Talking about the way we work
Lexicographers of the world must surely have had some of their busiest years ever, as the overwhelming wave of events we’ve all had to surf has brought a tsunami of new phrases and terms into our collective vocabularies around work and the way we work: furlough, zoom-bombing, quaranteams, remote working, distributed working and, a particular favourite of mine, loungewear-working.
All these new descriptions of how we work reflect the incredibly fast, explosive short-term change that Covid ignited, alongside the longer-term structural changes being made around corporate and SME office space which could fundamentally change the way we work from now on. The longer we spend in this new working landscape the more embedded and structural those changes will become.
The language we use to talk about the way we work holds those structures in place — if used correctly.
Let’s take flexible working as an example; ask a roomful of people what flexible working means to them and you’ll get a variety of answers back, ranging from four-day work weeks, to job shares, to working anytime/anywhere. The freedom offered by the term can be easily confused by unclear definitions and boundaries, which can cause more damage than good. Just as there is no one-size-fits-all hybrid policy for companies to follow, ways of working lexicon must be tailored and well-defined to fit your organisation’s culture.
Clear internal comms supported by leadership help integrate actions within the business. Definitions should be updated as dynamic working practices change over time. Fostering a culture of accountability within teams’ working practices will increase their value from both a productivity and wellbeing perspective.
As we move towards our new distributed normal the way we talk about how we work has become crucial. The lexicon has the power to make or break corporates, where hybrid policies like Airbnb’s are either praised or criticised like Tesla’s. Taking the time to define and experiment with hybrid yields great benefits and clarity in direction.
In the meantime, I think those lexicographers will continue to be busy, someone at least should tell them to check out the The Cambridge Online Dictionary which defines remote working as:
“a situation in which an employee works mainly from home and communicates with the company by email and telephone” — email and telephone only! How quaint and so 2019.
At Well Thought we are helping organisations navigate designing a new future of work, using creative and collaborative processes to gain alignment, momentum, and help people and companies move on in sustainable ways. If you’d like to talk through your challenges or opportunities in designing new ways of working, we’d love to have a chat.
