Confinement
The past months many of us have been confined to their homes. And many of us have been able to continue their work from a distance. Telework was obligatory in many countries and cities. The empty streets were testimonials of a different world that came knocking on our door. But that door was certainly not heaven’s door.
My Own Bias
Let me be clear about my own bias. I have been an advocate of telework and I still am. The first time I dealt with telework was in 1995 when I did field research. I was working at the University Ghent and focused on the integration of ICT at work. Those were the days of the grey websites, the Lycos search engine and the absence of HTML editors. When I talked to business leaders about the introduction of telework they were puzzled. At that time Telework was something that was more common in large countries where distance mattered. The so-called telecottages in the North or the Minitel in France were early examples of computer-supported-collaborative-work (CSCW), as it was called in the mid-nineties. I was working with Alcatel, Philips and IBM on their telework implementation. Of course, these were tech giants that wanted to prove that their technological solutions could flexibility work. But the challenge is never technological. It’s always a matter of behaviour.
It’s always a matter of behaviour.
One business manager asked back then. me how much employees were willing to pay – read take a pay cut – if they were allowed to work from home. When I think of that today, I have to smile.
Implementation
Let’s fast-forward to 2009. I was working for Securex as Chief People Officer and telework was on the agenda. I remember the discussions about how many days, which functions, … We came up with a list of functions that allowed for telework. And we made a distinction between fixed homework and occasional homework. People could work one or two days from home – most did 1 day – and the manager could only object if they had a legitimate reason. But managers could also revoke the home working solution if they saw that there were issues.
Managers are often the biggest opponents of the idea of telework.
Managers are often the biggest opponents of the idea of telework. They see many issues of coordination, trust, performance. The easiest is that everyone is present at the same in the same place. But that is also true for galleys. Managers also lack the courage to deliberate. Demanding that someone is present at the office on a day they normally work frop home seems to require courage. And that’s the issue. If we are not able to integrate work from home in a flexible, it will always remain a source of tension. Why not keep it simple and say that someone works then and there according to needs and demands?
In spite of the resistance of some managers, telework proved its value when it started to snow heavily in 2013 or just after the terrorist attacks in 2016. Suddenly telework was fine. It became a solution but more in the sense of a necessary evil. And today we see the same: telework has been the solution for many people. Lucky were those organizations who had built both the organizational and technological capabilities to work in a decentralised way. And the ones who hadn’t had to jump into the unknown, and often the undesired.
The norm
The norm in Belgium for telework is one or two days. In 2018 13% of people worked from home one day a week. Another 2% worked 2 days from home and 2% worked longer days. Today most people who work from home, work 5 / 5 from home. And they suffer. Even when recent research by AMS in collaboration with hrpro.be and VBO showed that many HR and business leaders see no problems in the current solution, we must be careful in thinking that it is OK.
For many, it is not. And of course, the fact that young children are at home too, does not help. Last week I was in a conversation with a young mother who has 3 young children at home and who is working. She put herself on mute because the noise the kids made was really deafening. I thanked her for the courtesy.
Many people see an increased rate of homework as the new normal. People who have been promoting “the new way of working” see their point proven because the pandemic has shown it is possible to digitalise the way we work. But I would ask everybody to hold their horses.
The Digital Drain
What we see as well is that working constantly from home, through digital channels, is draining energy. There are many reasons for that.
- An online meeting or conversation asks more from people in terms of listening. The person who leads the meeting has less to go on, and people are less involved in such meetings. If you have led such meetings you know they’re exhausting.
- People think that others are not interested, because they lack social cues. We have to learn to talk to the camera, instead of talking to the screen. But that feels artificial.
- A lot of the social fabric is made of coincidental encounters. Conversations at the coffee corner, before and after meetings, the occasional bumping into people … make the work easier and more fun. They make cocreation and innovation easier.
The latter argument was one of the reasons why Yahoo and IBM, pioneers in homework, reduced or eradicated telework a couple of years ago. And even when I thought that this was exaggerated then, I understand their reasoning now.
And so, we need to ask ourselves what will we do. Many organizations are calling their people back in as telework is no longer mandatory but advisable. And at the same time, many employees have seen the advantages of not having to go to the office every day. We can expect a fierce debate with many perspectives.
We can expect a fierce debate with many perspectives.
Perspectives in Favour of Homework
The Employer’s Perspective
- Homework is a way to reduce office space. This – often implicit – cost reduction has been one of the drivers behind the development of telework in recent years.
- It’s a way to support people in their struggle to integrate private and work life. Working one day a week reduces traffic stress by 20%.
- It’s a way to attract people who do no longer want to go through the ordeal of traffic jams to go to the major business hubs.
- There is a productivity increase when working from home. Employers know that a part of the saved commuting time will go to work-related activities. People start a bit earlier and work a little later, but they can also focus better and thanks to the technology they can integrate into the remote team.
The Employee’s Perspective
- Homework is a way to combine certain life roles better. We talk about balance, but it’s more about the integration of those roles.
- Homework is a way to reduce the traffic stress. Working one day from home reduces travel time. A part of that time can be spent on personal objectives. It’s nice to end the day without having to throw yourselves into the city congestion.
- Homework is also a way to organise work better. Many people save some work for the home working days. They can concentrate better and have a feeling of accomplishments.
Perspectives against Homework
The employer’s perspective
- Not everybody is capable to work from home. It takes skill and trustworthiness to work from home. Most people are willing to do a good job, but they need a different kind of assistance. Some leaders feel the need to check on people, which is a waste.
- Managers have a hard time to lead a team that is not there. People work part-time, partly from home, etc. Getting people together is a challenge.
- When people work from home, they might ask for more compensation. Communication costs, energy consumption, … increase. If homework is not mandatory one can refuse to pay and offer a seat at the office instead. But when homework becomes the only option, the cost question will arise.
The Employee’s Perspective
- Working from home comes with responsibility. That is why some people work harder because they want to prove that they are trustworthy. Working from home might increase a person’s accountability. And that is not what everybody wants. We should accept that many people work for their income.
- Working from home creates isolation. Being in confinement has had a big impact on well-being. Imagine working from home for 100% of the time. That is not bearable.
- Working from home comes with some practical requirements. Having a spot where you work without being interrupted is one of the conditions for healthy and productive telework. If homework is mandatory, some people might want to get reimbursed for some of the investments.
Many of the objections against telework can be remedied by having clear agreements, good habits, managers that can cope with the dispersion of their team and by hiring people who are willing and able to work remotely. But these are big conditions. So, let’s hold our horses.
The Organisational Perspective
There’s another perspective: that of the organisation itself. Organisations are nothing more than an organised group of people working together to achieve common objectives. One could see an organisation as a tangled network of intertwined formal and informal relationships. Being and working together is one of the elements of the success of an organization. A lot of that being together can be replaced by digital encounters as we have seen in the recent past. But we need to organise for physical and social encounters.
We need to organise for physical and social encounters.
Some people argue to stop talking about social distancing and replace the term by physical distancing. Even though this is semantics, I agree that social distancing is the worst thing we can do. We have learnt the value of being together and many people crave to be back in those boring meeting rooms to work together.
And that is the point. There is nothing against telework. It all depends on how it’s done. And so, if telework can be integrated into daily activities according to the needs of people, the customers and the organisations we might build something sustainable.
The fact that we have to legally regulate telework and put the rights and duties on paper illustrates that we will have issues to find a balanced solution that takes into consideration all the perspectives of all the stakeholders.
That is why I would hold a plea for principles and guidelines instead of too many rules and regulations. Here are my suggestions for those guidelines.
9 Principles
I would like to present 9 principles that could help us design the future of organizations.
- The Trust Principle: We must act in ways that build and reinforce trust and mutual respect (thank you @EdMorrison for this splendid view on collaboration)
- The Purpose principle: The common purpose must guide us in our actions. We will organise ourselves in such a way that we can achieve our perspectives.
- The Reciprocity principle: Employers ask for flexibility, but must also give flexibility. Any solution must be a triple win: for the individual, for the team and for the organization. But nobody can hide behind old habits and assumptions to refuse anything.
- The Balance principle: We must give attention to issues of performance, values and well-being without putting any hierarchy in those three.
- The Fairness principle: Solutions for work organization must be fair and feasible. Nobody can ask for something that is impossible, but impossible is not an eternal state of things.
- The Inclusion principle: If we build an organizational model, we must make sure that people feel integrated and that we lower barriers for people who might have a distance to the ideal profile.
- The Performance Principle: let’s not forget that organizations create value through performance.
- The Otolith principle: Leaders must refrain from massive presence and control. They can focus on values, progress and results but should not feel responsible for every action people in the team make. As long as invoicing, customer satisfaction and all other targets are going according to plan, no intervention is required. The time that leaders gain by controlling less, can be invested in establishing trust and support in their relationship.
- The Design Principle: let’s design organizations according to design principles that are based on what we know. about human behaviour. And let’s avoid ideology. Let’s do what works, in this given context, given time, …
Let’s avoid ideology.
The New Normal
Those who are on the barricades and propagating a new normal are right. A new normal is coming. But it’s not their new normal. We will build a new normal, but that new normal will look a lot like the old normal. A couple of months of confinement are not enough to change human nature. And as I see it, people are rushing back to the way we have been doing things.
A couple of months of confinement are not enough to change human nature.
I admit, going back to “business as usual” would be a pity because it would mean we have not learnt a lot from this painful period. So I do understand the call for a new normal, with telework as just one example of how that new normal could look like. But let’s not get carried away and look for optimal solutions. So hold your horse and be realistic. Go step by step.
Should you wish to exchange or debate about this, get in touch.
