The Same Old Song
There’s been a plethora of ‘Return to Office’ (or RTO) announcements by (mostly US) companies the past week. The latest is from UPS, who are actually dragging people back for 5 days a week.
My LInkedIn buddy, Francis Saele, calls this ‘Return to Past’ (RTP) and he’s pretty scathing about the UPS move in his post (he’s a good person to follow, he shares a lot of articles with his own summary). He points out that most of the office workers earn a lot less than the UPS drivers and are having a considerable burden placed upon them for no good reason. As well as the additional costs, their personal life is being disrupted as they have to make new childcare arrangements and the like.
(Apparently, the warehouse workers were also unhappy about ‘management’ (basically, any admin or knowledge worker) having flexibility. But surely both groups of workers are pissed off that the drivers get to go out in a truck all day and enjoy life on the open road! Maybe UPS should insist THEY turn up at the office every day, all day. For fairness, right?)
RTO/RTP is a bad policy because of the impact it has on the workforce. It will causes resentment and lower productivity. The best people leave (and the churn itself is also damaging). Recruiting suffers because top talent want flexibly and autonomy. Whilst all this is true, and reason enough not to do something as monumentally stupid as UPS, I think it misses a much bigger point that has much longer and significant impact.
Hybrid, remote, Work from Home or whatever you call it is only the first step on a journey towards better ways of working that benefit both the employees and the employer. The employees get a better quality of life, whilst the employers get more productive and effective employees, which leads to better profits or more growth or whatever the employers goals are being achieved sooner.
It breaks the mould that we’ve all been locked in for the past several decades (centuries, arguably) of the office being central to the organisation and hierarchy. That’s exactly why CEOs hate it but they are massively missing the point. Now we’re out of stasis, movement begins to seem natural. We are, literally, no longer stuck in our old ways, so new ways of doing things become not just possible but attractive.
This point was brought home to me in the latest Eat Sleep Work Repeat podcast, in which host Bruce Daisley interviews the CEO of an NHS trust, Matthew Trainer. Trainer talks about the impact of COVID on the trust and how it made them change the way they delivered care. Leaders and staff had to implement new work flows and processes almost immediately, which was hugely disruptive to the hospitals. It was an extremely stressful time and they are still dealing with the aftermath in terms of backlogs. However, Trainer says the his clinical leaders are now much more confident about trying new approaches and making changes.
He reflects how in a his previous role it took him two years to get a fairly small change through the system. Now, it would be done quickly.
COVID forced us to make changes and, in the process, develop the muscles for making change. It also gave us a glimpse of what’s possible and whetted our appetite for more.
Aren’t these exactly the qualities that CEOs claim to want from their employees? So why on earth would you want to choke that off?
It’s where this new appetite and capacity for change can lead that is really exciting and where the true benefits lie. Moving towards more autonomy for employees, asynchronous working, digital collaboration platforms, dynamic teams and other progressive practices will unlock the potential of employees and deliver big gains in efficiency, which ultimately delivers more impact.
RTO/RTP is not just unpopular, unjustified and couner-productive, it’s also impossible. We’re not the people we used to be so we won’t fit back in the mould. But it’s worse than that, it’s a turning away from the future.
Those that want to return to the past will surely end up as history, like so many more companies before them.
Well, I suppose they’ll be getting their wish, won’t they?
(I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear
As I said in last week’s missive, Hybrid work doesn’t decrapify work - but it does make it more bearable. It certainly moves the tension between work and life back towards more balance. Apparently, UPS and their ilk don’t care about this.
UPS knowledge workers now face additional costs and disruption to their lives, As Francis rather mischievously puts it, “And if they have children, perhaps they should put them up for adoption, in a humane way of course. Maybe UPS should provide adoption counseling for those struggling with this decision.”
The disdain with which these companies regard their employees is coming through loud and clear, isn’t it?
In another apparent PR push, we have articles saying that working remotely will damage your chances of promotion and may make you more vulnerable to being sacked. (Sorry, that’s ‘let go’ or ‘laid off’, for those of you of a more delicate disposition.)
The subtext here is “If you want us to take you seriously, come into the office. If you want us to promote you, come into the office. If you want to keep your job, come into the office”.
Of course, this is not explicitly stated, it’s not company policy. It’s just ‘what the data tells us’. It’s just how management biases play out.
But it’s undoubtedly what some CEOs mean, and they are starting to say it out loud.
So what message does this send out?
It says ‘We value the superficial over the substantial. We say we’re interested in your output but actually we’re interested in how busy you seem to us.”
It says “We value presenteeism over performance. We say we reward people for effort but really we reward those that show up and make themselves available to our whims.”
It says “We value impression management over actual management. We say we want a meritocracy but we actually want feallty. We say we value those who deliver but actually we value those who blow smoke up our fundament and laugh at our jokes.”
It says “We are inadequate at our jobs, we lack imagination and are unable to lead effectively in this new environment. We deserve the sack.”
Do you think they realise?
Who Let The Dogs Out?
When I met my wife, she had a dog. She made it clear he was part of the package. She told me, “Love me, love my dog!”
Which was fine. I liked Toby, he was good to have around, apart from his tendency to run off when being walked. In which case he wasn’t around, he was on the other side of the park saying hello to the only other dog there, who he had spotted from about a mile away.
He was fine at home, though, and had the run of the garden, no problem.
Until the house behind us put up a new fence.
You see, their garden ran along the back of our terrace of houses (that is, it ran at right angles to all of us). The council was renovating it to be a ‘halfway house’ for kids in care and they built a substantial fence all around the garden. But, for reasons best know to themselves, the council workers built it on their side of the boundary, about 6” behind the original fence. (That’s about 15cm for you youngsters).
Which meant there was now a gap between the end of the side fences and the back fence. A big enough gap for a dog to get through into the next garden. Which also had a gap big enough for a dog to get through…
“Where’s the dog gone?”, asked my wife. We looked around the garden, which basically meant standing in the middle and turning around (we’re not talking acreage here!). No sign of dog.
“Toby! Toby!”, we called out.
“Woof, woof!”, came the reply. From four gardens down, where we saw Toby jumping up and down, trying to see us.
He made his way back, going through all the gaps, but that day changed him forever.
He now knew that there was a world outside the house and the garden, and he didn’t need to wait for us to take him there.
He had tasted freedom and he liked it.
After that, if he got half a chance, he would escape and run off, returning hours later, normally when it was time for his dinner.
Yes, of course I blocked the gaps in the fences. But he realised he could get out of the front door if we were not paying attention. When you’ve got two young children to look after, our attention was often distracted and Toby was ready and waiting to take advantage.
If you haven’t twigged the point of this little tale yet, let me bludgeon it home for you.
COVID moved the back fence and created a gap big enough for people to squeeze through and run free for a bit. They experienced freedom and autonomy and they liked it.
You can’t make them unlearn that experience. They want more. They are going to find ways to get it.
You can mend the gaps in the fence, you can drag them back to the office, but they are always going to be looking for ways to run away. To find freedom.
Your organisation is now full of Tobys. You can either send your time building better fences and watching the front door. Or you can give them the freedom they crave and reasons to keep coming back.
I Can See Clearly Now
I’m going to be doing some free Decrapify Work Clarity sessions in the next few weeks and I’m giving you guys first dibs.
Are you feeling frustrated with work and wondering what you can do to change it? Are you feeling a bit helpless and pushed around by events rather than controlling your own destiny? Are you perhaps feeling a bit hopeless about it all and wondering if this is just how it’s going to be until you retire (if you ever do)?
It can be hard to see what the way forward is when we’re feeling like this. When you’re right in the midst of it, it’s really hard to step back and get some perspective. Your in a state of confusion and you can’t see what your options are. You might even feel like you don’t really have any (trust me, you do).
Imagine having a conversation that DID allow you get that perspective. That helped you to see what is really troubling you and why, and gave you some ideas on how to address it. That began to sketch out and explore the options that you have and the possible trade-offs. That left you with a sense of agency and a belief that you can take some positive action to improve your experience of work, and some practical suggestions of things to try.
That conversation is the Decrapify Work Clarity session.
If you’d like to take me up on this free session, then email me at colin@colinnewlyn.com and we’ll take it from there.
All I ask is that you come prepared to be challenged and ready to make some change.
(P.S. if you know someone who might benefit from this, send them my way too)