Which leads to the question, and its an honest question and I would benefit from the honest answer: If I can do the job hybrid, why can I not do the job remote? Is it because you needed me to move some paper boxes to the printer?
In my 20 years of working in the office and an additional 4 working 100% WFH, I’ll throw my worthless internet opinion out there as to why: It comes down to the culture of the company.
Some companies see a real benefit from water tank conversations, face-to-face meetings, and the ability for managers to ask someone in person on a moment’s notice to do things. There is also a lack of trust in the employees being able to perform correctly without physical oversight in many companies. Granted and aside from the trust issue, there is some truth to that, but can in fact be realigned with the exact same benefit by retooling communications. It’s up to each company however to formulate the best course of action to remedy that and many sadly fail, resulting in RTO mandates.
Some companies see a real benefit from water tank conversations
There are real benefits to water cooler spontaneous talk. However, they don’t overcome the detriments to having all your staff commute all the time on the off chance one will occur to produce a positive result.
face-to-face meetings, and the ability for managers to ask someone in person on a moment’s notice to do things.
These are largely dead in hybrid scenarios, because those that would be meeting face to face don’t work in the office on the same day. So the practical result to hybrid is the worker loses productivity from the commute to come into the office for one or two days an sits at a desk alone all day in video meetings with their coworkers just like they’d do at home. The next day their coworker does the same while the original worker is WFH that day.
Water tank conversations really fuck with remote workers because they are always missing something, but if you can manage to redirect all work talk to happen in whatever communication tool the company uses, everyone tends to work better in the end, as nobody misses anything. But the only way I’ve seen companies successfully do this is by adopting remote-first approaches - when people only go to the office like once a month if even that.
The thing is, water cooler chats are impromptu, they are not planned. You meet your colleague, you talk about the weather, what’s new in his life, and one thing leads to another, to maybe to talk about work and how to strategise to get something done.
These impromptu conversations happen on a whim, they happen organically. They cannot be forced.
Coaching newbies doesn’t work that well remotely, so you’ll have to be at the office more for them to ask you questions, otherwise they’re stuck in the simplest things for days.
Which leads to the question, and its an honest question and I would benefit from the honest answer: If I can do the job hybrid, why can I not do the job remote? Is it because you needed me to move some paper boxes to the printer?
In my 20 years of working in the office and an additional 4 working 100% WFH, I’ll throw my worthless internet opinion out there as to why: It comes down to the culture of the company.
Some companies see a real benefit from water tank conversations, face-to-face meetings, and the ability for managers to ask someone in person on a moment’s notice to do things. There is also a lack of trust in the employees being able to perform correctly without physical oversight in many companies. Granted and aside from the trust issue, there is some truth to that, but can in fact be realigned with the exact same benefit by retooling communications. It’s up to each company however to formulate the best course of action to remedy that and many sadly fail, resulting in RTO mandates.
There are real benefits to water cooler spontaneous talk. However, they don’t overcome the detriments to having all your staff commute all the time on the off chance one will occur to produce a positive result.
These are largely dead in hybrid scenarios, because those that would be meeting face to face don’t work in the office on the same day. So the practical result to hybrid is the worker loses productivity from the commute to come into the office for one or two days an sits at a desk alone all day in video meetings with their coworkers just like they’d do at home. The next day their coworker does the same while the original worker is WFH that day.
Water tank conversations really fuck with remote workers because they are always missing something, but if you can manage to redirect all work talk to happen in whatever communication tool the company uses, everyone tends to work better in the end, as nobody misses anything. But the only way I’ve seen companies successfully do this is by adopting remote-first approaches - when people only go to the office like once a month if even that.
The thing is, water cooler chats are impromptu, they are not planned. You meet your colleague, you talk about the weather, what’s new in his life, and one thing leads to another, to maybe to talk about work and how to strategise to get something done.
These impromptu conversations happen on a whim, they happen organically. They cannot be forced.
Coaching newbies doesn’t work that well remotely, so you’ll have to be at the office more for them to ask you questions, otherwise they’re stuck in the simplest things for days.
This is evidence that you need to adjust your training methods.