REMOTE WORK: Here to stay? Yes please!

Today the Seattle Times reported a YOY drop of ~20% in the number of Seattleites who work remotely. This is a somewhat larger drop than seen nationally, likely due to the disproportionate impact of Amazon moving from a 3-day/week in-office mandate to a 5-day requirement.

Today I would like to discuss remote work and make the case for 1) why its here to stay and 2) how companies can use this shift to improve on traditional metrics such as culture and productivity.

The shift in workforce demographics is both highly predictable and simultaneously confusing. Our obviously younger workforce brings with it not only youthful enthusiasm, talent and ambition but a different set of expectations for what constitutes professional satisfaction. Much as been said of behaviors such as ‘quiet quitting’, a term used to describe putting in just the ‘right’ amount of effort to get the job done, without going above and beyond to stand out. This is where the generational disconnect between (older) management and the new workforce begins to become apparent.

The modern workforce has a far different perspective on the workplace than my generation and the ones which came before me. The following outlines a few of the more pertinent distinctions:

In short, the modern employee expects to have far more say in how the work gets done and expects fair and consistent compensation for their time and effort. No more unpaid overtime or being on-call 24/7.

It is these new perspectives that drive the strong desire by many to work remotely. The thinking goes like this: “As long as I get my work done, on time, with high quality, why do I need to be physically present in an office, especially if the office is a distraction compared to working on my own”?

A common reaction from traditional managers is to invoke arguments about corporate culture and values, which put a premium on collaboration, building cohesive teams and productivity borne from ad hoc face-to-face interactions? How do you build a team on Zoom?

These concerns, from my ‘Boomer’ perspective are reasonable and deserve to be addressed.  After all, it is the senior leaders of the company who will be held accountable for driving company performance. Their perspectives and opinions, reflective of generations of relative success, should not be dismissed out of hand.

Where then, do we find the commonality necessary to bridge the generational gap? The approach I advise when conducting executive and workplace coaching, is to consider this as less of a gap to be bridged, but as an unexpected opportunity to improve the workplace for the better.

Where to begin? As I always advise, the onus on leading change must reside with managers at all levels. Effective leaders recognize the need to change and drive cultural and procedural shifts to realize a new vision for the organization. The good news is there are many models that already exist upon which to draw inspiration and emerging best practices.

Long before the pandemic forced many of us all into a remote model, biotech startups were adopting and perfecting the remote workforce model.  The reasons for this are obvious. First, the competition for top talent has been and remains fierce. Limiting oneself to the local workforce that is readily able to commute into the office cuts an emerging company off from talented and experienced staff who happen to live elsewhere. Second, many biotech startups are built on a virtual model, with little to no internal technical capabilities. In this model, there is no need to bring the scientist to the lab, if the lab is run by 3rd party service providers. If one’s time is largely spent managing the work of remote labs and factories, where is the value of showing up every day at a cube or office? The success of many startups that move on to develop amazing technology and products is prima facie evidence that this model works. I would submit that the pandemic provided additional support for the notion that remote work can produce business outcomes at least as good as traditional ways of working.

Given the success of the model in many contexts, it would then seem that the root of the generational divide lies not with the model itself, but on the divergent expectations of managers and staff. What then, can be learned from the successes sites here that can be applied to workforces more generally?

First, we must return to the valid concerns of management. What of culture, collaboration and team building?  Let’s start with culture. My belief is that the concerns over loss of culture are actually concerns over loss of control. There is an innate tendency to fear what we can’t see.

What are those people doing at home all day anyway? How do I know they are working? Sure, I see the outputs of their work, which seem fine, but how do I know they aren’t really just messing around?

While I do not mean to imply this sort of attitude is universal, I do believe it’s common enough to warrant asking the question:

If, as an organization, we are meeting out objectives and there is tangible proof that work is getting done, what am I really concerned about? What is culture anyway and what does it have to do with success anyway?

In the past, culture was no easier define but somewhat easier to see, since we were all physically present in the same place:

Are people happy? Do they seem to get along? Do people seem to be making friends, that socialize inside and outside of the workplace? Yes? Wow, we sure do have a good culture!

The remote workplace allows us to revisit this, through a new lens. Happily, the new generation of workers has made this easier for us. The current generation of workers does not suffer from a lack of clarity about they want:

• Is my manger providing me with guidance I need to do my job, or micromanaging how I spend my time?

• Am I given the change to define how the work gets done and to an extent, what the deliverables look like?

• Do I get recognized for my work and is this appreciation reflected in my compensation and my opportunities to advance?

I make no claims as to know what a good culture is or even how to define it. I do know that the best places I have worked did one thing right: they respected me and gave me the right amount of autonomy to allow me to do my best work. What that looks like will be different for each person, but this sort of workplace flexibility is exactly what people need from their jobs today.

Let’s look at collaboration and team building next. How do you build a great team, that works with high productivity? How to we work together, taking advantages of the unique talents of each person, to benefit the team and improve our work products?

In the past, this was facilitated by normal day to day interactions. People get to know each other informally and perhaps, more authentically, when the interactions are spontaneous. Serendipity can work and is a valid strategy for building great teams. In my experience, this is critical, but it need not be a daily thing. People pick up a lot in virtual meetings. It may take longer but it does happen. This is especially true one-to-one virtual meetings. Cameras on, of course! For a predominantly remote workforce however, extra steps must be taken to move this process along. This is why regular in-house interactions are still vital. It doesn’t have to happen every week, but it needs to be done. My suggestion is to base work processes around such interactions to take advantage of in-person meetings. Perhaps in addition to the weekly Teams meeting, once a month the team assembles for an all-day in-house project review meeting, where structure is augmented by free time. This not only helps keep projects on track but allows for the sort of team cohesiveness that comes from face-to-face interactions.

The picture I am painting is obviously not a one size fits all. Certain businesses cannot work in a virtual model, others are only partially so. My suggestion is to consider where the adjustment is possible and to adapt workplaces to meet the needs of the modern workforce.

One aspect of this adaptation needs to be called out more explicitly. A fundamental shift intrinsic to the remote workplace model is that work is becoming more transactional and less relational. This is reflected on the approach taken by workers who feel they should be evaluated based on the quality of deliverables not on the amount of time worked or the ‘effort’ expended (how do you measure effort anyway?). It is incumbent on managers then to begin to think about work as a series of interconnected deliverables and less as an ongoing workstream of activity. My personal bias is to use the well-established tools of project management to organize work in discreet deliverables. This in turn, actually makes the life of the manager easier, as they now have a more quantitative basis measuring worker productivity and contribution to achieving organizational goals.

In this review, I have sought to covey some of the complexities of navigating the new realities of the remote workplace. Hopefully I have provided the reader with some new perspectives to consider. Remote is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels so continued engagement on this topic, from the viewpoints of leaders and staff, is essential. Should any of you need assistance with this journey, I would be happy to meet to discuss this important topic.