WLP278: What's Going On - Office Dilemmas and Virtual Watercoolers
In today’s episode Pilar and Maya explore ‘what’s going on’ with an evergreen perspective, looking at issues about returning to the office, some new research, and more - recorded June 29th 2021.
Episode 278 of the 21st Century Work Life podcast . Headshots of hosts Pilar Orti and Maya Middlemiss.
Firstly, a quick shout-out to Mark Colgan for the lovely review, which was somehow hidden away from us for months - thank you Mark!
Now, everyone seems to be talking about going back to the office - whether we should, or what the office is actually for anyway.
Børge Dvergsdal in Norway shared this on LinkedIn Regjeringen vil ha flere på hjemmekontor, som Guro Aanerød i Lofoten. Kan skape jobber i distriktet – NRK, which thanks to Google Translate we can enjoy as: "Guro (29) lives 1,336 km from the workplace - The government wants more like her.”
We know that public sector support for change in employment practice is essential, and this is a great example, with a lovely touch of human insight into a rural lifestyle in a country we don’t know well. It also talks about “location independence” rather than WFH (looking at you Deloitte!), and local shared offices - as well as the impact of this on secondary towns and cities. So the way this is unfolding, in ways which the author describes as unthinkable 3 years ago.
Back in the EU, Facebook are going to allow Irish staff work from other European countries, and they seem to be including the UK in that too according to the article - so that will be interesting to keep an eye on as well.
And the mainstream media discussion continues to evolve, with this from the BBC: The 'Zoom towns' luring remote workers to rural enclaves. Of course we know that this is not unique to the US, nor did it start with the pandemic, (check out episode 240, for how this is already going in both Vermont and rural Ireland).
It’s all part of a trend towards choosing and designing a lifestyle of intent - while recognising that these trends take a long time to show themselves, because people don’t just up and relocate overnight. Younger people are leading the shift, caught between stagnant wages and escalating rents, as well as having fewer ties in terms of mortgages, schools etc., but others will follow. Businesses have new choices too, about where and how they locate themselves.
We’ll see this one continue to play out over decades, creating rich and varied opportunities for people, and reshaping the demographics of our urban and rural areas in ways we cannot yet begin to imagine.
At the same time, more and more people are talking about going back to the office (worse still, going back to work…), and the mental health impact of this pressure on top of everything else, in an uncertain world. ‘You shouldn’t feel pressured’: Many Americans dread returning to the office.
Even finding out what’s going to happen… Maya had a Twitter message at Healthy Happy Homeworking, who heard from the media that their CEO said everyone was going back to the office in September - after silence via official channels.
Businesses need to own the uncertainties they are living with honestly, and consult with those affected openly, to make it safe. We need to recognise we’re in unknown territory here, that people don’t know how they’re going to feel, when they go back to the office or their colleagues do and they don’t. Losing good people is expensive, and employing anxious stressed people is expensive too.
No business has a playbook or policy, for returning to the workplace after a pandemic… Or what comes after that. And we don’t have a lot of documentation for how we’ve managed to get stuff done in the past 16 months either, in the case of many businesses.
34.02 Research results: Virtual Watercoolers
We enjoyed reading this - A Field Experiment on Virtual Synchronous Interactions and Performance of Organizational Newcomers - data-driven contemporary research, looking at how well interns integrate and find long-term success in virtual teams, according to different ‘virtual watercooler’ protocols.
The results concluded that there was significantly more chance of full-time job offers resulting for those intern allocated to scheduled informal synchronous meetings (virtual watercoolers) with senior managers, rather than peers - highlighting the importance of virtual networking, across normal hierarchies, for career outcomes.
Demographically matching gender and ethnicity was important too, reminding us how important it is for newcomers to see themselves reflected in an organisation they want to progress in, and the role of mentoring for underrepresented groups. None of the visible signals of diversity and inclusion go away in the online space, and have to be considered at every stage, in overcoming unconscious bias.
44.21 A small but interesting collaboration tech update:
You can now schedule messages in Slack - interesting. How will this impact on the async vs sync communication spectrum, with all the other ways to control messaging and notifications in Slack?
Good that Slack appear to have responded to a feature request on this, and in bigger teams it will be worth watching. What if everyone schedules their messages for 9am, and blows up the channel? Maybe the most important thing is to have the conversation, about and why we would use this.
43.40 Community conversations
Our LinkedIn question of the month was: In this current work environment, how can we help or encourage our teams and colleagues (and ourselves) to avoid burnout and too much computer time while still being productive?
Some lovely insightful answers were received as ever… (spread over Pilar’s sharing of the post and also Twitter):
Kristin Strunk: Great question! I think it’s imperative that we really redefine productivity as a start. I also like to help my team by being realistic with my expectations and building in extra time to timelines. I also back my team up if they are receiving outside pressure.
Nancy Settle-Murphy: For me, it's about "chunking" my work into relatively small pieces of time - about 25-30 minutes at a stretch - and then physically walking away from my workspace. (It might be to pluck a few weeds, water the garden, chop veggies, take a brief walk - something physical and far removed from the work at hand.) I almost always come back refreshed, with new ideas and a renewed determination to finish what I started.
For teams, creating a constant "watercooler" type of conversation area, whether F2F or remote, can be a place where they can recharge, release pressure, have a laugh, or just feel a much-needed sense of community.
Anish Hindocha: I’m thinking about activity substitution - substitute the activity of the thing you do habitually with something else that is rewarding.
Tim Burgess: We did an exercise recently on stress, and we noticed that whilst many of the causes of stress we're work related, none of the ways of alleviating or managing stress were work related.
So, we have been encouraging people and managers to think about how they can unchain from their desk. What tasks can be done walking, or on the phone, or sitting outside, etc. What tasks have to be done on your laptop, or with an external monitor or without interruptions... ? And then hopefully folks will explore how to incorporate some stress relief into their work. Or blend activities such that it makes it better. E.g. maybe listen to a recorded update our meeting whilst doing a household chore. Neither activity is your the favourite. But it feels good getting both out of the way at once.
Teresa Douglas: "I firmly believe we need to defend other people’s time off. Often this feels easier than depending on our own. If we do it for each other, we build a sustainable, regenerative culture."
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Back to the synchronous audio space, Pilar continues to run a Twitter space on Wednesdays at midday UK time for discussion, and Chris Colodonato is using Clubhouse for silent audio coworking - interesting. Now that Spotify has bought GreenRoom, we don’t see the trend for sync audio going away anytime soon…
One more news update: Pilar is doing a talk about emotional intelligence with Richard Mackinnon on the 13th July, 3.30 UK time on LinkedIn - you can learn more at The Inaugural Ei Evolution Summit+ - EI Summit, and also we have a discount code if you want to book for the main summit (PILARORTI10).
Remember, we love your feedback - please contact us, or you can tweet Virtual Not Distant, or Pilar and Maya directly, with your thoughts and ideas, and do let us know if you try out any of the ideas that were discussed in this week’s episode.
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