Post-lockdown integration in the remote work era
Introduction
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the focus on remote work, we’ve begun to erode the workplace culture that GFT in Poland has been known for. This is a serious problem, as people who join us do not see the significant difference compared to previous employers. This made me think about what we can actually do about it. The obvious suspect was the fact that people are not spending time with each other in the office collaborating and building relationships. That being said, it’s a tool rather than a goal, and it’s always been the same — how do we integrate people.
While speaking with people about remote work, internally & externally, I’ve had some interesting observations and made some insights into the subject. I didn’t reiterate the well understood benefits of the remote work as there is already a huge bias towards it all over the web. I work as a higher-level manager for a corporate IT company, hence my view here will be a bit skewed in that direction.
Insights
The hidden cost of remote work that nobody talks about. When the lockdown started the whole world was worried about the performance of the employees. In GFT we’ve measured our performance by requesting from Project Heads an assessment on the amount of work being delivered compared to pre-lockdown times. We’ve seen a global uptick in performance from 10%-30% and everybody was relieved. Though nothing comes for free in this world, so this came at a personal cost and that is unmeasurable. From many studies, we know that depression is highly correlated with the amount of satisfying social interactions a person has.
“The quality and quantity of individuals’ social relationships has been linked not only to mental health but also to both morbidity and mortality. The influence of social relationships on risk for mortality is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality.” — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20668659/
Before the lockdown it was easy to see that somebody was having a hard time — you knew their faces and would know that something was off in a second. The teams & leaders could see them and would be supportive and understand if somebody had a bad day and couldn’t deliver at their normal levels. That support is gone.
Mental health is underrated. People have problems eating well, even though we’ve got the subject pretty well covered (eat your greens, moderate portions, etc.). Mental health though is still in its infancy across the globe and it’s hard to have a discussion with people about their choices making them mentally unwell. In this case I’m referring to self-isolation by staying at home too much.
The 3rd place. Human beings associate places with a context. The first place is your home, where you’re safe. The second place is your job where you’ve got some responsibilities. It’s very important that those two are separated — you leave your office, you leave those troubles behind. Obviously at home you’ve also got responsibilities to your family or the place itself. So before the pandemic some psychologists started introducing the idea that people should have a 3rd place. A place where people don’t have any responsibilities waiting for them and where they could escape the world for a moment eg. library, a coffee house, a pub. Since the lockdown we went the other way and we’ve mixed everything into one place — not good. The commute to/from the office served the purpose of a context switch and this is missing making us be “in the office” long after we’ve logged off of our computers.
The laziness. This is a weird one, and I have a feeling that it might be that we’re all a bit depressed. The problem is that everybody is showing signs of laziness (myself included), manifested by lack of interest in going places or doing stuff, even if it’s all entertainment. Pre-pandemic I had a group of friends that are living close by and we were having a beer or two at each other’s houses. Not a full party, just 2–3h. Since the lockdown, we have done it once in 2 years, whilst before it was at least once a month. Recently I’ve been thinking that this behaviour is very similar to Hikikomori.
There is guilt in coming to the office. Spanning countries, companies and positions there is a shared guilt that people express by saying “I haven’t done anything today”. To which I often reply: “This is how we’ve worked just 2 years ago, and everything was delivered on time… what changed?”. Coming to the office and chatting with people is part of the job. Connecting with others, exchanging information, sharing ideas and troubles — it’s part of the job. Over the past 2 years we’ve incurred a huge interpersonal debt and we still haven’t paid it off — you can see it in online meetings that go off topic for a long time.
The altar of productivity. People say they’re more productive at home than at the office. They don’t waste time by commuting to work. At a glance that is true, yet we’ve seen a lot of people actually being “at work” for longer than before. Even the smallest discussions tend to be 15–30 min meetings, which feels like being busy a lot. People take mid-day breaks (which is fine), where they are kind of offline but not really and then they play catch up in the evening. I’ve seen more people working in the evening than pre-lockdown. On top of that, the information spreads slower with lower penetration. People can be stuck on tasks for longer periods of time, before asking for help, also that help will arrive later — due to higher load of online meetings. Some topics that I could have discussed and resolved in a day are now taking weeks at times. To me all of this is hindering productivity.
Office as a meeting place. This I’ve seen plastered over the web as a way to refocus the perception of the office. I do not buy it and I do not see people buying it either as most say that “they’ve got a job to do”. This means that even if they are in the office, they’d like to focus on what they have to do rather than treat it like a cafeteria. The offices have shrunk with the loud cheer of CFOs that have cut the costs of running a business — this means nobody has their own personal desk, moving more into a hot-desk type of environment. There is no room for plants, photos, gadgets, etc. People have a huge need to make their space their own, while everything became more standardised and soulless than before.
People do not care about company events. Now more than ever people feel disconnected from each other & the rest of the company. Unless they see value other than entertainment (pizza, beer, games), the will seldom visit those events. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, people were more connected across the company, regardless of the departments.
Best way to integrate people is by meeting face to face. This does not come as a surprise; nothing beats in person contact with another human being. For most people the only reason to show up in the office is a work-related need — like a planning, training or brainstorming session. That is when people build relationships and then are more willing to come to other company events as they know they can see some familiar faces. These meetings have to be arranged much earlier than before as meeting spaces are also limited with more people fighting for the space.
Just one remote person joining an offline meeting can crash it. That’s all it takes. The whole effort of everybody that made an effort to come to the office is destroyed by that one person that will dial in. The team sits in the office and they still have to dial in — not the brightest solution.
A lot of random relationships have been lost. Since the lockdown our in-house interactions have shrunk to “I need something from you” basis (everything is work related). No longer there are chats in the kitchen between Finance & Delivery or Recruitment. Before the pandemic we’ve been very well glued cross-department and those relationships survived, but new ones are forming painfully slowly. Understanding your coworkers is essential to a great collaboration, which results in work being done faster, with ease and fun! Yes, working with me is fun.
Surveys fail miserably. I’ve seen a lot of surveys being done regarding remote work. The results are shockingly shallow. It seems that without ideas what to do leadership resorts to the voice of the crowd. The problem here is that most of the people focus on what is convenient for them — that does not mean, what is good for the team, department or company. I’m baffled how few people really have a think about what they actually need and what is good for them. See my point on The hidden cost of remote work that nobody talks about above.
Trying to beat the home office is a lost battle. People have spent a lot of money setting up their home office — it’s impossible to beat that, and that’s not the point. The point is that going into the office should be as hassle-free as possible. Take advantage of VDI infrastructure if you can, otherwise laptop + one-cable USB-C setup is the way to go.
The rise of attrition across the globe. People give up so much sooner and its not a surprise that the attrition is highest amongst the post 2020 hires. Changing a job is now easier than ever before and if they haven’t been to the office, haven’t made any connections and think they only need to check off their todo list, then what’s the difference in @thiscompany.com or @othercompany.com?
The abuses. I’ve seen people being hired at 3 companies and some have gone absent for weeks without logging in. Some forget that it’s company environment and not a social media comment’s section and are behaving well below acceptable standards (and I do know how to manage my expectations). It’s disappointing, because those few people will make the remote work a no-go for many organisations.
People look up to their leaders. This is a weird one for me. On one hand it seems that people nowadays are doing everything in their power not to get attached to the company, yet they still want leadership (even though it’s not explicitly stated). Their immediate line managers are showing them the culture of the company — understandable, but that wasn’t the whole picture before pandemic. The culture was so much more than how one single leader in an organisation behaves. No chance of mimicking that in remotely.
Leaders and managers are having a harder time. Things that used to take minutes are now taking weeks. They are often very lonely in their work, so much more than ever before. Almost all of them are working longer hours, because they actually have something to do other than sit in online meetings all day long.
It’s harder to identify leaders. Being a leader and having the power over other human beings is a very tough and responsible task. Before the pandemic it was easy to spot the “leader material”, just by seeing how people work, how they behave, how they treat others. Today I have no clue who might be suited to be a good leader and I’m really struggling to choose people for the job (internally).
There is less engagement during meetings. Screens take people’s attention, that’s a known fact. Now it’s really hard for people to be on an online meeting & not do emails or other work. Therefore the effectiveness of meetings drop significantly, and I’d argue so is the thing that you’re doing while on a meeting — I’ve sent some really badly worded emails that even I couldn’t decipher afterwards.
Online meetings for a crowds are useless. There will be maximum few atendees that will actually speak, others seldom will say a word or even pay attention. This is where a lot of people will start doing laundry, cooking or cleaning the house. Keep in mind that people say that they are more productive.
Most people that are coming into office are the ones that were in company before pandemic. I would guess it’s because we know each other and we’re familiar with the company, therefore we know what we’re dealing with and we’re not that intimidated by the office. Interesting is that out of the new joiners more often women than men go into the office (per capita).
Ideas Worth Copying
Account Day. Many times I’ve heard “I will not be coming to the office because nobody else is coming in” — which is a self fulfilling prophecy. When having a flexible “coming to the office” policy, it’s worth to agree on a day of the week, that most people surrounding a given team or group, would be coming in, therefore increasing the chances of seeing a friendly face.
Always on camera. It goes a long way to see peoples’ faces, especially when you’ve got a bigger crowd in an online meeting. It helps to see who is smiling, who is bored, etc. This shouldn’t be forced, but rather strongly advised. People will push back with “I don’t look good today”, etc. Agree that it’s not a problem, but ask them to turn it on next time. Having the camera on should be the company default.
Side note: there are companies that are fully remote & haven’t turned the camera on for more than 2 years — scary.
Friends of an account. Inter-department connections are now harder to build, as all online interactions seem to be focused on job. Invite people from other departments to your online & offline events — they will be better informed what is happening in your area and there will be more topics to talk about later on. You’ll also build a few jokes that will be part of those relations and that moment.
Online cafeteria. A recurring long meeting, that everybody is welcomed to drop in & out at their convenience. It’s a space to talk about everything non-work, to recognise people as human beings rather than machines that push tasks from left to right. Here you can exchange vacation ideas, which movies are worth watching, etc.
Use asynchronous work. Whenever possible, try to split the work so that people can complete it at their own pace. Schedule one meeting to explain what needs to be done and then let people complete it at their own pace. Remember to give a deadline.
Use modern team collaboration tools. Enabling team collaboration software is amazing if you start putting it everywhere. Meeting notes written together by 3 people are amazing! They are written better, more concise and leave less space for misinterpretation. Not to mention that people are more engaged. Putting together a presentation — everybody has it opened, editing together: one writes, the second spellchecks the 3rd one corrects look & feel.
Dropping from a meeting when no longer useful. We’ve created a culture where it’s totally ok, to write “apologies, gotta go” and silently drop from the meeting. That way if the meeting is no longer valuable to you, or you are no longer valuable to the meeting, we do not waste time. It’s really better for you to have a coffee break, than sit on a meeting that is of no value to you or anybody else.
Doing boring things together. Have a few people together on an online call, where everybody does their own stuff. The idea is that you’re mimicking the office space. Speak when you feel like it, listen to other speak and have silence breaks. It’s amazing how doing some tedious work is not as painful that way.
Walkie talkie. Having 1 on 1 meetings while walking away from the computer, not only relaxes your eyes but also makes you more focused than having a screen before you.
You’re not here to just push tasks from “todo” to “done”. Leaders need to explain to people that they are far more than bots ticking off tasks, and they are valued for not only their immediate skills but also the future that they have. If their job is only to complete tasks, then be sure we’ll automate their jobs.
Days without meetings. As stated previously, there is a lot of meetings, to the point that it’s excruciating. It’s shattering the day into small pieces where it’s really hard to focus on doing the actual job. Departments have declared “days without meetings”, where they will decline all meetings unless they’re crucial.
Afterword
This article was created due to my frustration with the hive-mind that is present all over the web announcing the amazingness of remote work and self-proclaimed gurus stating (not too bright) comments like “if people don’t want to come back to the office, it means your office culture was toxic”. After reading this article you see how shallow the comment is. The office itself is not the end goal, but rather a tool. The rise in attrition all over the world and the hidden mental health cost are not a good sign, yet there is very few people talking about it. What I really wanted, is to start the conversation: Where do we go from here? If the office is not the way then what is?
If you’ve got insights of your own or would like to share ideas that are worth copying, please do reach out to me.
A follow up on the subject: Does remote work benefits outweigh the problems it created?
