”For two years now there has been much talk and writing about turning inwards, inner balance, wellbeing, personal life, hybrid working, rethinking the relationship with work.
It wasn’t a bad move at all, especially as the last few years, up until the pandemic, have been some run-down, hectic ones, in which we have lived, many of us, on the outside, for the outside, seemingly trapped in a circle we found it hard to get out of. We ran back and forth, sometimes senselessly.
But in the last two years, we have had time with ourselves, with our families, we have meditated, we have thought and changed our minds, we have analysed, we have learned, I hope.
At times we have been afraid that all these exhortations to be good to ourselves will risk being interpreted as signs of selfishness, carelessness, closure, and reclusion. Again, I hope that was not the case.
Maybe we made some choices differently, maybe we gave up what didn’t suit us, maybe we repositioned ourselves in relationships with loved ones, left where we weren’t welcome, moved house, some left town for a place where time seems to have more patience.
It’s not easy to be alone with yourself, sometimes we read novels, listen to loud music, hang out with loud people, run out into the world to stop hearing our own anxieties, and pains, to get away from the mark of a past that’s heavy as a constant headache, the abyss we’ve visited that we never want to face again. But wherever we are, we carry all this baggage with us, in a hidden coat pocket, and it comes out when we don’t expect it. But we’ve made friends with ourselves over the last couple of years, we’ve re-settled. And yet…
I read daily articles, comments on various online platforms. There are a large number of people complaining in one. Employers are crap, managers have no idea how to do their jobs, multinationals ask for too much work, and too much time. Romanian entrepreneurs are being thrown into a pot of infamy. Then young people complain about older people and vice versa, words like ‘diversity’, ‘inclusion’, ‘change’, ‘wellbeing’, ‘generations’ are often bandied about. The irony is that there are also people whose clients are multinationals, yet they do it with egg and vinegar.
People in companies also complain that ‘nobody wants to work anymore’, ‘everybody wants big money fast’, ‘young people don’t want to come to the office but just work from home’ and so on.
If we were to believe the comments especially written by the vocal ones, it’s terrible bad, everything is going to hell, hell is, as always with the others, we are a lazy, arrogant population, uninterested in anything but our own gain.
But beyond that, people are going on holiday. Social media is full of pictures from all over the world. All the terraces are full of young and not so young, any day of the week. Lots of people are involved in social causes beyond what they normally do.
These are just a few signs that tell me that we still have personal lives, there are people doing their jobs, there re good employers, there is enthusiasm and energy in a lot of people, beyond a screen saver that shows blaze, disengagement, discontent, disdain, distrust.
Do we have a new world? I don’t think we do yet. But we do have a world in transformation, where the status quo is being questioned, what has been is being sifted through the sieve and what will remain, what will be added, we will soon see. Maybe not this year, everything still seems troubled, the war in the next room doesn’t even let us sleep peacefully, crises of all kinds push us to look for solutions to have a decent life. But in the spring, things may be different, we will be able to see more clearly how we want this ‘new reality’ to be.
But a few things are clear:
People want to come to the office if it makes sense, if physical presence adds value to them. If not, then it’s best to avoid putting them on the road every day. A study published by the Harvard Business Review in April 2022 shows that a compromise in terms of hybrid working would be one day a week in the office, four days from home (or wherever). Another study published by McKinsey shows that women would want more remote work time (3.1 days) than men (2.9 days).
We all want to be treated with respect, whatever our status, whatever our age, whatever our personal orientations. Therefore, I would like that in the future, the more experienced ones don’t patronize the younger ones and the latter don’t consider the former retarded just because they don’t engage on Twitch; A woman who takes care of herself no longer be the target of attacks from individuals whose neuron is permanently dominated by hormones or another envious woman; A man with a different sexual orientation than ours no longer have to leave the country to stop feeling permanently attacked.
It is essential to adapt to the future to develop, learn, unlearn and relearn, as Alvin Toffler said. Technology is constantly evolving but our mind, our being, needs a little more time. We don’t change from one month to the next just because a different set of essential skills came from HQ and we have to adapt on the fly. The fact that human beings adapt to the times is being shown by the last two years. Some of us have moved to remote working, others, by the nature of the job, have been forced to expose themselves and make things work for the rest of us. What I think companies need to do, however, is to provide a slightly greater degree of security, safety, to people. It’s not ok to kick them out because they’ve been with the company for 10 years. It’s not okay to give the impression that the company needs fresh blood all the time and that an employee who has been with us for a while, and has done his job properly, can be fired at any given time. I plead for a level of job security, we’ve all had enough uncertainty lately.
Anyone who wants to be a leader in the future needs to be continually learning oriented, communicate well and a lot, care about others, make themselves respected by the team and respect their colleagues, be involved in society, be an example to those around them, have the ability to look ‘from the balcony’ at a situation, analyse it objectively and make the right decisions, have honest conversations with those around them. This honesty is essential on both sides though: if a manager is open with you, don’t treat them as if they have missing neurons, this behaviour puts a bad label on you.
Work is part of our lives. We spend more than a third of our day there. We will stay at a job that we enjoy going to, that gives us meaning. We will always have hard times, times when we don’t get along with someone, when we need to work differently, better, more. But maturity means knowing how to rise above and see beyond the inherent bumps in the road. Every job requires effort, every achievement in life comes with effort. When I went to school, I had exams, better teachers and more difficult ones. I wanted the whole school period to be all about play, fun, walks. But the aesthetic period of life is passing and we are moving into one where we need to become responsible for ourselves and those around us, those who matter. The expectation, if anyone still has it, that at work we will be spoiled, just like mum at home used to do, until we are 5, is unrealistic.
Working long-term from home can be hard for some people. The emotional impact for the lonely, for some of the very young, can be negative, and their well-being can deteriorate.
Maybe we should all think differently, entrepreneurs, managers, specialists, young people, older people, whatever department we are in. Maybe it is better to focus on what we want to create, what kind of world, each at his or her own level, to collaborate more, to raise the alarm when things go wrong, to be more assertive, assertive, involved.”
via: Revista Cariere