Some of my clients' companies have always worked remotely, and others have fully adopted that policy over the past year. But most are preparing for a return to some form of co-located work, while recognizing that it will look very different than it did pre-pandemic. No one in my practice is adopting Jamie Dimon's approach--the JPMorgan Chase CEO recently asserted that working from home "doesn’t work for people who want to hustle, doesn’t work for culture, doesn’t work for idea generation. By September it will look just like it did before." [1]
Rather than viewing remote work during the pandemic as a temporary response to a crisis, my clients generally see it as a learning experience that enabled their organizations to become more flexible on a permanent basis. The benefits of this flexibility include responsiveness to employees' preferences, the ability to attract and retain talent in a wider range of geographical locations, and even increased productivity in some circumstances. The idea that remote work prevents hustle certainly hasn't occurred to my clients, although its impact on culture and idea generation is more complex--see below.
That said, it's becoming apparent that having every individual decide on a daily basis whether or not to join their colleagues in person will be sub-optimal and possibly dysfunctional. Instead, making the benefits of remote work sustainable will require a collective understanding of when, how, and why co-located work is necessary. One way I'm discussing this with clients is the idea of four "buckets"--ways of categorizing work that they and their employees can articulate and agree upon:
1. Asynchronous Work
One of the most widespread impacts of the pandemic is a heightened awareness of how much work is conducted asynchronously and thus requires no co-location at all (and never did.) There is a degree of ambivalence about the loss of serendipitous interactions and an inability to have momentary face-to-face conversations. But this is coupled with a recognition that the open offices so prevalent in contemporary organizations are in fact poorly-designed environments that promote distraction and undermine productivity. [2]
2. Synchronous Work (Co-Location Optional)
There are a number of meetings and other synchronous events in which any benefits to co-location may easily be outweighed by the costs of travel, space allocation, and other logistical burdens. In these circumstances the guiding principle is critical mass: If most people are already co-located, the meeting or event will be conducted primarily in-person, with modest accommodations made for remote participants. If most people are already remote, it will be conducted virtually, with co-located participants free to gather together if they choose. All that said, it's becoming clear that a number of meetings or events in this bucket are actually relics of a pre-pandemic culture, and that it may be preferable to eliminate them and conduct this work asynchronously. For example, many meetings that consist of a series of reports should be turned into dashboards that people can consult when necessary or documents that they can read on their own time.
3. Hybrid Work
There are also a number of meetings and other events that legitimately need to be conducted synchronously, but don't rise to the level of mandating co-location. Some participants will be co-located and others will be remote, and for most organizations conducting such hybrid work effectively requires both an investment in the necessary infrastructure and a commitment to adapting the culture. Before the pandemic, such hybrid events were typically conducted with minimal regard for the experience of remote participants--they dialed in on a conference line and were occasionally asked to speak up. The pandemic not only raised our expectations for the quality of the remote experience, but also resulted in more people working remotely, so our post-pandemic approach to hybrid work needs to evolve accordingly. In many cases this will entail investing in conference facilities that enable remote participants to feel fully present without undermining the experience of co-located participants. But whatever the technical infrastructure, it's even more important that organizations also adapt the norms of their meeting culture to support hybrid work. [3] The best equipment in the world won't help if cultural norms make remote participants feel like second-class citizens or make co-located participants feel unduly burdened.
4. Synchronous Work (Co-Location Mandatory)
Finally, there's work that truly requires co-location. Everyone needs to be physically present, and the organization will go to great lengths to make this happen. Here my clients are in agreement with Jamie Dimon, in a sense. They agree that aspects of organizational culture--specifically relationship-building and social cohesion--are supported by consistent in-person experiences, and they also agree that certain types of idea generation are more effective when people are physically present in the same room. However, they don't agree that everyone in the company needs to be in the office five days a week. Instead, they're determining which groups of people need to be co-located, for how long, and how often in order to accomplish these goals, and this can take any number of forms. Typically this involves more frequent in-person gatherings of the executive team and occasional in-person events for larger, more heterogeneous groups of employees. The key here is recognizing that in-person time is the scarce and valuable commodity, so long-term planning is critical, and time and effort must be expended to make the most of these opportunities.
Footnotes
[1] Jamie Dimon insists his workers return to the office--here’s why that’s a bit rich. (Quentin Fottrell, MarketWatch)
[2] The Uneasiness of the Open Office
[3] Rules Aren't Norms (On Better Meeting Hygiene)
For Further Reading
Better Conditions for Working Remotely
- A set of recommendations ranging from furniture and equipment to scheduling.
Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding From Anywhere (Tsedal Neeley, 2021)
- A host of books have been published on this topic post-pandemic, but Harvard Business School professor Neeley has been studying remote work for years. (I discussed her findings in my June 2021 newsletter.)
CONNECTIONS: Meaningful Virtual Conversations
- A structured agenda to help anyone host a virtual gathering of 6 people for 90 minutes. Developed for my business school classmates' 20th reunion, this program can easily be adapted for the needs of a professional team.
Photo by Joe Murphy.
