‘My Boss Wants Everyone Back In The Office And I’m Dreading It – How Do I Push Back?’

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. Each week an­swer your work ques­tions with prag­matic, hon­est ad­vice that’s proven to work…

Q: Isolation suits me, I am dreading going back to work and being with people all day long, socialising in the evenings and getting dressed properly. I am able to work from home, and this now seems normal, after the initial weirdness wore off. Now that things are opening up gradually, I’m worried that I don’t want to go back to how things were and also that this may be unhealthy both for me and my career. My boss is really keen to get everyone back into the office too and it is making me really nervous.

KJ: I don’t think that you are alone in this. Lots of people have found that the normal feeling of always having to be on, and up, and emotionally available, has been replaced by a sense of happiness just being you. Living within yourself and your home bubble can make you content. Feeling as though you must always be socializing, chatty and at every event possible is very tiring, and impossible anyway in reality.

SU: I have heard it said that the lockdown has been the moment when introverts have come into their own finally. We are all on a spectrum of introversion to extroversion, from inner directed to outer directed. Some of us need energy from other people and some of us need to be alone. As someone who loves people and seeing them, but can find it exhausting at times, I completely understand where you are coming from. The great thing about working from home is that you can escape into a safe quiet space when you need to, more easily than in an open plan office environment. I have relished taking more frequent walks in the park than I ever had time to pre-lockdown, and have found that it has helped my thinking and creativity. But we need to be careful not to disappear into living like a hermit. As you point out, this can start to be bad for you. After all, human beings are social animals.

KJ: I am now finding that people are opting out of video calls and just want to chat on the phone without the sense that the camera is always on them. It’s a time of readjustment for a lot of people and everyone needs to take it at their own pace. Throwing yourself back into a pre-lockdown social life would be a huge adjustment even for the most out and out extrovert. There is nothing wrong with taking incremental steps, such as seeing one good friend for a walk, you don’t have to accept every invitation that comes your way. You need to find a new blend of what level of socialization works for you. And how much time you need for yourself. Why not make a list of who you feel would appreciate your situation and start off by seeing them? You can gradually build from there. No-one should expect you to switch back into being a 24 hour party person. You must be kind to yourself.

SU: Are you feeling pressure from other people? Look, your true friends will know you, love you, and understand that you need to go at your own pace. They will invite you to things, because they want to be feel included, but as I say, they probably know you well enough to understand that you need time to transition, and frankly if they don’t, if they take offence, then that says more about them than you. You may be under some pressure from your boss. Some businesses are people first, and they will understand that some people can’t wait to get back to the office but that others don’t feel like this, and a good business encourages a diversity of people in this respect as well. Diversity of thinking and personality is what drives better business decisions. But we have come across bosses who are more hard line than this, I was in a conversation recently with someone who is worried that their employees have lost perspective through the media fear mongering or aren’t conscious of the toughness of the economy. If this is the case then you need to consider two tough things. First can you navigate this with your boss, at my company we have not lost productivity through remote working, and you may need to demonstrate this for yourself. Secondly, is this the kind of environment you want to stay in for the long term anyway. Now is of course not a great time to be looking for another job, but you could start reaching out, and considering your future career in new ways. We are all going through a process of re-imagining what normal will be. Only two in 10 adults want to go back to exactly the same regime as before. This is a moment in time where you can start to think about your work life blend in new ways.

KJ: I think that this is a good time for a reset and regeneration of how we live and work. Much of the lazy patterns and thinking will be abandoned. WE should use this time to establish and clarify what is really important to our people and our workplaces. Even though, you are loving solitude in particular, you are not alone in finding this time a quiet and reflective space, and to want to cling on to the calm and control that it brings. We would encourage you to hold on to the best of what you have experienced and felt, and create a new mix of work and home to give you the fulfilment and development that you want. Write down two lists: 1) what you need in your personal life. 2) what you need in your work life. Use them to work out the blend that really works for you. This can help you set priorities for your new normal.