Thoughts on the New Normal Office Environment

 

 - from kitchen table of Michael Legut, PhD.

Key Takeaways

• The new normal of hybrid working changes the social aspect of how work gets done.
• Boundaries between the office and home have become very flexible.
• The company culture (norms, values and beliefs) now includes more “at-home” culture. 
• A hybrid office may reduce collaborative and cooperative team behaviors.
• Leaders who micro-manage employees will likely be uncomfortable with a hybrid office. 
• Leaders should adjust their personal style to meet hybrid office social challenges.
• Use the in-office time for individual feedback and to promote collaboration.

Many leaders think that once the pandemic is officially under control, things in the office will get back to normal. But what is the new normal? Those brief hallway interactions may be less frequent, “meetings for coffee” may be virtual, and the lunch brainstorming sessions will be harder to arrange. While many office tasks will be the same, there will be changes in how work gets done and when it gets done.

 As many office workers work remotely from their kitchen tables, a new office protocol has taken hold. In meetings you hear dogs barking, birds chirping, and see children photo bombing. The boundaries between the office and home have become very flexible. In many ways this is refreshing because your co-workers are more than just co-workers. You see pictures on walls, books and knick-knacks. On a Zoom call, you are in their home and so the relationships become more personal. Many employees have enjoyed the flexibility of this new office environment and personal comfort it provides. The office is literally a home and this creates a deeper connection to employees and leader’s lives.

Recognizing this change in employee and leader relationships is important if we want to understand what the new work environment means for leading and working with others. Why? The boundaries of the company culture (norms, values and beliefs) now include more of the “at-home” culture. As we all know, people are different at home compared to when they are in the office. So while the office tasks may be the same, the social milieu, leader/employee interactions, and actual work time may be very different.

For example, the impromptu in-office meetings that were helpful to guide work on a task may no longer happen   in the post-pandemic office environment. In a hybrid office which is partially remote and partially in-office, there will be limited face-to-face interaction and the interpretation of task assignments is more independent. The “remote” employee work is more self-managed. A quick answer about a task could be delayed by a day. Furthermore, leaders who micro-manage employees will likely be uncomfortable with a hybrid office where some employees are remote and some are in-office. Given that micro-managing leaders tend to constantly tweak a task, or not provide all the information needed for the task, you can guess that there will be some problems. The hybrid office environment will limit a manager’s ability to constantly look over the shoulders of employees. Employees will need to depend on their own decisions and managers will need to learn how to give employees enough guidance, outline expected outcomes and allow the employee ownership and creativity to complete a task. Leaders must also learn to trust that the employee will follow through and ask for feedback if they are having difficulty with a task. The employee and leader relationships will be very different from the pre-pandemic office relationships, so leaders will need to think about their personal style and make adjustments to the social challenges of the post-pandemic more hybrid office set up.

As employees work more independently, the task priority and hand-offs to co-workers are also more likely to be misinterpreted. To understand this better, leaders will need to consider how the social aspects of collaboration and cooperation will be different in the post-pandemic world. To put it simply, less face-to-face interaction in a hybrid office may reduce collaborative and cooperative team behaviors. As employees self-manage the flexibility with when they work, more problems may occur when the work requires multiple hand-offs to other employees. Creating fewer hand-offs can resolve some of this problem. Still the lack of collaboration and cooperation between workers who are remote and in-office will likely cause challenges. Factors such as, employee response time and feedback to co-workers regarding the task completion are likely to cause delays and create less than optimal outcomes.

While there are many automated systems that can help prioritize and organize task management, the actual task output may require leaders to engage the team in a quality check and provide feedback to help improve the situation. One approach may be to include an after project review that is designed so that the work team comes into the office to socialize, do some team building activity and also conduct the project review. The leader can use the in-office time to provide team feedback and improve the collaboration needed for the next project.

To be effective in the post-pandemic world, leaders will need to look for solutions to address collaboration and cooperation issues before they happen. This will include more emphasis on how to promote collaboration, cooperation, creativity and competence within their work teams. In my upcoming blog I’ll explore ways that leaders can recognize and reward employees who model the 4-C behaviors - collaboration, cooperation, creativity and competency.

If you would like some individual consultation on these topics, or to contribute to the discussion, you can connect with me at www.Leaderimage.com or on my LinkedIn page.