Hybrid Work and Killing Double Binds

The following is a preview of what I’m pondering for my free weekly Show Up newsletter. Each edition shares an insight, tool or story that will help you be a force for making work good, written by me, Moe Carrick -an internationally respected pioneer in the study and practice of workplace culture. Subscribe to get the full impact delivered straight to your inbox at the end of every week.

28 years ago, when my eldest child was 3, I was coaching a client at a large international company, and I went from my home office to living room where my son was watching a movie quietly.

He was home from day care that day, ill, and he needed something to eat. I grabbed a plate of crackers and string cheese while my client and I talked, and then went back upstairs, keeping a mindful ear tuned his way.

The following week, the client’s boss called and gave me some feedback: “The Coachee felt the call was unprofessional because he could hear you washing dishes in the background.”

I felt that rush of red-hot shame.

Once again, I was failing as a mother (working while he watched TV) and also failing as a professional—the person on the call felt he wasn’t getting my full attention.

I felt like I couldn’t win.

Roll forward to today, 28 years later, and post-pandemic, we have workers routinely completing their tasks while also dipping in as needed to tend to family members, pets, or a repair man stopping by, even as they effort to drive work forward.

I am so grateful for the rapid escalation of flexibility in the workplace that the last 4 years has seen. It presents rampant new opportunities for human beings to juggle the complexities of having responsibilities outside work while also doing a good job.

For parents and caregivers this is a radical and profoundly powerful shift.

And yet, it presents complexities.

For employers, how best can they define boundaries for work from home and which hours constitute working hours expectations? What do they need to clarify about noise, backgrounds, distractions, etc?

For employees, how best can they help their families navigate getting their needs met when their parent or care-giver is working? When can they relax that they have Mom or Dad’s prime attention?

There are no easy answers here.

But underneath the layers of nuanced expectation and the risks of poor boundaries sits the fundamental reality that expectation setting, clarity, curiosity, and humility will remain critical.

We have to talk about it.

Even all those years ago, if the person on the other end of the call had asked me about the noise, or if I had felt it was okay to name my situation, we could have navigated the whole thing with more grace and no shame.

We are human beings, including at work, and hybrid/flexible work reveals more of our human-ness than ever.

I wish I could have a do-over for all the shame I felt as a young mother all those years ago. I can't.

But I can tenderly honor her courage and fight like hell to help employers tomorrow navigate things differently by noticing and talking about how to make it all work, at home and at work.