Time to decide: How do we want to work post-pandemic?

Hi there,

Like many of you, I’ve thought a lot over the past few months about the future of work. I’ll come right out with it: I’m not so sure working from home is here to stay. Certainly if we don’t make a plan for it. And the more people come into the office for some portion of their workweek, the more appealing it becomes to join them. Especially if meetings get hard to attend remotely. 

That threatens to put us back where we started, before all of this. 

And that’s a shame, because we’d lose out on the many advantages of WFH: no commute, the ease of taking care of a personal matter during your workday, and working undisturbed—well, at least undisturbed by coworkers.

One thing’s certain. If you don’t think now about your approach, you’ll soon fall back into whatever routine used to be normal for you. A few thoughts:

• Put your preferences down on paper. One day a week with your team at the office? Which meetings would you want on site? And which ones not?

• Open the conversation on this topic with your team or organization. Do we value the time we’re working remotely? Can we somehow preserve that, by agreeing for instance to come in one or two days at most? Or to reserve at least two days a week at home, largely meeting-free? In this time of flux, only crystal clear agreements are going to stick.

• Take a close look at the office infrastructure. Nothing’s more frustrating than trying to have a remote meeting and running up against a poor connection or shoddy microphone. Take stock of issues that need fixes and report them now, so everything will be good to go when you need it.

In a short period of time, we all figured out ways to adapt to a completely new way of working. We had to. Now we can choose to combine the best of both worlds—but it’s up to us to take the initiative. Today.

Can’t wait to see what we all come up with.

Have a great week,

Rick

produced by the language girl