CRUNCH: The Post Lockdown Challenge for Office Workers

Looking back to the first few months of 2020, we can recall how office workers suddenly faced a major transition to working from home on a full-time basis.?Although there were estimates given, nobody really knew how long this would last.

As the weeks passed, we adjusted.?Rather than using the dining room table as a workspace, we bought a desk and placed it in the spare bedroom.?We were provided with, or bought for ourselves, a better camera, noise-cancelling headphones, a more comfortable chair.?In some cases we upgraded our computer equipment and broadband service to cope with hours of back-to-back conference calls.?We all became Zoom experts and spent time exploring the room behind the heads of those we were talking to, or discussing the latest imaginative backgrounds.

I remember the first time I had nine back-to-back calls in one day and I was exhausted by the evening.?A few months later, it was quite normal, and eleven calls in a day was not uncommon.

COMMENT: Making calls shorter doesn’t help. It just allows for more calls to be crammed into the day.

Bottom line, as humans are inclined to do, we adapted. We went from being very happy to avoid the commute on the M25 motorway, to kind of missing the time in the car, listening to music, putting some physical and mental distance between work and home life.?And as we started to realise that there was a firm date in the future, on which a return to the office would be a reality, a sense of expectation developed. A sense of anticipation. Back to those days where eleven back-to-back meetings in a day would be replaced with just a few, interspersed with actually walking around the office, talking to real, three-dimensional people along the way.?Chatting at the coffee machine.?Meeting in the café for lunch.?Using a real whiteboard.?Wow!?Simple needs.

And now we are heading back to the office and the whiteboard is real, the coffee machine works, and, slowly, there are more 3D humans to talk to.

So what is the challenge?

WHERE IS THE CRUNCH?

At least for now, the eleven back-to-back meetings have not gone away.?There is a mix of people continuing to work from home, and quite used to the intensity of staring at a screen and camera all day; and there are others who commute to an office and often need time to move from one meeting room to another, while also accommodating that human interaction that comes from being in a workspace.?When these two groups of people are expected to meet together, challenges start to occur.?It might seem trivial but the problems are there.?Layer on the expectation of domestic and international travel, frequently to drive fresh team-building activities and to catch-up on in-person customer meetings, and trying to get the same level of intense interaction that we had during lockdown becomes a logistical nightmare.

Do we really want to fill our commute times with conference calls while driving? ?Safety is paramount and I would never expect anyone to be driving while involved in a detailed phone conversation, especially as part of a team. What about calls while on a train??I can just imagine carriages full of people wearing earbuds, staring at their little screens, trying to be heard above all the other people on the train, wearing earbuds and trying to be heard.?Where IS that mute button?

Trying to schedule calls in between travel commitments is adding another layer of anxiety to our lives as we transition back to the office.

And the important word in that last sentence is “transition.”?This is part of a cycle.?We will adapt again, and the situation will settle.?But the transition is real and needs to be managed with care.?Failure to do so will increase frustration, burnout, and employee turnover.

WELLBEING PROGRAMS

As we moved through the lockdown months, organisations adopted many well-meaning wellbeing programs.?I have mixed feelings about them.?On a positive note, I fully believe that several wellbeing initiatives did make a constructive difference.?On a negative note, the constant reminder that there was a wellbeing initiative in place, was also a reminder that there should be something wrong with us, or there should be something to worry about.?And the list of new rules and guidelines that we were expected to adopt potentially added more stress than they were ever meant to (No email after 5:30pm.?No calls on a Friday afternoon.?Be sure to schedule a break during longer meetings.?You do not need to turn on your video camera – but you kinda do really… etc.) There is no easy, single answer, just many factors to consider and a need to constantly re-tune how we support our teams.?Pub quiz anyone??

Back to present day, and what does wellbeing look like as we attempt to carry work-from-home intensity back to the office??Despite raising the point, there is a general sense that until executive management recognises the issue and distributes a missive to go and fix it, other managers will do nothing. Which is a real shame and a missed opportunity.?Why wait until the signs are all too obvious??Why not be a leader on this point and take action that others, including upper management, can learn from, adapt and adopt?

SIMPLE STEPS FOR SELF-PRESERVATION

Here's what I am discussing with my team:

• Do not come to the office and sit on calls all day. You can do that from home. Come in when it is essential to interact with others and make the best of it.
• Let’s agree core hours, let’s say 10:00 to 15:30 during which back-to-back meetings can occur, ideally with a break here and there. This allows for agreed commute and travel time at the start and end of the day.
• Let’s feel empowered to say that we cannot make a particular meeting at a suggested time, even if the invitation comes from a high-priority stakeholder.?If the meeting is THAT important, something will get figured out; and there is always the option to “listen to the recording,” right?
• Let’s not try to cram many 25 minute meetings in to one day: let’s have fewer 45 minute or 55 minute meetings and if we do not use all the time, a visit to the kitchen area is in order.?I completely believe in doing less, better, rather than doing many tasks and only managing a more mediocre outcome.

I have heard people say that the next few months might see a decline in our productivity as we adjust to the new working framework.?But is it really a decline??If we measure productivity in terms of the number of meetings we attend then yes.?Are meetings always productive??Absolutely not. ?I firmly believe that after a short adjustment period, we will turn out to be MORE productive because we have more time, more interactions, more opportunities to be cut-off from the endless rounds of calls, to actually do the work.?And I believe that we need to discuss this with our teams now and agree a plan for this transition immediately.

Some will recall my article at the beginning of lockdown which focused on the three stages of recovery: SURVIVE, REVIVE, THRIVE.?I have seen these words being used regularly over the past 18 months.?For my team to REVIVE and THRIVE quickly, I am not going to wait for the CRUNCH of stress and burnout that will come from exporting work-from-home intensity to the office.?I am already discussing this with my team and we are committing to a viable and flexible way forward.

Who’s going to join me?