Recently we have been receiving some enquiries from companies who are keen to bring their staff back to the office 5 days a week. At least that’s the question they think they are asking us.
Here’s how the first part of the conversation often goes:
Prospective client: We need to bring our staff back to the office. Can you help us?
NEP: I’ll need to ask some questions first…. May I ask why do you want your staff back into the office?
Prospective client: Because they aren’t being as productive at home.
NEP: As productive as what? What exactly does productivity mean to you?
Prospective client: We feel that at current capacity they should be 20% more chargeable (assuming an accounting firm in this case).
NEP: And what if people were meeting the chargeable time you have in mind – would you care where they were working?
Prospective clients look at each other…. Finally one says…. Probably not…
NEP: And what kinds of things do you feel they should be doing to get that extra chargeable time?
Prospective client: [Some very ambiguous response.]
And I think we’ve uncovered the real issue…
I’ve never seen anyone questioned over where they work from when they are knocking their goals out of the ballpark.
And while many people say they are productive working from home, if the business is not seeing the productivity, then of course the question is asked about whether they should bring everyone back to the office.
In most cases, it’s less about where people are working and more about the issue that leaders have not been clear enough with exactly what the expectations are. And having weak leaders at different levels will significantly exacerbate the issue of ambiguity.
Expectations are not just about the Key Performance Indicators, but also around what we call your Key Culture Indicators.
For example, if part of someone’s KPIs includes leadership, and they want to be seen as a leader, they are making life pretty hard for themselves to get those outcomes if they are always working from home with their camera off. Not saying you can’t get the same result, but they’ll probably need to pull a rabbit out of their hat in other ways to get the same results. And the question becomes… has it been made clear to them what “being seen as a leader” even is? Possibly not.
Conversely someone may need to have very little interaction with other people to do their job, but do they really have clarity around their KPIs? That is, what needs to be achieved so that by the end of the year, other people think it’s good to have them around?
Is it really 5 days back in the office that’s going to solve all the issues? Well everyone sitting side by side makes it easier if leadership hasn’t upskilled to deal with the remote situation…. And sure, it just may be easier than fixing leadership skills – especially across larger companies.
We are also hearing a lot of concerns along the lines of how one person’s flexibility has become another person’s inconvenience.
So it’s a tricky one but here are a few ideas to get you started
- Make sure clear outcomes and KPIs have been set and understood and the implications of not meeting these.
- Any working from home protocols should be agreed. There should be clarity around literally everything including set up for productivity, dress code, availability for spontaneous chats, school drop-offs or not, can you answer the door in the middle of a meeting when Amazon arrives 45 times after Prime Day?, whether or not babysitting your kids is considered appropriate and many more issues that we help our clients to work through.
- WFH should be seen as a privilege not a right – once clear expectations have been set. If people still aren’t meeting these expectations, then should they really be allowed the privilege to work (or maybe they’re not working) from home?
The landscape of the workplace is constantly evolving. Not addressing these issues is just going to compound performance issues and cultural problems.
Before we worry about where people work, the first step is for leaders to provide absolute clarity on outcomes, outcomes and more outcomes that teams and individuals need to achieve. And this includes the behaviours that are expected when they work from home, so that one person’s flexibility doesn’t become another person’s inconvenience.
Once the clarity is there, then see how performance lifts. There may still very well be a business case for being back in the office 5 days a week, but maybe there won’t be.
Of course, if you’d like to find out more about how to improve performance with less effort why not either book a Performance Call or sign up for our next 20/20 session or one of our open workshops here.