Future Work/Life is my newsletter in which I explore the changing relationship between work and our personal lives. Every week, I share something I’ve written, a few things I’ve enjoyed reading, and something great to listen to. If you find it interesting, please share it!
The Writing:
Why has everything in life become polarised?
Julia Galef wrote about the contrast between a 'Soldier Mindset' and a 'Scout Mindset'. Those adopting a 'Solider Mindset' are constantly in defensive mode – protecting their opinions and fighting their corner against attack from those who disagree. Much of modern life operates in this way, it seems. Politics, obviously, but business too.
Whose side are you on? Elon's or Twitter's?
Should we talk about social issues in the workplace – yes or no?
What's better, remote or office-based work?
It's time to bring some nuance back to the conversation and approach these questions with curiosity.
As opposed to many situations in life where you're defending your viewpoint against attack, curiosity requires a 'Scout Mindset', allowing you to focus on thinking and talking about the ideas. As this week's podcast guest, Tim Harford, described it:
"Let's see what's out there. Let's map the terrain."
When making big changes – whether at work or in life – it's easy to resort to binary thinking – things must be one way or another. But these decisions needn't exist at extremes. There's always a spectrum across which lies the best and most appropriate solution.
Take hybrid work, for example. Initially, the debate was whether remote or in-office was best. Now, we've moved on to how many days in the office we need each week. Progress, I suppose, but such a limited scope means we might just have the worst of both worlds.
The misguided assumption by businesses that by simply congregating for a couple of days you inherently create magic.
Irritated employees who have become accustomed to having autonomy over their time.
The reaction to this conversation is no less problematic.
When disgruntled workers express their misgivings about having to return to the office, there's a chorus from a certain group (typically, of vested interests and with a more old-fashioned view of the world) that "you should be careful what you wish for." As their analysis goes: for businesses employing fully remote teams, they may as well be in Bangalore or Bangkok as Basingstoke, Baltimore or Berlin.
The thing is, they're right - the development of a global workforce is well and truly in motion, and there's no point pretending otherwise.
But rather than consider this as a chance to reimagine work and create the opportunities for your business and people (wherever they’re based) to thrive, it’s delivered as doom-mongering.
So what should you do instead?
How can you turn these fundamental shifts in work and the labour market into positives?
Well, try pausing and analysing what ‘ideal’ looks like. Suppose you regard in-person interactions to add significantly to company culture, productivity, and creativity. How much will you sacrifice a bigger talent pool to satisfy your hypothesis? I mean, literally, how much?
Do you believe having a physical space and consistent IRL (in real life) connection adds 30% to the bottom line?
10%?
5%?
Now, weigh that up against the upside of a wider talent net to support your company's growth. Without a doubt, a global market means your ability to hire top-calibre people increases. So, how much will that contribute to the growth of your business
Do you think this will add 30% to the bottom line?
10%?
5%?
You see where I'm going with this, right?
It's a trade-off.
If you believe the talent benefit will increase your growth by 50%, while the hybrid work strategy would contribute a 10% upside, it's easy to see the best approach - go remote. If the difference is marginal, then perhaps you take a hybrid approach, focusing on building the best possible workspace to bring the best out of your team. It's often tricky to quantity these things exactly, but it's not impossible.
And since the world has so dramatically changed, you don’t need to stick to the same rules as before.
Break it down by team or department: some roles and functions lend themselves to distributed teams, and others perform better when they can work together in the same physical space.
For those who benefit from proximity, what's the optimal frequency? Every week, every month, every quarter? Many of the most successful remote-first businesses schedule a regular company get-together every quarter, which is enough to build trust and familiarity within teams and across departments. Others thrive being in the same space every day, something it's impossible to recreate over a video call.
There's an inherent complexity in taking a more multi-dimensional approach to work/life design, which increases significantly with larger organisations. But the data is there if you look for it, whether in feedback from managers and employees or in surveys and engagement data.
Like any great leap forward, the journey won’t be straightforward. But by accepting and embracing the trade-offs involved, we have the collective opportunity to design a more personalised approach to work. And be in no doubt, the businesses that get this right will be those that flourish.
So rather than settling for the simple binary choice, take a 'Scout Mindset' and explore how reimagining work will allow you to attract the best talent and grow.
Have a great week,
Ollie
My new Maven course has now launched! If you’re interested in learning an approach to accelerating your career without burning out, sign up for The Work/Life Flywheel Career Accelerator or get in touch for more info.
My book, ‘Work/Life Flywheel: Harness the work revolution and reimagine your career without fear’, will be published on 17th January 2023. You can pre-order your copy, HERE.
The Reading:
What to do with your spare time? When you don’t have much of it, it’s easy to just slump on the sofa and watch something mindlessly. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of that, but doing something meaningful in your leisure time will increase your health and wellbeing, so it’s probably worth trying that too! A new Penn State University study demonstrated that engaging in meaningful, challenging activities during free time can reduce people's loneliness and increase their positive feelings.
Another thing that will make you feel better? Laughing. Sounds obvious but how often do you laugh at work? According to this WorkLife article:
“It can reduce levels of the stress hormone – cortisol – and spike levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain, which is great for engagement, attention and problem-solving capability.”
But don’t start trying to crack jokes if you’re not a natural. Instead, the best advice is to create an authentic environment where people feel comfortable being themselves.
“Think of a group of friends where there is a natural dynamic of those who generate the laughs and those who simply enjoy the fun and join in when the moment takes them. The office environment is exactly the same.
I’m not sure whether reading this report from Indeed will make you laugh or cry, but it’s a great insight into how changes in global talent and mobility will affect the job market, including how candidate shortages could be alleviated by moving the jobs to remote workers, or even ‘moving’ remote workers to the job - what they call ‘relo-to-remote’.
The Listening:
This was a new recommendation from this week’s podcast guest, Undercover Economist author and host of Cautionary Tales, Tim Harford. 99% Invisible is all about design and in this episode, they tackle offices and the future of work.
The 20th century was full of misbegotten fads and productivity innovations that continue to this day, even when the whole notion of what it means to be in an office has shifted during the pandemic.