Four of five of my clients no longer have a physical office.
They decided to become entirely virtual businesses and will bring their teams together once per quarter. If two years ago you told them this is what would happen in two years, they would have laughed.
Along with their employees, the one company that is the exception decided to become a hybrid with two days a week in the office and three days remote. She, too, would be laughing at that idea.
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, 90% of employers plan to implement a hybrid work environment. At Accenture, a recent study shows that 83% of workers prefer flexibility to a fixed office.
What’s suitable for you in a Post-Covid World?
The pandemic experience is an opportunity to rethink how you do business. Here are some questions and conversations I’m having with my clients.
- Businesses owned or run by older folks tend to want to go back to how it was. They want to have happenstance connections and water-cooler moments to build culture. But the workforce is from a different era than boomers and older millennials. Are you creating a business that makes you comfortable – or your employees?
- Productivity gains are real. With many workers who can avoid interruptions, their workflow is more efficient. Saving ten hours a week on commuting is a big time saver. But for parents with young kids at home, this is tricky. Finding a flexible and fair balance for all is essential. Are you creating a one-size-fits-all culture or adaptable to individual needs?
- Depending on the nature of your work, occasional in-person meetings do build belonging and connection. The extremes – nothing or all – rarely satisfied anyone. Can you find a balanced approach to today’s work needs? Are you creating an organic work environment that can adapt – or is it static and only one-way?
Visiting Mom
In March, I spent a week with my almost 95-year-old Mom.
If you want a reminder of how things change, spend time with an older person. The conversation keeps coming around to what has changed – what’s different – and about things no one used to do.
We FaceTime with my family – including my grandson Bodhi in Hawaii. That perked her up, and all she could say was how great technology is today. Being able to ‘visit from the sofa’ 11,000 miles away is remarkable.
Then the next day, she had an online doctor visit to check on her eye, which was slightly inflamed. She said she liked that she didn’t have to go anywhere to see the doctor, but she missed home visits by a doctor. She felt uncertain that a virtual visit by a doctor could help her. How is he going to examine my eye? I shared that I sent him a few close-up photos posted to her portal. She was bewildered by this changing relationship with doctors.
One evening we had a long discussion about how grocery shopping used to be in the 1960s and 1970s when I was growing up versus today. She commented on how hard some things are now – and how much easier other things are in this twenty-first century world. She sees the joy of home delivery but misses interacting with people in a store who know her as Mrs. Slater.
From the perspective of someone at almost 95, looking back opens your eyes to change that happens every day. Some good and some bad things keep changing- but overall, Mom said, “you can’t fight change.”
Business Owners Today
I don’t envy today’s owners and leaders. The workplace challenges are evolving.
I’m not sure the phrase new normal means anything. But changes happen slowly every moment. We, humans, keep evolving and adapting. The ability to learn to adjust is critical to emotional and physical health. As businesses go back to work or, perhaps more aptly, forward to work, they have to evolve.
A productive work environment gives individuals more control over their destiny. People want to belong to groups with common interests but retain dignity.
How does your company define belonging? Are you building flexibility or rigidity in your workspace?
As the poet and philosopher, Lao Tzu said,
“A strong wind may topple the sturdy oak, but the willow bends and lets the wind pass through.”
Are you an oak or a willow?
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Watch a short video about working with me.
Photo by Rawan Yasser on Unsplash
