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Office versus home office: companies should create clarity
Large U.S. tech companies have not recently met with an overabundance of "affection" from their employees when they ordered them back to the office permanently. The range of reactions is likely to have been wide, from the high-profile dismissal of some top people to professional reorientation. What's clear is that crowbarring compulsory attendance won't work in the permanent "new normal." A commentary by Verena Zerai on Adzine.
Everyone, HR professionals included, appreciates the flexibility that has become the norm since Corona. Flexibility that allows concentrated work on important projects in a home office, allows parents to return to work earlier after a birth, or remote work abroad. And changes of perspective through temporary geography offer renewed, professional creativity.
Like everything else, this newfound flexibility also has a downside: more than ever, work is becoming more private. In some cases, there is the threat of a loss of boundaries, as the best example: After dinner, the PC is quickly opened on the kitchen table to work on "a few e-mails". On the one hand, more flexible private life is possible, but private life is also strongly infiltrated by work, so that the boundaries between these two areas of life seem to become invisible.
Companies need a strategy for how employees should work
This is where companies need clear rules and a strategy. And that leads to the topic of what does the "new normal" mean for companies?
One thing is clear: Companies should position themselves between the recognition that the world of work has changed irrevocably, the need for a lively office and corporate culture, and at the same time enough flexibility so that all employees can find themselves with their priorities.
My thesis: Without meeting at a shared workplace, a shared corporate culture is difficult to achieve, especially above a certain size. Agencies and companies are still living off the pre-Corona era. Many employees still know each other from their daily encounters at the workplace. But especially with new colleagues, building and maintaining working relationships is important. Anyone who has already had the experience of joining a company via video conferencing during the intensive phase of Corona knows what is meant.
Coercion does not work in the New Normal
People need proximity and direct exchange. Creativity also thrives on this. Agencies and advertising companies in particular need it. How many ideas haven't arisen spontaneously during a conversation at the coffee machine? Or spontaneous brainstorming sessions in the kitchenette?
However, companies have a responsibility to create an office culture and structures that make employees want to come into the office. Coercion will not work well in the "war of talents.
The debate must therefore go in both directions: Companies must offer an attractive corporate culture, but employees must also value it. A culture of mutual respect, flat hierarchies, freedom and appreciation goes without saying. The compatibility of work and private life is also part of this. But all of this must be exemplified in a credible way. Structures are also helpful for the "new normal. It is essential to clarify the extent to which home office is possible, to define when presence is necessary and when the hybrid form of work is suitable.
Clarify expectations and prevent delimitation
Of course, needs and operational requirements differ depending on the company, units and the individual work teams. These individually define the mix in which work is done in the office or in the mobile office. Here, it can make sense to define a minimum level of presence. But employees should be able to arrange their schedules individually. After all, every lifestyle is flexible today.
It is essential, however, that companies clarify how they will position themselves after the pandemic. Only in this way can expectations become clear and the common intersection can be explored and filled with productive life. In this way, it is also important to prevent boundaries from being blurred.