”The classic way of working, with a 9-5 schedule, where everyone has to come to the office, simply doesn’t make sense anymore. And people will react negatively if leaders try to impose a 100% return to old routines. Hybrid working arrangements are now the natural, normal step to focus on, even if, with wave 4 of the pandemic, the near future is increasingly uncertain.

“We are still in a bit of a fog. Now it’s the fourth wave. Will there be others? But if we’ve got used to working from home, doing our schedules a bit differently, prioritising what’s important differently, why would we go back to the way things were before? For me, the question is: WHY do we want everyone to come to the office?”, says Georgeta Dendrino, Executive Coach and Managing Director of Interact. Especially since, she adds, the context now is like a tunnel, “we go as best we can, we fumble, we hesitate, we try different things. But we go forward, we don’t go back to the way it was. I don’t think there is, for the moment, a clear picture of the reality beyond the pandemic. There are just many scenarios. And as far as work concerns, the hybrid scenario is the most viable.” Because she argues, although the work from home experience has shown that we can work very well remotely, as an organisation, we need to connect with each other, belong to a group, have team routines. Otherwise, “without someone to bring them together in a space, without that socialisation, people will scatter like billiard balls, and in difficult times, they will lose their north, their motivation, they can easily drift and fall into painful and destructive melancholy”.

That’s why, she believes, going back to the office, but in a mutually agreed employee-employer formula, is the best solution of the moment: “Going to the office sometimes can be an act of hygiene for our minds. I know, it sounds strange, we expose ourselves to the virus. But to recharge our batteries, to be able to cope with all the tasks, the needs at home, to have energy and enthusiasm for the family, I think it helps to get away from time to time.”

People can’t find the WHY to return
But she admits there’s a lot to consider before commenting one way or the other on the difference of opinion between leaders and employees, in terms of the number of days worked from home or the office – for example, “an introvert may have deepened their preference for solitude and find it easier to avoid group meetings”, but in essence, employees’ unwillingness to spend as many days at headquarters as possible has a much deeper cause.

And, to understand what she means, she invited us to recall how crowded Calea Victoriei, the Old Town, cafés, terraces, shopping malls, beaches were over the summer, how crowded it was at concerts or stadiums, or how careless people were, and still are, on public transport.

In conclusion: “The fear of viruses exists, but does it only manifest itself strongly when it comes to going to the office?” asks Dendrino rhetorically. Well, no! In fact, she clarifies, people “don’t find the WHY of going back to the way they used to work. That’s where I see the enormous challenge for leaders.”

An opportunity to recreate a new working regime
Before the pandemic, flexible working was not a widespread option (except for IT&C) and, although many employees would have liked to work remotely, in companies it was a taboo subject or a feature included in the benefits package as a form of reward for excellence. But the pandemic has shaken any traditional organisation of work processes to its foundations, emptying offices and forcing us to work from anywhere else. How ready is the labor market now to get flexible, given the experience of 18 months of remote working?

Often at the root of the reluctance to make things flexible is a lack of trust in people, says Georgeta Dendrino, “we want to see them, to ‘take their pulse’, to make sure they are working” – somehow that permanent tendency to control, a habit of the old management style. But the pandemic has shown us that efficiency does not lie in control and, as Georgeta Dendrino attests: “There will always be people who will shake our confidence. But most of them are doing their job, even if we don’t keep an eye on them. Don’t we all know colleagues who, before the pandemic, were at their desks all day on social media, surfing the web, on sites other than anything related to their job?”.

That’s why he agrees that now is an opportunity to recreate a new, effective work regime in the future where health experts warn us it will be unpredictable and uncontrollable.

But for that, she warns, it is important to clarify what the “purpose of the office” is. And when we rethink that purpose, let’s keep in mind that in 2020 we discovered that we can work more productively from home, but also that technology cannot replace human connection. In addition, beyond productivity, working from home also comes with sedentary lifestyles, back pain caused by poor sitting, working late into the evening, the overlap between personal and professional space, fatigue caused by so many zoomed-in meetings. “Parents with young children have quickly gone from what we called WFH (work from home) to WTF (what the fuck). But zoom/team meetings have made people more respectful of each person’s space to express themselves on the team; these and similar platforms give the opportunity to sign up to speak, then invite disciplined, more to-the-point discussions with less rambling.”

Without people, the office is like a library without books
So a combination of working days at home and going to the office would have several advantages. However, warns the Interact manager, hybrid working is difficult to manage and requires a great deal of attention to detail. Because if people come to the office one at a time, it still doesn’t meet the need for a team, for everyone to be in the same place. Then, those who are more physically present are likely to have an advantage and we see another performance measurement error: presenteeism.

That’s why, she advises, “leaders should increase their level of empathy, compassion and care for their employees. When you understand how a person on your team lives, how hard it can be for them to work from an apartment where there’s a young child to take care of, there’s a spouse, also working from home, you come to respect that person’s choice to do their office work at 10 pm or very early in the morning, to be less involved at lunchtime.”

And attention and empathy are even more important as the new behaviours will have a major impact on the culture of the organisation: “It will be much harder to maintain people’s enthusiasm, to create dedication, commitment to the company. But one role of the leader is to hold all the balls together like a triangle on the pool table. The balls will gather harder, the leader will have to show more that he cares about his team, otherwise these balls, these people will spread like butterflies in a breeze. So to speak, no pressure, leaders! After all, an office is about the people who work there. Without them, the office is like a library without books”.

That’s why, suggests Georgeta Dendrino, rather than trying to relocate all the people to a big office in Pipera, leaders would do better to consider the idea of creating satellite offices so that people don’t have to travel across town, don’t have to get stuck in the metro, in traffic, but can also meet their colleagues regularly.

Perhaps redefining workspace means creating dedicated activity spaces, she adds, such as study space, brainstorming space, project meeting space; think tank, bar, and when we need to work individually, we can do it from home. And for that, companies should work with designers or architects to help them with this redefinition.

Then, Dendrino continues, there’s also the possibility of offices being like those shared workspaces, where you go, work for a few hours, leave. But, she cautions, this behaviour “is similar to the behaviour of the tourist: you go to the hotel, enjoy the space, leave, with no attachment, no connection”.

And as a final warning, she reminds us that the pandemic has sped up digitalisation, so another aspect to consider is the creation of a virtual workspace, a cloud workspace, where all documents, all files on desks are transformed into cloud files. A transformation, perhaps inevitable thanks to technology, but which also comes with a sensitivity for some: “everything becomes easy to track, an employer will always see what everyone is doing on the computer”.

Q&A: Pressure cooker
But the radical transformation of the way we work, in addition to all of the above, also comes with the challenge of learning to take better care of our mental health and well-being. In the Q&A section, Georgeta Dendrino comes up with some tips on how to manage emotions, keep team wellbeing and organisational spirit alive, regardless of context or conjuncture.

How do you feel about the people and organisations you work with? How has the pandemic affected them and their relationships?

I think the pandemic has deepened cracks, disconnects, disconnectedness, disengagement, where they existed, and maintained engagement, culture, and belonging, where they were at good levels. I wouldn’t talk about increasing engagement and a sense of belonging, already maintaining levels is an achievement. People… many people re-evaluate their priorities, they relate differently to work; they have ups and downs when it comes to the sense of belonging to a team, a company. It’s very easy to lose our sense now, landmarks keep shifting, it feels like we’re on quicksand all the time. We need to maintain/increase our flexibility, tolerance, adaptability. Leaders need to communicate and communicate again, be clear, show they care about others, be involved in various causes, give direction, even if they too are often in the fog, demonstrate a delicate combination of strength and vulnerability, keep themselves in balance, so they can support others.

Is there an additional need for balance?

Definitely, yes. As the daily coffee chats no longer exist, we no longer have that little valve of thought elimination, of some de-stress, we no longer have the support of others. The pressure cooker no longer has a valve to let the steam out. And yes, from time to time, we become like the pressure cooker. Some people have been through a lot on their own and have learned to manage themselves, I don’t want to generalize. But the majority is not in this situation. That’s why it’s good for leaders and HR people to focus on these issues, to have as a strategic project the well-being and mental health of people in their companies. Studies show that these have a major impact on productivity.

How can they do this?

There are several possible initiatives to help keep people in balance, to support them. Before the pandemic, companies offered various types of benefits that should be reviewed now. Focusing on wellness is a concern of many companies worldwide. We still talk about it, but the measures are low. I’m talking here (about supporting people to keep themselves in balance) about giving them tools and ideas, not just a gym membership. It’s like when you teach someone to fish, you don’t give them the fish.

What influence do you think the pandemic has had on organisational connection, engagement, culture, and belonging?

The influence of pandemics on connection, engagement, sense of belonging is great. I see that the synchronicity in the level of engagement, energy, enthusiasm, is large and frequent. One minute people are fine, with a good level of engagement, two months later they become apathetic, disoriented, lose their meaning.

I think HR people’s efforts should be oriented towards thinking of programs that keep employees close, showing that “the company” cares about them, supporting managers to reposition themselves, to be more empathetic. Of course, some managers will themselves make efforts to change, to become more flexible, to adapt. But few, not all. But their role is critical now. It seems to me that this is a time when the role of HR can be transformed and can take on a much more important position in many organisations.

And is this an opportunity or a challenge?

Yes, it is an opportunity for HR and a big challenge at the same time. HR people are also going through the same period, they too have their anxieties, their concerns for themselves and their loved ones. The question is “who takes care of HR people?”; what kind of programs are there to teach them, mentor them and get them to put on their oxygen mask before helping others?

Each of us goes to work with everything that is us, personal and professional concerns. When your child can’t go to school because there’s a case of Covid in the classroom, I can only imagine how much pressure a parent is under. If they are raising their child alone, as I know there are many situations, I would say that the person’s life is not exactly a basket of flowers. I mean, it’s good to treat them like people, to know that HR people have their own lives too, that they too are struggling, just like those in other positions.”

via: Revista Cariere