Remote Work: Middle Management Crisis or Productive Opportunity?
2022 is going out with a bang. The tech industry, and indeed the whole world, has a distinct whiff of recession. It turns out no one is too big to fail, even multi-billion-dollar companies. In the last couple of months, every major tech company announced layoffs, and many saw their stock value decrease by more than fifty percent. While some believe this is just a turbulent moment between discrete movements, others predict a prolonged period in which consumers will run out of money, budgets will be cut, and demand will decline.
Given the complexity of the crisis we’re facing, it’s difficult to point to one causal factor. Still, some are set on blaming a dynamic that blossomed during the pandemic: remote work. Everyone remembers the infamous email sent by Elon Musk earlier this year to Tesla management telling employees to come back to the office or leave the company. Apple CEO Tim Cook defended the company’s mandate to have workers return to the physical office, arguing that hands-on time and collaboration are important. Are Musk and Cook (and most of the tech world) on to something? Is remote work the problem? Whatever the answer is, the companies that manage to decipher this unique moment stand a chance of becoming market leaders.
Sign of the times
It is said that desperate times call for desperate measures. Perhaps we should put a hold on desperation for the moment. The fact is that we are experiencing times of profound change and we do need some new ways of doing things. Going back to the pre-pandemic model as if nothing had changed doesn’t seem very strategic. Workers have already seen that another work-life balance is possible. The long commutes, city life, and endless meetings that used to be an unavoidable part of professional life now seem antiquated and unnecessary. Many aren’t willing to go back to that kind of life. Things were already beginning to shift before COVID; lockdowns only accelerated the process. The work world has changed irrevocably, and workers have changed with it. It’s companies that are struggling in this new landscape. Many haven’t been able to settle into these new dynamics and develop capabilities to stay productive.
Speak to the manager
Forcing old dynamics onto post-pandemic workers doesn’t seem like the smartest move. It’s up to companies to adapt themselves to the present. COVID-19 hit like a thunderstorm. There wasn’t time to prepare to meet the standards required in this very competitive market. Management didn’t have the tools or methodology to achieve their pre-pandemic goals. What people think about remote work is probably being addressed from the wrong viewpoint. Employees move towards remote work not because it’s more convenient and relaxed; remote work is simply a dynamic more in tune with the people we’ve become.
First and foremost, managers have to understand that there is a Digital Environment and that it’s just as rich and full as is the Natural Environment. This means we’re now having experiences on the Internet that are as meaningful as the ones we have at home or the office. The experience extends far beyond conference calls, emails, or collaborative documents.
We do similar things in this new environment, but since the context is very different, our strategies should be, too. There are ways to manage people and lead productive teams in the Digital Environment, but we need to work with a new toolset. This “crisis” isn’t a tragedy but rather an opportunity to embrace an omnipresent and asynchronous model and judge it by what it allows us to achieve. This means new strategies to relate to space and manage time.
Time and space management is a key skill for anyone working remotely. An office building won’t solve the current divide because it’s turning out to be a costly and ineffective option. However, what we should strive to recreate in the Digital Environment are productive ceremonies, and even the communal ones that took place in our old offices. An institution is so much more than the physical space it occupies: it’s the people and the way of relating and bonding with management (the company, the brand, etc.) that make a successful enterprise. In order to succeed, companies and managers must learn another way not only of measuring productivity but creating a true productive community.
We don’t need desperate measures, just a different mindset, specifically one adjusted for the Digital Environment with asynchronous strategies. We now have the tech to develop this new dynamic and the culture to explore its collaborative potential.
