Posted on 05/22/2021 5:29:23 PM PDT by DoodleBob
As vaccinations and relaxed health guidelines make returning to the office a reality for more companies, there seems to be a disconnect between managers and their workers over remote work.
A good example of this is a recent op-ed written by the CEO of a Washington, D.C., magazine that suggested workers could lose benefits like health care if they insist on continuing to work remotely as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes. The staff reacted by refusing to publish for a day.
While the CEO later apologized, she isn’t alone in appearing to bungle the transition back to the office after over a year in which tens of millions of employees were forced to work from home. A recent survey of full-time corporate or government employees found that two-thirds say their employers either have not communicated a post-pandemic office strategy or have only vaguely done so.
As workforce scholars, we are interested in teasing out how workers are dealing with this situation. Our recent research found that this failure to communicate clearly is hurting morale, culture and retention.
We first began investigating workers’ pandemic experiences in July 2020 as shelter-in-place orders shuttered offices and remote work was widespread. At the time, we wanted to know how workers were using their newfound freedom to potentially work virtually from anywhere.
We analyzed a dataset that a business and technology newsletter attained from surveying its 585,000 active readers. It asked them whether they planned to relocate during the next six months and to share their story about why and where from and to.
After a review, we had just under 3,000 responses, including 1,361 people who were planning to relocate or had recently done so. We systematically coded these responses to understand their motives and, based on distances moved, the degree of ongoing remote-work policy they would likely need.
We found that a segment of these employees would require a full remote-work arrangement based on the distance moved from their office, and another portion would face a longer commute. Woven throughout this was the explicit or implicit expectation of some degree of ongoing remote work among many of the workers who moved during the pandemic.
In other words, many of these workers were moving on the assumption – or promise – that they’d be able to keep working remotely at least some of the time after the pandemic ended. Or they seemed willing to quit if their employer didn’t oblige.
We wanted to see how these expectations were being met as the pandemic started to wind down in March 2021. So we searched online communities in Reddit to see what workers were saying. One forum proved particularly useful. A member asked, “Has your employer made remote work permanent yet or is it still in the air?” and went on to share his own experience. This post generated 101 responses with a good amount of detail on what their respective individual companies were doing.
While this qualitative data is only a small sample that is not necessarily representative of the U.S. population at large, these posts allowed us to delve into a richer understanding of how workers feel, which a simple stat can’t provide.
We found a disconnect between workers and management that starts with but goes beyond the issue of the remote-work policy itself. Broadly speaking, we found three recurring themes in these anonymous posts.
Others have also found that people are taking advantage of pandemic-related remote work to relocate to a city at a distance large enough that it would require partial or full-time remote work after people return to the office.
A recent survey by consulting firm PwC found that almost a quarter of workers were considering or planning to move more than 50 miles from one of their employer’s main offices. The survey also found 12% have already made such a move during the pandemic without getting a new job.
Our early findings suggested some workers would quit their current job rather than give up their new location if required by their employer, and we saw this actually start to occur in March.
One worker planned a move from Phoenix to Tulsa with her fiancé to get a bigger place with cheaper rent after her company went remote. She later had to leave her job for the move, even though “they told me they would allow me to work from home, then said never mind about it.”
Another worker indicated the promise to work remotely was only implicit, but he still had his hopes up when leaders “gassed us up for months saying we’d likely be able to keep working from home and come in occasionally” and then changed their minds and demanded employees return to the office once vaccinated.
Another constant refrain we read in the worker comments was disappointment in their company’s remote-work policy – or lack thereof.
Whether workers said they were staying remote for now, returning to the office or still unsure, we found that nearly a quarter of the people in our sample said their leaders were not giving them meaningful explanations of what was driving the policy. Even worse, the explanations sometimes felt confusing or insulting.
One worker complained that the manager “wanted butts in seats because we couldn’t be trusted to [work from home] even though we’d been doing it since last March,” adding: “I’m giving my notice on Monday.”
Another, whose company issued a two-week timeline for all to return to the office, griped: “Our leadership felt people weren’t as productive at home. While as a company we’ve hit most of our goals for the year. … Makes no sense.”
After a long period of office shutterings, it stands to reason workers would need time to readjust to office life, a point expressed in recent survey results. Employers that quickly flip the switch in calling workers back and do so with poor clarifying rationale risk appearing tone-deaf.
It suggests a lack of trust in productivity at a time when many workers report putting in more effort than ever and being strained by the increased digital intensity of their job – that is, the growing number of online meetings and chats.
And even when companies said they wouldn’t require a return to the office, workers still faulted them for their motives, which many employees described as financially motivated.
“We are going hybrid,” one worker wrote. “I personally don’t think the company is doing it for us. … I think they realized how efficient and how much money they are saving.”
Only a small minority of workers in our sample said their company asked for input on what employees actually want from a future remote work policy. Given that leaders are rightly concerned about company culture, we believe they are missing a key opportunity to engage with workers on the issue and show their policy rationales aren’t only about dollars and cents.
Management gurus such as Peter Drucker and other scholars have found that corporate culture is very important to binding together workers in an organization, especially in times of stress.
A company’s culture is essentially its values and beliefs shared among its members. That’s harder to foster when everyone is working remotely.
That’s likely why corporate human resource executives rank maintaining organizational culture as their top workforce priority for 2021.
But many of the forum posts we reviewed suggested that employer efforts to do that during the pandemic by orchestrating team outings and other get-togethers were actually pushing workers away, and that this type of “culture building” was not welcome.
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One worker’s company “had everyone come into the office for an outdoor luncheon a week ago,” according to a post, adding: “Idiots.”
Surveys have found that what workers want most from management, on the issue of corporate culture, are more remote-work resources, updated policies on flexibility and more communication from leadership.
As another worker put it, “I can tell you, most people really don’t give 2 flips about ‘company culture’ and think it’s BS.”
It is like home schooling in a way.
Very possible to do, if you are able to self discipline.
As the last year has shown, most are not. My wife is a teacher. 40% of her high school kids are passing.
I have seen a similar trend in at home work, to the point I have changed vendors because I can not afford to delay shipments because someone is “working” from home and didn’t respond for 48 hours.
“The best-equipped companies will now be able to monitor their employee’s screen time and specific activities online, so no goldbricking.”
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Definitely happening. Especially if one must stay logged in an active state in their VPN or remote into company servers
Slack and discord is also monitored for activity.
I started working in Manhattan seven years ago and absolutely love it there.
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Unless your company is paying parking, taxi fare etc, I would rather put that money into a home office (I have it setup for teaching and games development. my set-up far exceeds that of a company-issued craptop I would get lecturing).
Only thing I’m missing is a 3rd camera and a whiteboard but that’s my next phase (I just use a Cintiq with MS Whiteboard for that, right now). That and a green-screen room for stuff needing mo-cap
The trend I see is going the other way. Because the risks for breaking one of the many “woke” rules are job ending if not career-ending, the corporate workplace has gone mercenary - do your work, keep your mouth shut, and keep your personal life and work life separate.
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True. team lunches and team after work activities used to be fun de-stressors. People used to enjoy them. Now it’s step on egg-shells time and everyone trying to out PC each other outside of work (but at work-sponsored activities). A lot less lifetime friendships forming from work, and no finding mr/miss right at work anymore.
A former boss of mine got a job with a big name media company and their validates their traffic logs, applies payments from clients and notifies advertisers when their commercial time is preempted. It is massive detail work and since last year she has been working remotely often more than 60 hours a week. Last week the department was told that they would have to return to the office 3x per week and work remotely 2x per week. Naturally everyone is up in arms. Saving the wear and tear on the car, not having to buy business clothes, and not having to deal with a boss ftf or with snarky associates has been a huge boon. She told her boss that she was going to find another job.
“I know someone whose bosses were worried about lower productivity when workers worked at home but it increased. Now they are now trying to figure out how to retain the increased productivity while requiring the workers to come in the office.”
they won’t. forcing people back to long commutes and offices drives them away to a new more flexible job
I think some of both
Yes, well equipped and poorly managed companies will track activities rather than outcomes; old habits die hard, however outmoded.
“UNTHINKINGLY, I took the position that most people come here to avail themselves of work opportunities! POC s**tstorm came down!”
I’m genuinely stumped: what was the ‘woke’ answer?
Yes they will.
I’m genuinely stumped: what was the ‘woke’ answer?
It was, "You're racist! You gave the example of a South American immigrant. He is a brown person! That's racist to talk about brown people having to learn about technology!"
Yes, you have reiterated your main point. My main point is that not all types of work can be measured with a one-size-fits-all approach, even to measure outcomes, and even online. IT consulting companies make mega bucks crafting individualized solutions. Why? Because of the vast, worldwide variety of situations with which workers and their computers interact.
Roger that. I was in Midtown on 9/11. I grew up near Philadelphia. Many family members and friends thought I was a goner. I had to email Mrs DoodleBob (the phones were jammed) to have her get the word out that I worked 4 miles away and I was ok (and a little scared and colossally piss3d).
So, what, you should have hypothesized a German coming here and needing to acclimatize to technology?
Just wow.
“not all types of work can be measured with a one-size-fits-all approach, even to measure outcomes”
If you think you can’t measure outcomes, then measuring activities isn’t even a poor second - it can very well be actively detrimental to outcomes.
all i can say is that i clocked in and out at my regular times. and completed my work daily, what others do is their problem and were most likely that way in the office
Late last year I have 2 co-workers that moved away with one to Texas. He said he (from west coast Help Desk) and the other from the east coast Help Desk were asked to sign an agreement that they were to lose their jobs once we went back to the office.
Right now we would only have 4 people in the office out of 11 that were there prior to the scamdemic. The manager was fired earlier this month. The others quit as the manager and supervisor are terrible with the people there. I figure the rest of us are set to be let go and replaced by 30/hr week temp workers as all new hires are from the temp agency. The newer management from India have really dumb down our jobs leading to this.
About 2.5 years ago 1 person who was given permission to move to Idaho and keep his Network job and another about 2 years ago from the Help Desk moved to Arizona were both fired not long after they had just moved as the new management said everyone needs to be in the office......
We now have support in India and the Philippines and temp workers scattered on the east coast so what is the excuse we have to be in the office? Heck we do not have a manager anymore!
I don't think that at all! Lord have mercy! Measuring outcomes is a vital part of management and continuous improvement. Nor did I suggest that companies should "measure activities" per se across the board; it's a matter of scale as to which types of employees can be measured by outcomes, such as top management, as opposed to the more mundane metrics as with retailing employees.
I have worked as a director or business consultant in virtually every sector of the economy, including industrial raw materials, R&D, manufacturing, high tech, healthcare services, publishing and marketing, as well as non-profits and retail. You seem focused only on a narrow slice. Nor am I in any need of a pissing contest. I'm probably twice your age and commensurate experience. Trust me when I tell you that not all sectors of the work force can be measured effectively without imposing communism. And obviously that is not what we are here for.
This is definitely all white collar. We have some very poor managers.
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