#53: Inventing the New World of Work

You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Bree Reynolds, Career Development Manager at FlexJobs, where she leads a team of career coaches who help professionals find jobs, especially jobs with flexible and remote options. And she herself has been working remotely for over a decade as a career coach, resume writer, public speaker, educator, and content creator. So welcome to the show.

Thank you very much for having me.

I'm happy to talk to you again. You and I spoke about 3 years ago when I was writing an article for my Forbes blog about remote work. And, you know, who knew what would happen between then and now?

Yeah, here we are. It's a little, it's a little crazy. Definitely not predictable.

So many companies are now starting to focus on how our workplaces might be different going forward. I just thought your expertise and your own experience would be particularly useful for our listeners At this point. So ready to explore this?

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like we're all kind of learning together at the same time, so this is fun.

Yes, yes, exactly. So as you say, we're all trying to figure out, you know, what is this post-pandemic world going to look like, and specifically what's the workplace going to look like. And so what are some of the key things from your experience and expertise— what are some of the key things we ought to be thinking about now?

There's a few different things. I think one of the biggest, you know, we've seen some reports come in that say employers are bringing everyone back into the office, and then you see others that say companies are going fully remote and everyone can work from everywhere. And what I worry about is that companies that are on the fence about it will think those are the only options and that there isn't any gray area.

Yeah.

So I think one of the things that both employers and the workers themselves need to think about is What is the ideal scenario for your particular workplace or your specific team within a workplace, or you as an individual worker? What does it look like in your mind if you were able to craft something that really fits what you need to do, what the company needs from you, how the company wants to operate going forward, and, and craft a policy that really fits? Because it doesn't have to be all or nothing. And I think most of the, um, policies that we're going to see going forward are going to be some sort of hybrid arrangement. That really seems where we're going. So the first big thing I would say is everyone take a deep breath and, and don't have to go to either end of, you know, the spectrum. You can find that happy medium that works really well for everybody.

That makes so much sense to me. And it's kind of what we ourselves at Proteus had been predicting that, you know, as people have found that so many more things work virtually than we thought, you know, that people actually can be productive and they can have good conversations and they— that, you know, there are circumstances where it's better to be virtual. So I think the idea of not going all the way back and also not thinking of it as ones and zeros, I think that's exactly right. Well, so then in that, in the thinking of it as kind of a hybrid world, what are some of the things as people are trying to create that, as companies are trying to create that, what are some of the other things you think they need to be thinking about?

Yeah, I think that's, that's the key is once you decide on the gray area, what is your shade of gray? What does it look like?

Yeah.

And some of the things that we typically look at are things like, how, how will this be communicated to the team? Is it going to be a very set policy where you say, you know, everyone's in the office 3 days a week and working from home 2 days a week? Are those the same days or different days? Is it going to depend on the team? Who are the decision makers? You know, who gets to decide who is in the office and when and vice versa? So really thinking about the policy as a whole and trying to make it as clear as possible so that everyone who's gonna be subject to it knows who's making the decisions, what to expect, and they can get comfortable with it. I think that the biggest area for mistakes is the lack of transparency in a program like this.

Yeah.

And listening to your employees about what they need and what they want. A lot of employees say that they like being in the office for some things and they like working from home for other things. Find out what those things are. Where do they work best and for what tasks? And try to build a policy around that. And it might take some trial and error. So the other main thing to think about is the reasoning for it. Why are you building a policy this way?

Yeah.

Why do you want to use remote work? What are you hoping to get out of it? Is it productivity? Is it emergency preparedness? Is it cost savings? Is it all of the above? You know, yes, knowing your why will keep you moving towards the, you know, the best-case scenario for everybody.

Oh man, those are such great recommendations. So clarity, and especially in any new situation, clarity is always extremely helpful because people just— nature abhors a vacuum and people will just fill in the blanks with whatever they'd like it to be, you know.

So clarity is not a positive thing. Yes, exactly.

And I love that why, that having a rationale. And that's, you know, I'm thinking a lot about change these days. I have a book about change coming out in October. And one of the things that we found is that when people are confronted with any kind of a change, the first thing they want to know is they want to know some simple, really predictable things about the change. They want to know, what does it mean for me? To your point, why is it happening? And then what will it look like when it's done? Give me, give me a clear vision of that future that you're trying to create. And I feel like everything you're saying is really lined up with that. Yeah.

Oh, that sounds like a good book too, especially for these times. I will definitely be relying on it.

Precisely. Yes, I'm very excited to have written a change book during the pandemic. It seems like an appropriate thing to have done.

Good topic.

And then I also really liked what you said about not assuming that it's going to be one and done, that it's an iterative process. And because we've not done it before, there's this great quote from this guy Alan Kay, who was a kind of a pioneer in the computer industry. And he said this great thing. He said, Good leaders don't predict the future. They invent it.

Yes. Yes. This is really a chance for people to make it the way that they want it to be and to build that future. And to, to, for that word that I think is getting used a lot lately, to iterate on that, you know, what are some different ways we can do this and make it work? Yeah. It's kind of exciting when you think about it and that it's never been done before. I think that's such a key point. The way that people have worked remotely during the pandemic is not normal remote work. You know, all of the added stresses and responsibilities That shouldn't be your gauge as to what remote work looks like. It is better than that. So for anybody who's like, oh, I have not enjoyed this, the actual, you know, remote work in an ongoing normal, quote unquote, normal way is, is so much better than what it's been. So if you've been able to get through the last year working remotely, you will thrive in a regular environment.

Yeah, whatever the post— yeah. Well, let's talk about the, the, the kind of dark side. I mean, so I'd love some advice from you for leaders about what to avoid. Like, what, what should they not do?

I think one of the things is to take no account from the employees or the workers themselves about what they're interested in, what they would like to see, what's worked well. You really need to get some feedback here, and you want to make it clear that obviously not everyone's ideal is going to be able to fit in there, and you're just taking all the information so that you can process it and come up with a, a good solution. best scenario for the whole company or the whole team.

Yeah.

But really letting people know that their input is valued and that you're using that to, to figure this all out. Another thing that I think lacks sometimes in tough remote work situations is the protocols around communication. We talk a lot at FlexJobs about how we communicate, what we use different programs and platforms for, And one of the things that we see when remote work doesn't work at a company, when a company says, nope, we tried it, we don't like it, everybody back in the office, is that there weren't clear communication guidelines for people.

Yeah.

People didn't know how to get in touch with each other, how to best communicate. You know, what do you use email for versus chat versus a larger meeting? Do you always use video? Do you sometimes use video? And really getting clear on those guidelines so that everybody's on the same page and you don't have anyone feel like they are isolated, that they're not in contact with other folks. And that— so managers especially can feel that they have a good connection with their teams. And they don't worry that anybody is just kind of floating out there on their own.

Yeah, that's such good advice. And I think it's— we tend to do so much— I mean, this makes all of us sound bad, but kind of unconsciously. And I feel like especially in small, kind of fast-moving companies used to being all in one place, communication can be very informal and very ad hoc and just catch you in the halls and, oh, let's have a quick huddle in this conference room. You can't do that virtually. So you have to be more intentional and more conscious. And I can see how that'd be a huge pitfall if you were trying to design a more hybrid workplace and you didn't think about communication and how it needed to happen. So that's, that's great advice. I love that.

Yeah, it's a big stumbling area for people to get used to that. Like you said, intentional communication, we call it at FlexJobs proactive communication. You have to think, okay, I need to reach out to this person, I need to bump into this person in the hallway, but we don't have a hallway, so I gotta actually pick up the phone or send them a Slack message or whatever it is. You have to make those things happen.

Yeah, I love that. We, we've been talking lately about— and I've been saying this to clients— just when anything— when you're about to make a decision or you're about to take an action, just think, who else needs to know this? Because when you're in person, often the people who need to know it are right around you and they all find out about it. But when you're, when you're working virtually, that often doesn't happen.

I love that. And not getting too comfortable, always remembering things like that. Who else needs to know that? Because a lot of times you have remote companies that start off working really well together and they're intentional and proactive and they get comfortable in that. And some of those little things fall to the wayside and before you know it, you don't have a good communication structure. So you really have to keep up with it. It's always a very regular thing.

Yeah, that's good. You can't just let it drift.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay. So you, I, I'm read on the website that you've been working remotely since 2009. So you're an old pro. And I suspect that you are in many ways thinking this is a good thing. So I'd love to hear from you about some of the benefits— organizational, personal, global— of having a more hybrid workplace.

Yeah, I think, oh boy, where to even begin? It's a very long list for me. So I'll start in the personal. I mean, just the control over your workdays, control over kind of the when, where, how you're working, comfort in your home office, even to adjust the lighting, the temperature, the music or lack thereof. It's really a comfortable experience to work remotely if you try to set yourself up intentionally. I feel like that's a word we're going to keep coming back to, but yeah, that intentional setup. So there's that personal aspect of it, having more time for family, for hobbies, for whatever responsibilities or fun non-responsibilities that you have going on outside of work. That's a huge piece. I think most people will say the lack of commuting, just saving that amount of time every day is a win for them. But then from the company's perspective, the one that comes easiest to mind now over the pandemic is emergency preparedness, that you are prepared to take what comes, whether we've had companies that were based in New York during Hurricane Sandy and they went to remote work and were able to continue operations with everybody working from home safely, of course, and make maintaining their safety in whatever way they needed to, but they had to evacuate their offices. And so not just for pandemics, but for weather emergencies. There was a story a few years ago when the Pope visited Washington, D.C., and traffic was at a standstill. The federal government said anybody who can work from home should work from home just to avoid, you know, having a doubled commute time. And then you get to the office and you're frazzled and tired and annoyed and— It's not a way to start the workday. So things like that, emergency preparedness for all sorts of different things. And then of course there's cost savings if you're reducing your office space, real estate savings, overhead, even equipment savings. The way that remote teams often work is more by stipend versus buying a whole bunch of equipment that people may or may not need. They say, what do you need in your home office? And then they give you those things.

Right, right, right.

So there's a lot of those big kind of cost savings that companies can experience too.

So though— so I'm convinced. I mean, I was already convinced, but I'm convinced about the benefits of remote work. I'd love to hear your insight also about the benefits of shades of gray, as you started talking about at the beginning. What's the— what are the benefits of, uh, landing on a hybrid?

Yeah, so I think for hybrid, a lot of people say that the office is where they get a lot of their social interaction. They have really good working relationships with their coworkers. There may be special events or projects that make sense to really have people in a room working on together. And really just for the cultural foundation of a company, sometimes that in-person interaction is really important. So those, you know, when you're in the office, that's kind of the benefit of that side. And there is a human element to working face-to-face with somebody. I've been working remotely for 10 years, but even at FlexJobs, we still have retreats when we're able to where teams get together once a year. to come into a space together and hang out for a while and really just get to know each other more on a personal level.

Yes.

In addition to some big, you know, big picture thinking, but it is a lot about building that team and strengthening that teamwork. So just the in-person interaction can be really helpful. And then on the flip side of that, most employers and the workers themselves will say at home, they feel like they're better able to focus. They're more productive because they have that focused time. They can better manage all of their responsibilities. So they're not constantly thinking the balls that they might be dropping and the things that they're having to do later in the day. There's just more a sense of control and kind of peace at what you have going on. But really, focus is the big one. And things we've heard that people feel once they kind of get remote meetings underway in a good way, that they're more productive, that they're not wasting as much time in meetings because the meetings are, you know, covering exactly what you need to cover. And they're not just being had just because people are in the office together and we might—

Right, right. So, so it sounds like there's— there we could design hybrid workplaces that allow us to gain the benefits of both remote and in place.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really what companies should have an eye towards. What do we want to get out of each of these situations? What do we like best about both of them? And then how do we divide and conquer so that we do get the best of both worlds?

Yeah, this is great, really useful insight and information. I, I feel like almost everyone who's listening is a leader or aspires to be a leader, and it's so useful, I think, for leaders to be thinking about these things that you're talking about so that we can invent a future that works as well as possible for all of us and for the companies that we work for. So yeah.

Yeah, it's really just like any project that you tackle, you kind of You know what the end result or the general end that you want to see, and then you make the steps to get there and you put the project timeline in place and everybody knows what they're going to be doing. It's the same sort of thing when you're building this hybrid arrangement. Invent that future that you want to see, as you so perfectly put, and then what are the steps that you need to get there? What's the makeup of your arrangement that's going to get you that future that you really want?

That's— I love that too, looking at it as a project, like any change is a project and helping, you know, getting clear about it and then helping people through it. Emotionally and psychologically. I think that's great.

Yeah, absolutely.

We could keep talking and talking, but I think this is great. And we talked about how much we like short and sweet. So listeners, if you're interested in finding out more about Bree and FlexJobs, you can go to their website at flexjobs.com. And to find out more about how we at Proteus support change, you can go to proteusleader.com/topics and choose Leading Change. And stay tuned for more information about our new book coming in October, Change from the Inside Out: A Guide for Becoming More Change-Capable in This Ever-Evolving World of Ours. So thank you so much, Brie.

Yeah, thank you very much for having me.

Yes. So thank you for listening, and until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.

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