<
https://freedium.cfd/https://medium.com/enrique-dans/distributed-work-get-it-right-and-your-organization-will-benefit-5d8f6e756fac>
"A survey of 158 US managers reveals that the overwhelming majority have put
return-to-office policies on the back burner, with only six considering them
important.
Some 27% of managers considered maintaining hybrid work a priority. In another
survey, this one conducted by Deloitte, 65% of finance executives said they
expected their company to offer the possibility of hybrid work arrangements
from this year.
Distributed work, contrary to what many believe, is growing in the United
States. Between 20% and 25% of people work from home for at least part of the
week, down from 47% during lockdown, but up from 3% before the pandemic.
For an increasing number of managers, having their teams in distributed
environments who do not come into the office every day is now the norm, and in
no way entails a loss of productivity (in many cases the opposite), making it
easier to attract or retain talent, particularly younger people.
The nostalgic managers who, after the pandemic, insisted above all else on
forcing people to return to the office, citing productivity losses that could
never be proven and that, in reality, only existed in their heads, have done a
lot of damage to the normalization of distributed work, which, in today's
technological environment, makes perfect sense.
Offering workers the freedom to choose whether they work from home or come to
the office, via hybrid models that seek to empower people rather than constrain
their choices, is increasingly the most reasonable option for companies that
understand the changing environment. The progressive availability of bandwidth
and technology makes it easier than ever to coordinate work, and was perfected
during the pandemic. In the face of this, a generation of old-fashioned
managers unable to give up micromanagement have insisted, in many companies, on
returning to the situation before the pandemic, and lied when they said that
they were perceiving productivity losses derived from the new situation.
These back-to-office mandates met with a very interesting reality: in
functional labor markets, many people simply decided to leave those companies
that tried to force them back to the office, with the consequent loss of
talent. In other cases, workers resigned themselves to returning, but their
productivity suffered. In some cases, the reputation and culture of companies
that most radically demanded a return to the office took a big hit, and tools
like Glassdoor and the like are proof of this: word went out that they had
become much less interesting companies to work for.
Increasingly, the differences between the conservative management caste in
denial about distributed work and the post-pandemic generations that see it as
logical and natural will become a problem, forcing those companies to look for
better managers, more prepared for the new environment and with more capacity
to adapt to the ongoing changes around us. If as a manager you are determined
to have all your workers in the office, where you can see them, know this: you
are a throwback to another era, and none of your negative perceptions about
distributed work are supported by real productivity data. People work better
when they feel they have choices."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
