It establishes and reaffirms our culture. And it’s critical to learning and our individual journeys to mastery.
Can we do everything above virtually? Maybe.
Have we tried? Not yet. Not seriously. We’ve thrown tools at it. But that can’t be our only answer.
The pandemic was (and still is) a giant, rushed experiment in how to meet virtually as the only option. Now we need to learn how to be virtual together while not in meetings.
And this new way of working has to be compelling enough that we choose it from other (pre-pandemic) options.
Being Virtual When NOT in Meetings
I know, I know… you’re always available on Skype. Good on you.
Talk about a low bar-- and a virtual one at that.
Thing is…. No one works harder when they see that their peers are available online. No one feels comforted or connected or more trusting. Few even notice… until they need a question answered quickly.
[Have you ever thought about why we start Instant Messaging (IM) with “Hi” or “Hey?” It’s virtual bait. Because once your victim starts typing a response, they can’t get out from under your question.
Muahahahaha. You! Will! Answer!
“Can you please approve my headset? Super important!”
The pooooower!]
We really need a higher bar for what it means to work virtually when we’re not in meetings.
There are three indicators (by no means an exhaustive list) that would convince me we’re raising the bar.
Virtual Adjacency
When we’re sitting in the office, we overhear what our neighbors are saying. Most of it is social noise but office workers have learned how to tease out the business signal. Unlike instant messaging or email, what we experience by sitting next to each other is passive, subtle, nuanced. We differentiate on tone, volume, facial expressions.
By comparison, think about how blunt an instrument IM and emoticons are. We’re living in virtual caves-- proud of our primitive happy face drawings.
We need a way to be virtually “next to” our teams.
I’m guessing that the answer starts by giving everyone an extra monitor-- whether they’re at home or in the office. And we mandate that it be dedicated entirely to sitting in the same video-enabled, Brady Bunch 9-Box virtual space as your team.
We then need to establish the corresponding culture-- rules that we all abide by. For instance, everyone should leave their video on unless eating or attending another meeting. Everyone should be on mute unless they have something to contribute. And groups should be able to vote someone mute-- a little democratic trolling.
Your group today might already have these kinds of rules but does your company?
Virtual Apprenticeship
I feel for COVID interns, new graduate hires and even seasoned professionals who essentially joined in the dark. Onboarding and acculturation were difficult enough without the forced work-from-home constraint. Did they overcome the challenge? Absolutely. But it shouldn’t have been a challenge. Learning shouldn’t be a heroic act. It should be like breathing.
I entertained calling this section “virtual training” but apprenticeship involves so much more than over-the-shoulder narrations of what the tradesperson is doing. Culture is communicated. Introductions are made. Bonds are built. Strengths are identified and nurtured. Loyalty is earned on both sides.
The training we’re doing during the pandemic-- that we were doing pre-pandemic-- isn’t and wasn’t enough. We need to build on the foundation of virtual adjacency (above)-- a thoughtful discipline that makes virtual training and continuous learning engaging and ubiquitous.
Virtual Influence
A quick confession. My knee jerk response to having to leave my camera on all the time boils down to two words: Big Brother. It's less about my tin foil hat and more about my introversion.
During the pandemic I’ve fought my inner introvert daily for the same reason that back when we were in the office I forced myself to sit in the front row at auditorium-filling business events. Because leadership isn’t about displaying my Myers-Briggs badge-- like some kind of honor. It isn’t about my comfort. It’s about doing the right thing for the team.
As I mentioned earlier in this piece, we signal trust by just showing up at the office. In a virtual setting, we lose that trust when our cameras are off -- or at least when there’s no explanation for why our cameras are off.
I can think of a million reasons to keep it off-- chief among them being that “letting you into my home” is a deeply personal ceremony. For me.
There’s only one reason to keep the camera on: for others.
It's the virtual equivalent of wearing a mask during COVID.
Virtual influence is about how to lead others when they can’t see that you’re sitting in the front row.
How is that different from plain old leadership? I honestly don’t know. We’re in undiscovered country.
Think of these three initial bar-raising ideas as experiments waiting for us (collectively) to don a lab coat-- the missing puzzle pieces that would both broaden and deepen our virtual capabilities; paving a path not to a hyper-marketed virtual office of the future but to a world class mixed-reality office culture.
Inclusive. Empowering. Connective.
Let’s just all hope that ideas like virtual adjacency aren’t the new “open layout”; that virtual influence isn’t a giant red bean bag.
If we get our culture right, it should more resemble an old, worn-down white board; one that we would regret erasing.
Postscript: A Final Meditation on the Post-Pandemic Virtual Office
I probably should have started with this: I want a future where all employees get to pick where they work. I want a future where all work is meaningful to the employee and infused with purpose. I want a future where we can live our values at work. And I want a pony.
That future isn’t inevitable. And contrary to all the optimistic opinion pieces out there, it isn’t waiting on the other side of this pandemic.
It requires hard work, creative experimentation and sacrifice by everyone.
In fact, the craziest, most poignant truth to our post-pandemic virtual work ambitions is this: Pajama Bottoms can’t sustainably work remotely until the Stir Crazies and Hybrids change how they work from the office.
That’s worth writing again:
Working from home as a viable long-term option requires that we change how we work at the office.
A third and final time… to ponder in yoga class:
If any one of us wants to work from home, every one of us has to change how we work.
Oooom.
The good news is that we in the banking world learned the right lessons from the pandemic. In fact, what we’re talking about here is not unlike the pandemic itself:
If any one of us is vulnerable, then every one of us has to change how we live.
If any one of us wants a future of working differently, every one of us has a responsibility. To each other. To common purpose. To a better tomorrow.
Oooom.
LinkedIn Tease:
Everyone has their opinions on the post-pandemic work-from-home question.
Before we pick a side, we need to acknowledge that there’s a significant community of us who simply can’t work from home-- either because our jobs are impossible to do from home or because our living conditions demand it. Our apartments might be too small. Our loved ones might need the freedom to run around and play, to joyfully scream or bark, or to earnestly torture a violin.
Those folks-- I think we can all agree-- deserve a desk back at the office post-pandemic.
Aside from that, all I want to add to the conversation is a warning against romanticizing our pre-pandemic office culture.
It’s ok to be optimistic about a more virtual future but it’ll take a lot more effort, experimentation and sacrifice than we’ve given it so far.