Workspace: Return to Office Vs Remote Office
By Beth Schaefer
Us Vs Them
For some middle managers, this is a non-issue. You are leading a hospitality/customer service division, manufacturing, construction/installation, healthcare, or a similar field that requires all your staff to be physically on site to do their work. For other Middle Managers, the office vs. remote workspace has become a quagmire of us vs. them.
Your Preference
My own workspace went remote a few months before the pandemic shut down all office work. To save money on an office lease, I volunteered my department to work remotely because the majority of our interactions took place with external customers who only came to our offices for classroom training. I often was out and about visiting companies that wanted training at their own sites, so my own office was often empty. Even though I was convinced that I would hate being a remote worker, I made the change to be a team player for the organization to save money.
As I turned out, I love being a remote worker.
I am much much much more productive working in the solace of my home office.
- I spend more time at my desk because I am not commuting.
- When I go to the “break room” for more tea or coffee, I am not sidetracked with coworker conversations or office drama.
- Even though I maintain an open-door policy, nobody from my staff ever walks in (hehehe).
I thought being remote would have me lean into my workaholic tendencies, when, in fact, I am as close as I have ever been to achieving the allusive work/life balance, or could I even say life/work balance?
And, this is part of the office vs remote dilemma for middle managers – you probably have a strong preference for your own workspace, and you need to manage that bias when you leading workspace decisions or changes.
Team Preference and Expectations
Many of you may have had similar situations. Many of your staff started working remotely during the pandemic, and loved it while others are very excited about returning to the office. Half of my staff was hired since the switch to the remote office with the understanding that their roles would be remote. They would be very surprised to find out they needed to suddenly report to a physical office.
For the Middle Manager, the Return-to-Office orders are about employee engagement and retention. When you manage to find quality workers who are reliable and productive, it is painful to have them leave because they do not see value in commuting to the office – even if it is just for a few days each week.
Find the WHY
For the Organization, the Return-to-Office orders are about their employees being… well, that is the question. As a Middle Manager, if you can get the real WHY behind an organization’s decision, it gives you more options to navigate the situation between the declaration and your people. See our free webinar: The Change Chart for the WHY and other change navigation tools. Getting to the root cause will help you provide solutions to navigate the Return-To-Office orders.
WHY? If your Return-To-Office is about collaboration…
“Collaboration” seems to be the go-to messaging (because who is going to say that you need less collaboration?) for return to office. If your team is excited about being in the office and collaborating, you are good to go; if not, here are some options to try:
- Collect details on exactly what sort of collaboration the company is looking for – with whom and what for. Provide a plan on how you can make that happen without requiring remote workers to commute to the office.
- Provide examples of how alternating days in the office, or people living long distance, or workers being in different buildings still have most meetings taking place on a virtual platform even when people are in the office.
- If your organization insists that informal causal meetings in the breakroom are vital to collaboration, make sure your office space actually has attractive break room options. If those spaces have disappeared or are clinical and perfunctory, the collaborative conversations will not be plentiful nor fruitful.
- If your office is no longer there to return to – replaced by cubes or hoteling spaces so that more people can be fit into a smaller space, point to the numerous studies that show that a lack of private office space has the opposite effect of collaboration and decreases informal interaction.
WHY? If the Return-To-Office is about productivity…
If you have team members that have let you know, directly or indirectly, that they will leave if their remote status changes, here are actions you can try:
1. Ask your team to provide evidence that they are more productive working remotely than in the office. Provide that evidence to your leaders to emphasize your team’s productivity.
2. You may want to show operational savings with calculations of cost per square foot for the amount of space your team would use for proper office and desk space.
3. Talk with your own supervisor on how many people you think you will lose and make suggestions for a solution such as a hybrid team. According to author Matt Tenney it takes 6 – 9 months’ salary to replace a departed worker. For an employee making 60K, plan it costing 30 – 45K to replace someone who leaves to maintain their remote status with another organization.
4. Maybe your peer Middle Managers do not know how to manage and measure production without actually seeing people at their desks. Suggest your organization provide training on remote managing.
And, if after all your efforts, you are still ordered to return to the office, it is time to switch gears to change management – specifically, finding the What’s In It For Me (WIIFM) for each of your team members and see if you can show them a vision that encourages them to stay with your department. Our Leading Teams through Change training can help you with that.
