Copy of WFH or RTO: Are You Messing it Up?

(If you haven't "heard" of WFH or RTO, you're already late to the party. They stand for "Work From Home" and "Return To Office", respectively. Now, read on!)

Are you one of the leaders calling your workforce physically, rigidly, back to the office more than 3 days/week? If so, you're already messing things up. Why are you doing this? Is it due to the over-used reasoning that "people work and collaborate better when they're together in the office rather than working from home"? Or that "there's lower productivity when people work from home"?

That's such 2022 thinking! It's time to move forward into 2024 and beyond. Face it - the workplace, workspace, and workforce has changed and, I believe, changed permanently. If you want your organization to remain viable, attractive to high-quality workers, and relevant well into the future, get used to thinking "hybrid". Yes, even for occupations like construction, dentistry, retail, hospitality, and other areas you may think of as 100% physically in-person.

Two questions probably come to mind immediately:

1. How do we make hybrid happen (while still encouraging collaboration and without losing customer interaction)?
2. How do my managers / supervisors lead in a hybrid workspace?

First of all, clarity on terminology. I refer to "workspace" as any place someone is "doing work". That can be at a coffee shop, in a co-working space, at home in a space carved-out as an office, on the commuter train, at the beach, or in an urban, downtown office building. "Hybrid" signifies a mix of work styles including physically at a desk alone, online communicating remotely with others, or in person with a group of people all together in one space.

Now let's tackle the first question - how to make hybrid happen (because your situation is unique from all other situations, isn't it?) Well ...

The 1a. to this is, rethink your uniqueness! You're not alone in the C-Suite or on a leadership team working to figure this out. Just do an Internet (or other platform) search and you'll find sources like the following:

• Wall Street Journal: “The Companies Calling Workers Back to the Office Five Days a Week” [READ HERE ]
• USA Today: "2023 Was the Year Return-to-Office Died. Experts Share Remote-Work Trends Expected in 2024." [READ HERE ]
• MindTeam Solutions: “Return to Work” paper [READ / DOWNLOAD HERE ](Yes ... we can help you figure this out, also!)

The 1b. to this is, do you have smart people in your organization - both on your leadership team and as employees? Bring them together to come up with creative solutions! You may be surprised at the ideas and solutions that arise when different perspectives from a combination of organizational leaders and front-line staff who are in the trenches come together to collaboratively develop solutions. Not all will be viable, yet some may be when you move from, "Yes, but ..." to "Perhaps, and ...".

The second question of leading in a hybrid workspace comes down to encouragement and control. When a supervisor stresses over how to manage an employee they cannot see 5 days a week, what they're usually stressing over is, "How do I know 'they're' really working? Being productive? Not wasting organizational resources? Get evaluated?"

Here's an aside: I knew people in my corporate management days who spent 60 hours/week in the office, looked wonderfully busy, yet barely produced a third of the results that others did who spent 40 hours/week in the office.

I've got several responses to this question, and not enough space in this writing to go deeply into them. My top 5:

2a. Management and supervisor training .

2b. Executive-level strategy sessions and coaching.

2c. Results-based job descriptions with milestones, deliverables, and accountability measures built in.

2d. Tools and technology that transcend location yet are not "tracking tools" superficially measuring keystrokes or how long remote employees are actively online (conveying distrust in them).

2e. Organizational assessments such as the Company Climate Inventory to determine what is really going on in your organization and identify ways in which to make "hybrid" work for you.

I can go more deeply into any of these in future articles to bring you practices and perspectives on successfully creating a hybrid organizational culture. Also, I invite you to post questions in the "comment" area that I can tackle to keep you from "messing things up" in and for your organization.

If you want to be an organization for which your existing - and upcoming - workforce wants to contribute and stay long term, get over your past thinking and get with the future of the workplace. Hybrid!

Think about it! Please share this writing with leaders you know and "follow" me to receive regular issues of this Leadertorial. I appreciate you for your attention to reading and sharing my messages.

(Note: This was written by Sylvia Henderson without use of generative A.I. tools.)