WFH? RTO? WTF?

The return to the office conversation has forced many people to face tough truths about their jobs. And how those jobs actually fit into their lives.

For some, working from home was a liberation that they didn’t even realize they needed. For others, it meant feeling disconnected from their colleagues and resulted in a lack of motivation, creativity and productivity.

Still others never even had a choice to work from home - an enormous privilege that “white collar” workers often took for granted.

Obviously, your perspective on working from home is likely connected to things like how much you like your job, whether or not you are a parent, how long your commute is and how much your job involves working collaboratively vs. working by yourself.

For my part, I’ve been shocked at how much I like working from home. In my previous career, meetings and collaboration were a huge part of my day. I am also an extrovert - I have always loved the social nature of an office environment.  And yet, the freedom and flexibility of this new paradigm is something I hope I never have to give up.  It is so valuable to me!

What I’ve noticed with the RTO conversation is that it has become a proxy for so many of the things that have been broken about the experience of being a working adult in this era.

My last job before going fully remote was at a young start up in Manhattan. I would often be the first to leave the office around 6:15. Whether the suspicious looks as I left were real or imagined, I felt them!  And then I’d hustle to the subway and get home with 10 or 15 minutes to spare before we had to put our 6 month old daughter to bed.

Was that really how things were supposed to work? Having a job meant barely seeing your child throughout the week?

And as much as I loved reading or listening to podcasts on the subway - did I really need to spend 90 minutes every day commuting? Was that really the best use of my time?

Today there are powerful forces urging folks to come back to the office. And I do know many (even parents) who miss the office environment. There truly is no replacing in person interaction.

But the pandemic has allowed us to question some of the unquestionables of the previous era.

My hope is that leaders are able to carry some lessons into the future about how we take care of our people - whether they work in the office or not:

That allowing people to take care of their families and their lives is good for the company as well.

That creating an environment of trust and motivation that is not contingent on physically watching over people is a recipe for happier teams.

And that creating dedicated time and space for collaboration AND for deep focused work is beneficial - regardless of where those things happen.