Future Work/Life is a regular newsletter in which I share ideas, bring you interesting stories and articles, analyse industry trends and offer tips on designing a better work/life. If you enjoy reading it, please share it!
Back to the real world
I spoke at a REAL-LIFE conference on Monday. I've done plenty of these things online over the past couple of years and have been in and out of the office with colleagues and clients over recent months. Still, I was a little nervous on the way over to the simplySUMMIT in St Paul's - not of speaking on stage, but rather the idea of mingling with a couple of hundred people. Not something I’ve had much practice in of late. It's amazing how quickly you adjust, though, and it was a fascinating day on which I met many interesting new people.
Matthew Syed delivered an excellent keynote on establishing high-performance cultures and Robin Nuttall offered an insightful take on how businesses are successfully embedding ESG (environmental, social and governance) into their business strategy. Crucially, he outlined how McKinsey’s 5Ps approach helps ensure purpose contributes to value creation rather than just hollow virtue signalling.
I really enjoyed the hybrid work panel I was a guest on with Cat Lewis from Reward Gateway and Kelli Carlson from Wells Fargo. They both shared some great insights on how their companies have adjusted and will continue to adapt to the return to the office. Here’s Cat’s brilliant recommended work modes doc, if you haven’t seen it before.
In Kelli's case, she’s juggling the complexity of a workforce of nearly a quarter of a million people split between all manner of roles, not all of which are even in the office. One great initiative she introduced is the ‘What’s in your backpack’ social media campaign, which is designed to get people used to new behaviours, drawing inspiration from fashion features in magazines like Elle and Cosmo. As she explained on Simply’s website:
“Instead of asking Rhianna what she has in her backpack when she goes on an aeroplane, we are asking staff what is in their backpack for when they return to office. Because many people will not realise the work that we have done in their space while they were gone. They think everything was on hold, whereas we have used the time to upgrade, to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). It will be like coming to a brand-new office where there are no desk phones, so they have to remember to bring their phone charger.”
There’s still plenty of work to be done
During the Q&A, one audience member suggested that the very fact that front-line workers - in the example he gave, fast food delivery drivers – still had to perform in-person jobs, suggested rather flippantly in my opinion that, “the hybrid work conversation is overhyped”.
While his point that the economy managed to continue functioning while people were working remotely is true, to a degree, this completely misses the point on why we have to talk about it.
For many of Wells Fargo's employees working in front-line positions, for example, there was no option other than to come into a physical workspace every day. In contrast, others have worked entirely remotely, which now raises some challenging conversations about fairness – "if we don't have a choice, why should they?"
It's a sensitive one, and I don't envy Kelli and her colleagues navigating the communications and management challenges this presents. However, this isn't a zero-sum game in which, because one group of people doesn't have a choice about where they work, neither should the group that does.
The discussion about hybrid work, and more broadly about flexibility, and future work/life design, should focus on how we create the right conditions for people to do their best work. It may be entirely based in a physical location or fully remote, or it may be a combination of the two. For many, it will change over time as leaders become more accustomed to managing their team's performance based on outcomes while creating new and improved opportunities to collaborate and connect.
Unfortunately, because many people have a self-serving motive (and of course, this is true of all of us to a greater or lesser degree), it produces the kind of narrow mindedness expressed by the questioner. All of which results in some organisations making a right mess of the current process.
Although I’m not completely sure what this specific contributor was getting at and perhaps he was just grasping an opportunity to take the microphone to express any old opinion. However, it's possible he falls into one of two camps:
"I can't be arsed to leave my large house with its private office", or…
"My staff have to come into the office because I don't trust them and, frankly, they should be grateful to have a job in the first place."
Good luck with that, mate!
Here’s how that type of thinking is manifesting in some of the companies I’ve spoken to over recent weeks:
More junior members of staff struggling with the lack of support and disenchantment rising as they feel there’s “one rule for us and another for them.”
Managers finding it increasingly difficult to justify why they’re insisting on their teams coming in when their workdays are packed with Zoom calls and emails. In other words, what they’d have otherwise been doing at home, just minus the commute.
On the positive side, almost everyone I spoke to at the SimplySUMMIT was prioritising how to consider the needs of all employees - irrespective of their circumstances and seniority.
Devising a fundamentally different way of working isn't easy, particularly if you're a large global organisation. However, if you adopt a first-principles approach and don't just copy everyone else, you can develop a system that works for your business.
Perhaps that will mean different rules for different departments and teams. If that's the case and you clearly articulate the reasons for your decision while offering the support people need to excel in their role, then most people will embrace it. If they don't, they'll leave. That's the nature of employment in a market economy.
Since so many of you are recent subscribers, if you're looking for some guidance on how to develop your hybrid work strategy, I’ll point you in the direction of Future Work/Life #54, in which I outline why your best bet is to approach it with a fresh outlook and create a 'flipped workplace'.
To summarise, here's my simple list of top tips to get you started:
Clearly communicate the business's priorities and outline the objectives of the process at an organisational, team and individual level.
Collaborate to ensure everyone's voice is heard.
Take an experimental approach and accept that you might not get it right the first time.
Don't get hung up on the past, focus on what's going to work in the future.
Embrace change and support people taking ownership of adapting and improving how they work.
I'd love to hear whether these ideas have worked for you, if you've come up with any other innovations that have contributed towards a successful start to the next phase in the work revolution, or if you flat out disagree with me – all thoughts are welcome.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend,
Ollie
Any Other Business:
My last two podcast guests have been equally interesting, albeit we discussed very different subjects.
Danny Fortson, West Coast tech correspondent for the The Sunday Times, and host of the podcast, Danny in the Valley, joined me to talk about everything from the metaverse, how Web3 will change our understanding of work, and how the tech industry has responded to the revolutionary changes of the last couple of years.
LISTEN TO MY CONVERSATION WITH DANNY FORTSON HERE
Naomi Shragai, author of The Man Who Mistook His Job For His Life, is the first business psychotherapist I've met and she enlightened me about the effects our personal histories have on our careers, how much emotion we should bring into the workplace, and why autonomy isn't always a good thing.
LISTEN TO MY CONVERSATION WITH NAOMI SHRAGAI HERE
Grace Lordan, author of Think Big and behavioural science professor at LSE will be appearing on the podcast in a couple of weeks. She wrote this great piece for the FT last week, in which she breaks down how to confidently ask for the pay you deserve. It includes practical advice, like being armed with data, as well as the importance of finding the right people to advocate for you, putting your pride to the side, dispelling the fear of being seen as greedy (FOBSAG), and as I’ve suggested above, insisting on clear and transparent goals.
As I alluded to above, one thing many companies are having to wrap their heads around as they implement more flexible working is determining the desired outcomes from every individuals’ role. My recent podcast guest, Marc Effron, outlined a strategy to successfully achieve this in this excellent article. In his view, it’s time to move beyond a competency-based model to a model focused entirely on success.
There are more helpful tips on how to help yourself and your team prepare for ongoing remote work and the return to the office in MIT Management Review, although, strangely they call it the ‘return to work’.
You may have seen this headline in The Times last week.
A consultancy is recommending employers “consider locking in their staff with penal contracts that force any rival employer trying to recruit them to pay for the costs of nurturing and training them in the first place.” An intriguing idea at first glance, but not one you’d want to be on the end of, even if it was preceded with a signing on bonus. Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that it would currently break employment law, and consider the dynamics at play here.
Yes, many of us will have experienced the frustration of losing someone talented and with great potential, in whom we’ve invested time and money to train. But you’re not telling me you’ve not benefited from recruiting someone in a similar scenario?
We clearly need to address the skills shortage that’s creating such a challenge in the UK market and certainly don’t want to disincentive companies from providing better training to their employees. However, while our relatively free and open employment market presents some potential downsides, there are far more advantages. Not least that a mobile workforce encourages healthy competition as it forces businesses to become attractive places to work - both in terms of financial compensation and a strong culture.
And finally, I know life sometimes feel precarious, but there’s something about this photo that reminded me that there are worse places to be.
