My Company Still Can’t Tell Me What ‘Back To The Office’ Will Look Like And The Uncertainty Is Making Me Anxious

In a world of in­spi­ra­tional memes and #girlboss In­sta­gram posts, it’s easy to for­get that we all get stuck at work, or feel like we can’t find a way for­ward at times. Sue Uner­man is the Chief Trans­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer at Me­di­a­Com and Kathryn Ja­cob OBE is the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive at Pearl and Dean. To­gether they wrote The Glass Wall: Suc­cess Strate­gies For Women At Work And Busi­nesses That Mean Busi­ness. Their new book Belonging, The Key to Transforming and Maintaining Diversity, Inclusion and Equality At Work is out on now. Each week an­swer your work ques­tions with prag­matic, hon­est ad­vice that’s proven to work…

Q: There’s quite a lot of talk about hybrid ways of working going forward and what that means. I am uncertain about what back to the office means and anxious about planning for childcare and travel costs. I know that you will not have all the answers, but can you help me through this transition?

KJ: Interestingly, this is taking up a lot of my time at work at the moment. We are trying to find a way that works for everyone in the organisation, balancing the issues that colleagues face outside of work while also being aware that we are a business. We need to realise that there might not be a huge level of certainty in the short term. And we need to serve our customers. I have recently spoken to a lot of businesses and no-one has a set plan on how they are going to approach this.

SU: Some people are excited for the return to the office, others are dreading it. Some people have very unsatisfactory home working conditions, or difficult family circumstances, and we have already opened our office partly to accommodate people who need to be there. However, there are those who have benefited from working from home, and businesses have largely experienced a surge in efficiency. As The Economist wrote in a recent article: “The past year has shown that, to the surprise of some bosses, many people labour harder when they barely have to get out of their pyjamas”. They cite a study of 3m employees at 21,500 businesses by Harvard Business School that shows that people worked longer hours, dealt with more emails and attended more meetings. Microsoft’s Jared Spataro, head of modern work, says: “One of the big questions last March was: would people essentially watch Netflix all day?”. Clearly, they do not.

So, there are mixed feelings. My view is, that going forward, the priority should be putting staff first, but doing so in a way that treats everyone as a grown up. If your income as a business comes from a set of clients who expect or need you to turn up sometimes in person, then clearly you cannot continue to always work from home. The situation will change over the next few months. I have to say in response to your question that you will need to be flexible in your planning, and we need travel options that work more like an Oyster card (where you top it up as needed versus how much you use it) rather than a season ticket. And we need childcare providers to be flexible too. It is an eco-system which needs re-imagining – and this isn’t simple or easy, but it needs to be possible.

KJ: I am unsure whether your employer has done any staff surveys or not. If they have not, make sure you talk to your line manager about your concerns. And suggest that they do survey staff. It may be that you can get some boundaries around hybrid working on a monthly basis. This will be the start of your path back to a more regular pattern of work. You do need to be flexible, as no organisation could cope with people deciding whether they are going into the office or what hours they plan to work on a day to day basis. If your company knows that you will work in the office on Mondays to Wednesdays that allows them to plan meetings when you are available. All businesses want to make sure that, as much as possible, staff needs are met, but the flexibility has to come from both sides. Nobody wants to be part of a company where people just focus on themselves and not the bigger organisational issues. And nobody wants to work at an organisation where they set your boundaries irrespective of your personal circumstances. Keep talking to your line manager and your colleagues, and between you all there will be a negotiated solution.

SU: There is of course the question of office culture. As we describe in our new book, Belonging, the key to transforming and maintaining diversity, inclusion and equality at work, a great culture is one where everyone leads and champions a sense of belonging. During the last year, every effort has been made by many organisations, to ensure that a positive office culture has been maintained during lockdown and the need to work from home as a legal imperative where possible. However as we return to hybrid working where some may join a meeting from home, and others be in the office, this is a huge challenge to work culture and inclusion. One woman we spoke to when researching the book who already worked from home in a global team said that there was very little awareness or effort to create a positive culture, which meant that her role was purely transactional and frankly not enjoyable. We all spend far too much time at work to put up with a culture that is negative to work life blend and personal well being. There needs to be a significant, and active focus on culture in the new ways of working, or we run the risk of making work worse not better. I was on a call the other day with someone who had been working from home for the last year, and who had not turned his camera on once. So it has been a year since his team have seen his face. This seems sad, and no way to interact. And clearly his team leader had not taken any steps to change this.

So it is crucial to consider culture as well as more practical considerations, for the team, for the organisation as well as for your well-being.