The question isn’t ‘Where’s your #WorkSpace?’ It’s ‘Where’s your #BelongingSpace?'
‘Going to work’ is no longer a destination, it’s a state of mind.
How do you create a 'Belonging Space' between remote and hub-based teams?
That's why I’m helping companies reframe belonging and culture for current times and beyond pandemic.
People’s sense of belonging is a priority, in the plans for hybrid working, between safe basis for office space and remote working.
Rural workspaces?
News this morning that #IWG CEO Mark Dixon, with a great nose for the business of workspace, is
"We're ready to set up rural workspaces"
IWG (owners of Regus Offices) CEO Mark Dixon - March 2021
This is a great solution - good commercial sense for many businesses and individuals. And tempting to move by the seaside to take up Mark Dixon’s new offer!
Work from home forever?
Some companies have already said 'Work from home continues forever'. Twitter announced last May that everybody could continue working from home for as long as they liked. The company neatly set out the balance of responsibilities between corporation and employees:
"Opening offices will be our decision, when and if our employees come back, will be theirs."
Twitter - May 2020
And for many employees continued home-working will be a great option. But not for all - we've missed human contact in so many ways. The need to belong is deep-wired in us as humans - perhaps taken for granted until it was taken away.
Sensitivity of leadership?
Leaders: beware of being insensitive to your people or our times.
KPMG UK's Chair Bill Michael told staff in a virtual 'Town Hall' “Don’t sit there and moan about it, quite frankly,” and "stop playing the victim card", about Covid work conditions. All at a similar time as announcement of pay cuts. He later apologised by email for comments made in a virtual meeting with 1,500 employees - but within a few days had resigned, acknowledging the hurt he had caused.
“Well, you can’t play the role of victim unless you’re sick and I hope you’re not sick, you’re not ill, and if you’re not, take control of your life... Don’t sit there and moan about it, quite frankly”
Bill Michael, Chair KPMG UK - early February 2021
“truly sorry that my words have caused hurt amongst my colleagues and for the impact the events of this week have had on them.”
Bill Michael, ex-Chair KPMG UK - on resigning, mid February 2021
A little compassion goes a long way...
Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank AG is weighing a new policy that would allow most employees to permanently work from home two days a week... but Deutsche Bank's Research also recently suggested a tax of 5% of a worker's salary if workers choose to work from home when they are not forced to by the current pandemic...
Everybody back in the office?
David Solomon, boss of Goldman Sachs, has rejected remote working as a 'new normal' calling it an 'aberration' that does not suit the company's work culture.
“I do think for a business like ours, which is an innovative, collaborative apprenticeship culture, this is not ideal for us. And it’s not a new normal. It’s an aberration that we’re going to correct as soon as possible”
David Solomon, Goldman Sachs - February 2021
But hasn't the company's work culture, and its peoples sense of belonging, been forever changed by the experience of the last year?
And not everybody wants their company to choose that they HAVE to work at home or HAVE to work at the office.
Remember the outraged reaction of Yahoo's techies, already long-established in remote working, when then new CEO Marissa Meyer demanded they all came into the office to work? Banning work from home, because of the loss of all the benefits from informal contact and connection as well as formal workflow?
"To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices.
Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home.
We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together."
Marissa Mayer, then CEO Yahoo - 2013
The reaction was horror and seen as a 'return to the stone age'. While intended as a strengthening of trust and belonging Meyer's handling of this edict arguably proved an insurmountable block on an effective relationship with her teams.
And that was in 2013.
Shared responsibility in dispersed workforces
The resentment at Marissa Mayer's decree was partly the inference that employees could not responsibly manage their work and productivity, or connect with others, without being directed. One of the invaluable learnings this last year has been employees and managers taking responsibility for belonging within a dispersed workforce.
It's the shared responsibility for this shared space of belonging that really counts.
Even 'Before', office-based workers saw the benefits of working from home sometimes as well as the office. Flexibility for family demands, change of environment to stimulate new perspectives - or simply the quiet space to think and write. As one colleague once said to me, amidst the clamour and high-octane camaraderie of a lively creative agency:
"Work is the one place I can't work"
Colleague looking for a space to think quietly - 2012
So WorkSpace is only half the story.
What about your BelongingSpace?
Belonging affects collaboration, wellbeing, safety, ethics, innovation... every aspect of business performance.
How to connect up with colleagues, collaborate across locations, disciplines and time zones, get all the benefit of shared ideas, effort and resources without having the hassles and risks of all being in one place?
Connecting people up in a sense of Belonging, with shared sense of Purpose, Values and Pride does not depend on being in a single space.
Belonging is in the space between us.
How to reframe belonging and culture for our times and beyond?
It takes a structured approach to consider impacts and reframe culture - whether you’re in a fixed workspace together, a hub hybrid, or remotely across the globe.
You need to make belonging systemic through your business.
What's important is that you go beyond the surface stuff of everybody parroting your Purpose, or knowing your values.
- Ensure strong connections within and between teams, make it a management responsibility to connect.
- Beware of any risks of fault lines - whether old tensions between teams, or new splits between 'remote' and 'factory' (or office hub), or issues across diversity and inclusion.
- Check in with people, listen to how they feel, what's working and what's not.
- Encourage close respectful interactions throughout work. Even for those in more self-contained roles, or with natural introvert self-sufficiency, make sure no-one is an island.
- Find some way to provide informal contact, such as opening the Zoom or Teams link for 10 minutes of casual chat before a formal meeting time.
This is all part of Belonging - the invaluable 'social glue' as the basis of trust.