Work(ing) From Home Isn't New

Let me start by saying I have some allegiance to what some would call the traditional work environment (of course, as a remote worker most of my career and now as an entrepreneur its easy to look and say it's important)…but now as a leadership/trainer/mentor guy, and liking to be in front of the physical being, I look at the relationship between work and corporate culture as a kind of standard for quality of life, and interaction, face to face, is crucial.

I am usually the person who will defend the old way as the right way, but I am seeing corporations and especially corporate leadership doing the same thing they did 20 years ago and thinking it’s going to work in this new world.?The mindset that you are lucky to have a job and you should be grateful we pay and you will do what you're told and like it, is still pervasive in the traditional leadership circles.?But they are now aware the pushback is palpably fierce.?This battle of wills is being lost to the migration of talent and the retirement of senior talent to the detriment of the overall pool of tribal knowledge that makes your organization run smoothly.?This is about talent retention, satisfaction, and engagement, and to business, the retention of business-critical skills.

If they think people are going to be excited to come back to the office so they can have donuts and coffee, and chat around the "water-cooler" they're mistaken. If they think people are going easily abandon the freedom that they’ve had at their homes during Covid, they're short-sighted. Employee expectations are a new world has become a show-down of coming back or leaving, a proverbial bit of Wild Wild West, and so far the lack of flexibility has the employees winning.

No, you won’t hear me saying that corporate culture is dead because I truly believe it’s not. I believe that there is incredible value to be gotten by both groups by having people in a shared space, collaborating, sharing ideas and solutions in real-time, seeing each other’s faces, and understanding what real communication is about, but that said we have now taught a new behavior and environment that we have to recognize is valued and should have consequences as a demand.

I had a long conversation with an executive from a Fortune 500 company not too long ago who said, “We’ve been evaluating what it would be like to take all those people who are demanding to work from home, instead of returning” and trying to retain their skillsets by making them 1099 contractors with compensation increases.?These increases won't include the soft costs of administering those programs (corporate culture benefits. i.e. access to human resources personnel, benefits, investment administration, time off, and vacation) all of the things that we talk about as part of the work experience that have less if any impact on 1099 employees).

• ?Here’s an open question: Given your current occupation/position: If your company said you must come back into the office or become a 1099 employee with a compensation increase, would you consider it? And...
• How much of a pay increase would you require?

It’s time to embrace the great migration, the great independence culture, to be followed by the great job hunt, There’s a risk for everybody concerned and in every choice, there are pros and cons.?The risk of settling for less than you deserve and the loss of direction without corporate structure is real for employees becoming entrepreneurs. And for corporations, the simple loss of business-critical talent and skills is already a reality. I believe at some point, and not too far in the future, employers are going to figure out a solution to the pressure they’re feeling about the workplace from the demand for hybrid and work from home. Will it be 1099 talent?

#Leadership #Robertism #WFH #1099 #LinQuage #ICantNot #Talent