Remote, hybrid and work from home have all become keywords in our language since 2020…
It’s not to say that they didn’t exist before, but certainly not to the extent that they do to this day. Requests for working from home were looked at with scepticism, like what is your hidden motive? And the idea that someone could work fully away from the office and still be productive just wasn’t the known norm. Not so much today.
Even though the hybrid work model has proven to be effective I’m hearing more and more that flexibility is fading away and remote jobs are becoming more competitive and harder to find again. I’ve seen it myself in recent weeks when assisting businesses with their recruitment - the business is needing their staff back in office, but the candidates haven’t realised the call is there and are missing out on opportunities as they’re only interested in remote or hybrid opportunities.
Before I delve into remote working, a little about me and my thoughts on it…
When the pandemic first hit and everyone started working from home, there was so much uncertainty. And then where I worked, my team was sent back to the office as “essential”. However, as I was on immunosuppressant medication, I was to continue to stay home under medical advice, and against my team's wishes, as I think I was the only one. I felt really disconnected from my team, felt like the team didn’t trust that I was telling the truth or that I was taking advantage of the situation, and I felt like I wasn’t part of the team. Eventually, I did return to the office, and then requested flexible working arrangements as I was pregnant and struggling to maintain my productivity with the travel and hours.
When I returned to work post maternity leave, I was very careful to set boundaries with any employers - I can come to the office sometimes, but I work from home. This was important to me as a mother to a 4 month old, and if that couldn’t be met, I wouldn’t work there. I was again pressured to work more hours or be in the office more, and it was really stressful - I have always been a hard worker, doing whatever necessary to meet the needs of the role. So going against the grain was really hard for me. But it definitely made me quickly realise that I had to look at alternatives, like starting my own business where I could work on my own terms. I now get to be fully remote!
Moving on, there are actually a lot of “big businesses” who have already called or are calling their staff back to the office. The list includes international businesses like:
✨ Amazon - corporate employees will need to be in the office at least 3 days per week
✨ Disney - any staff member that was working in a hybrid fashion was required to return to the office at least 4 days per week
✨ Google - across several US locations were told to return to the office at least 3 days per week
✨ Meta - stopped listing remote work when advertising, and existing staff were required in the office at least 3 days per week
In Australia, most recently CBA has ordered nearly 50,000 employees back into the office for at least 50% of their working time, following the lead of NAB and Mineral Resources.
So, as an employer, how do you know if it’s time for you and your team to go back to the office? If you are a decision maker, when do you bring them back in (or do you at all)? Here are a few questions to help you with decision making. For an employer:
⭐ Is your business still meeting targets and goals?
⭐ Are your customers able to have an experience that encourages them to come back?
⭐ Are your staff happy and continuing to develop as professionals?
⭐ Are your turnover statistics stable and/or exit surveys indicating that the working situation isn’t the reason for them leaving?
If you are a hybrid or remote worker, how do you know when you aren’t being as productive at home anymore or when you might be missing out by not being in the office when others have gone back already? For an employee:
✨ Are you getting as much enjoyment out of your work as you did pre-pandemic?
✨ Are you still as productive as you could be working from home?
✨ Are you feeling disconnected from your colleagues or out of the loop from those already back in the office?
✨ Are your customers able to get access to you and is service delivery meeting the expectations of the organisation?
If you as the employer decide it’s time to get back to the office, there’s not a lot worse in a business than poorly managed change. Change that makes a significant impact on the way people work is even worse. Navigating the waters of calling your team back into the office after years of hybrid or fully remote working is going to take patience, communication and time.
Here are some simple steps to managing change:
✨ Understand your reasons for change, so you can communicate authentically
✨ Work with a group or a team to develop a plan to deliver the change
✨ Create a communication plan which outlines the reasons, impacts & benefits, and be prepared to address concerns
✨ Bring employees into the decision making process by asking for feedback, surveying and giving opportunity to discuss openly
✨ Provide support to employees showing you understand this change will impact their lives
✨ I recommend doing a trial period or a pilot for the change so there is further opportunity to assess and fully consider the impacts of the change
✨ Continually monitor the change as you start to formalise it into standard practice, ensuring the needs of the business and its people are still being met
✨ Embrace the change as the new normal
By taking a considered, step by step approach, your business is much more likely to get acceptance and buy-in from staff, as long as you’re genuine about receiving feedback and responding to it in a true two-way discussion.
Now, with all that said, a reminder that I love remote and hybrid working! I personally am so much more productive at home than I am in an office! However, some may be more productive in the office and when surrounded by other employees. As an employer, it’s up to you to find the balance for you, your team and your business. As an employer, I do encourage you not to fix what’s not broken - don’t feel you need to call everyone back to the office, just because “everyone else is doing it”.
Regardless of whether you have returned to the office, never left the office, or have remained working from home or remote, the common bond between all of these is that you need a productive and positive place to do your work.
How do you make your working space special and productive? If your team are working from home, how do you draw a clear line between your work space and your personal space? If your team have recently come back to the office, how do you maintain productivity when you’ll likely have more interruption
s?
Here are a few simple suggestions:
🏠 Talk regularly with your team about how you want to communicate with each other, this will help you re-set expectations if you’ve just come back into the office.
🏠 Schedule time for collaboration and also time for working in focus time, this will help you to protect that time you loved when you worked remotely full time.
🏠 Block out your calendar to help you prioritise the work you’ll get done during those different times
🏠 Set boundaries - know when it’s time to work and time to be done. When we’re at home it’s easy to continue working well past finish time and when we’re in the office, it can be just as easy to skip lunches and breaks.
Remote work is a massive topic right now. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it - send me an email at info@careerpursuit.com.au, or jump across to my Insta and send me a DM!
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