WFH, in the office, hybrid - is there a fourth way?

Much has been written about the battle of wills between WFH-accustomed workers and bosses keen to see employees back in the office.? We all know the basics; employees love not spending hours commuting, enjoying the time-flexibility of WFH, and bosses want their teams performing at maximum productivity.? Hence the uneasy middle ground of 'hybrid working', where employers mandate, and employees promise to attend the office a certain number of days in a given period. But of course as the statistics attest, this simply isn't working. So the reaction of senior management is to double-down, moving from "ask" to "tell", because we all know any time employees have to be forced to do something history shows it'll end well.

Never one to complain without a solution, I've got an alternative, and it starts by taking a look at the management directive which goes something like this:

"We want people back in the office because it fosters team building, watercooler conversations, informal information flow, network, collaboration, friendships".

Right there is the problem.? It's confusing the method with the objective, mixing solution with requirement.? We'd never let that go in a project, and I'm not going to let it go as statement of managerial intent.

When we distil that statement we find the actual requirement is team building, collaboration, etc etc. No argument that's essential for teams to be successful.? But what if those worthy objectives could be met another way?? I think that's possible.? For example, I instigated a series of cafe lunches for my peer group.? We met, chatted, had a good time, then went back to our home offices.? Surely that sort of interaction is what the bosses want, and no need for an office?? And as it's at a set time, more people might make the effort.

I also had an inadvertent WFAH - Working From Another Home opportunity; ironically, trying to get into the office but stymied by a massive car crash, it was clear I'd be far too late to the meeting.? Luckily a colleague was close by so I just decamped to his place and we happily co-worked from his lounge.? Free coffee too!? Not the worst idea in the world, and could expand that to micro-offices here and there around the 'burbs.

Then there's technology.? Who reading this hasn't messaged friends and family today?? Or had a video chat in the last week?? Thought so.? Now tell me that relationships, friendships, can't be built over modern communications tools.? And so there's no reason why we can't use corporate tools such as? Zoom and Teams to build work relationships, we just tend not to.? We could have fun meetings, or dedicate the first half of a standup to socialising, joke of the day, random factoid of the month, show and tell, trivia quizzes or whatever.? Could be a permanent Cafe Zoom, drop in any time, just like a real cafe. Reminds me of a conversation with a colleague when he complained he couldn't stand up with a marker pen and whiteboard solutions in real time - I said he could, he just didn't know how to use the tools at his disposal, a bit like an artist complaining they could not create art without a pencil when they have paint instead.

Then we come to the realities of office-hybrid work.? For me that's mostly on Zoom to people working at home whilst I stare at an expanse of empty desks.? And as for socialising whilst in the office...kinda works if you don't have too many meetings, and those meetings aren't the same time as other people's, and those people are in the office on the same day as you. And who wants to go back to staring at an Outlook screen desperately searching for a meeting room space which coincides with limited availability of the people concerned? Do you enjoy being kicked out of your room as your meeting ran over time when everyone was happy to continue but couldn't because time's up - sorry, I forgot, productivity at the office! Or maybe a Zoom with the background noise of the office instead of the quiet of an employee's home.

Now whilst I'm very much pro-WFH, even I recognise offices have their advantages.? All-hands meetings for example, and there's some odd humans called 'extroverts' who thrive on physically seeing people, best avoided in my experience but they're necessary. So we do need offices, but I suspect in the future 'offices' become kind of like subscription services; companies will rent a space a few days a month when they need to, and not bother with it the rest of the time. Right-sizing your office, if you will - sometimes you want a presentation hall, other times a place for an informal group meal, other times breakout rooms - rent what you need at will rather than maintain one big building with the whole lot with all the consequent overheads. Office-on-demand, you heard it here first, everyone is moving to subscription, pay-as-you-go, so why not offices? The concept could even be extended with intra-company offices and collaboration. The obvious one is vendor-client relationships, use office-on-demand for those teams, but what about the potential for office sharing where there's no contractual relationship at all? How about an architecture team from Company A sharing a space and spending time with the equivalent from a completely unrelated Company B once a month, mix up some ideas there? I can't see that as a bad idea, it's what happens at networking events. This could even lead to sharing of people across companies, something not often seen in white-collar jobs.

So let's not confuse the end with the means.?Let's build teams, foster camaraderie, exchange ideas and develop relationships, but those laudable objectives shouldn't be confused with the archaic idea of frequent travel to a large building with an array of featureless, windowless rooms where people sit on uncomfortable chairs around a table, splitting their attention between their laptops and their coworkers.? Maybe there's a better way - WFA/WFP - Work From Anywhere, Work With People?