S4E9: Gleb Tsipursky, Returning to the Office

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your workplace. I'm Cy Wakeman. Welcome everyone to another episode of the No Ego Podcast. I am putting a series out where I'm trying to bring you as many great minds that I can, experts that can bring you information to help you figure out the future of work. And today's guest, I'm really excited about. Many of you know I preach that we need to not go with preferences, which are filled with bias, and really look for best practice and evidence-based advice and finding approaches that fit in with how your mind works and how the world really works. In essence, reality-based approaches. And I know a lot of you are wondering what to do with this whole return-to-work situation. The vaccine situation is improving and A lot of your employees are hoping to be able to stay home in yoga clothes. A lot of your leaders, you know, especially those command and control folks, want people back in the office. And I want to help you figure out the right solution for you. I don't want you all to let a pandemic determine your best work structure. Let's be conscious and intentional and thoughtful. So I'm so glad to bring Dr. Gleb Tabursky onto the podcast. He has multiple expertise, but I love his research. He is the CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts. So he teaches you a lot of how to be safer, things like don't trust your own gut, things like that. But today I've got him here. He's done some amazing research on the whole return to work piece. So Gleb, thank you for taking the time to join me.

It's a pleasure to come on the InnoEgo podcast. Thank you so much for inviting me, Sai.

You're welcome. I have a bias. You talk about bias, but I have a bias for researchers and people that don't just go into pop culture, that actually say, we have a situation, let's use the scientific method to take a look at it. And that's really what you have done with this return-to-work situation. You've done some great research and interviews, and you've just really brought together some great insights. So—

Oh, thank you.

How do you want to start? Do you want to give some of your background? You've done some other great research as well, and then we'll jump into this topic.

Sure, happy to. Well, right before we were chatting on the podcast, you mentioned my book, my bestselling book, Never Go with Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters. And that kind of culminates the research I've done over the last 20 years in helping companies and nonprofits, mostly companies, make good decisions and avoid risks In their, their how they approach their people decisions, because this is a very tough area where we have a very strong tendency to go with our gut. We have a feeling about someone, we're feeling about the right way forward, and because we feel this way, we believe it's the right thing to do. Just— but the fact that we feel something doesn't mean at all it's the right way to go forward. We need to learn to differentiate between our feelings and what the evidence says. As you very rightly pointed out, Sai, it's very difficult to do. It's not intuitive at all, but it's critical if we want to make good decisions. And that's how the most successful leaders and the most successful companies go forward. They acknowledge that their gut reactions often don't lead them in the right direction. And here we need to look at the research on cognitive biases. And I've spent over 15 years in academia, spent 20 years training, consulting, and coaching companies. And separately, sometimes at the same time, I've spent 15 years in academia researching these topics at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, as a professor at Ohio State University. Go Bucks! And so I've done research on what are called cognitive biases, and those are the dangerous judgment errors we make because of how our mind is wired. And we can talk about some of those as, as they relate to returning to the office. But folks probably heard things like confirmation bias and so on, which are very relevant. in making decisions because our gut reactions, our intuitions cause us to make systematic errors, ones that really deviate away from reality-based practices, from what the data says. And lots of people don't actually want to gather the data. And that's something I've been finding about returning to the office. Lots of people don't want to gather the right data because they don't want to know what they don't like to hear from their employees and from other folks. So, This is a big problem. We can talk about that. But that's what I've been studying. I've been studying why we make these bad decisions, what are the systematic ways we make bad decisions, and how companies can address these through effective policies, through effective decision-making policies, risk management policies, and how they approach their people, which are really their most important resource and the key source of their competitive advantage.

And Gleb, I love your work because I started out as a therapist and I tell people, feel your feelings, but never trust your feelings. Because there's some other great research that says that what you're bringing into the current moment has only about 20% to do with what's really happening in the moment, and the information that you're bringing in that you think is real is either from your past or your fear of the future. So everyone listening to this podcast, the first thing you want to go out and do is read Never Go with Your Gut. It's a great book to get you a foundation in how to use A scientific model for looking at risk and making decisions that are very counterintuitive at times. And I love that you're applying this to work from home requests because a lot of people, you and your own research, it was like the employees, their guts telling them, we want to work from home. The leaders telling them, get everybody back to the office. And doing something so polar, calling everyone back or sending everyone home, is a huge mistake. And you and I want to keep people from making mistakes. A quick story before we jump into your work. When years back Google initiated a work-from-home program that wasn't based on, you know, our current situation, but they let people apply and they sent people home and they found that productivity actually went down, not up. Now that's different than a lot of research. This was their experience.

Mm-hmm.

So what they did was they canceled it and called everyone back to work. And then they lost their best talent.

Mm-hmm.

Because they wanted it to be a benefit to kind of buy people's love. And there was no prequalification based on accountability. And so they made the wrong people mad. Instead of saying, if you're low on accountability, you haven't proven you can work from home, you need to be in the office, they just applied this to all employees always, and it really backfired on them because they weren't looking at the underlying pieces. So let's talk about work from home and how biases get involved and what you've actually found as you've done, what, 60-some interviews or something?

Yes.

So I will turn it back to you, but I just don't want people making the same mistake to either please their people or to feed into their leaders' control issues or to end up making calls that displease the wrong people.

That's a very wise point, Tsai, and a really good story about Google pre-pandemic, because apparently Google hasn't learned that much from what we've been seeing in the last few months. So around January, February, Google announced that they will get all of their post-pandemic work arrangements will involve all of their employees going back to the office except for 14 days per year. So you can only work 14 days per year remotely. And that was their statements in January and February, but around a month ago. So what I had some internal sources at Google who told me that a number of people were pissed, as you can imagine, especially compared to other companies like Amazon and Facebook and Dropbox, which were letting their workers work remotely, having some hybrid, but lots of remote work. And, that's for people who had the good accountability to do so. And so, just about a month ago, after a lot of internal conflict and fighting and some of their good people leaving, Google changed their minds and announced that, well, we'll have a hybrid schedule of people coming in mostly 2 to 3 days a week, and then 20% of our workforce will be all remote, the people who can do it, who are sufficiently accountable. So, Google stepped in it again, unfortunately. And, that's—

Absolutely. Yeah. Yahoo and then— And then Google. It's, it's too bad we lose some of that history. But that's what happens when we're making decisions based on popular opinion rather than really going through a decision-making model and seeing what the organization needs, what needs we can meet from our, for our people. And what I'm telling people right now is, you know, make a conscious, intentional decision. And for many of my clients, there's There's not one right way. You've got to bring people together, look at what your business needs, look at true needs. Is it just control from leaders or not? Look at how you best— what are the functions that you need to be together to perform? And what are the functions that you can perform in different environments? But do it intentionally, which is a big part of what your recommendations are.

That's right. So, in the white paper, I did find that there were some best practices which companies, organizations of all sorts can actually effectively benchmark to. And so this research is based on extensive external research, not simply by me. There were a number of widespread surveys done in academic peer-reviewed papers that came out in the spring of this year and a little bit earlier, including 8 big surveys by companies like Slack, by Microsoft, by companies, by major institutions. Like, let's say, SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, and by the Harvard Business Review, which was a very deep, widespread surveys of a number of workers, as well as separately research I did with 61 interviews with mid-level and senior leaders in 12 companies that I helped consult, advise on how to get back to the office effectively. So that's the basis for this research. But let me tell you what the surveys, external widespread surveys, have found on what employees want. This is about employees, what they're saying they want. So what we know is that over 2/3 of all employees who worked remotely in the pandemic— so these are people who can work remotely— want and expect to work from home half the time or more permanently after the pandemic. That's 2/3. Of them, about anywhere from a quarter to a third want to work remotely full-time. So that's their desire expectation. So we need to keep that in mind, their desire and expectation of employees. Over two-fifths in various surveys ranging from 40% to 55%, depending on the survey, said that they would leave their current job if they didn't have the option of remote work of two to three days per week, and a number of them want fully remote work. So over a quarter plan to leave their jobs after the pandemic, especially those who rate their company cultures as a C or lower, and those who see their company culture, their company as not intending to provide them with sufficient flexibility, work-from-home options after the pandemic. Then, most employees see telework and the flexibility it provides as a really key benefit. They're willing to sacrifice substantial earnings for it, on average about 8% of their salaries. So 8% of their salaries people are willing to sacrifice to retain telework.

It's a quality of life issue for them. And as you talk telework, I think, People associate telework with flexibility, but that's the true need, that people want more direction over their own life, more quality of life for them to have, you know, more decision-making. I think flexibility is a key to— we call it teleworking, but flexibility is the true need. Is that— would you agree with that?

I think, yes, flexibility is the true need. But in addition to that, I would say comfort is a true need. People feel quite a bit more comfortable in their home. They feel more comfortable. They feel less like they have to, like they have to all the time engage with others, like they have to protect themselves. So for example, I'll give you some interesting statistics. When you look at white employees, you'll see that about something like about 25% of them want to go back to the office. So white employees. And then when you look at Black employees, you'll see that only 3% of them want to go back to the office. Only 3% of Black employees. And why is that? Well, because Black employees, of of course, in the office, they unfortunately do suffer microaggressions, discrimination, in spite of how well HR folks try to protect their Black employees. It still happens quite a bit. You know, they can't protect everything. And so Black employees are much more comfortable working from home than working in the office. That has to do with comfort as opposed to flexibility. So both of those factors—

That's an awesome insight. It's a sad insight.

Yeah, so that psychological safety comfort aspect of things, I think, is just as important as flexibility.

I like that. It's a sad statement on our current situation, which we need to improve. But having to manage that, it's a whole second part-time job for people of color at work, having to just manage through. It's a burden. It's a stressful burden. It really is. That's fascinating. OK, so—

Yeah, so telework definitely improves DEI, diversity, inclusion, and equity, for companies. From the perspective of minority employees. So that is—

As long as there's technological equity, because what I have found in talking with a couple other experts, and you hit this in your white paper too, that we have to also make sure, though, that we kind of level the playing field depending on, you know, your internet connection and all of that. We've got to help people have some equity there.

Yes. So that's kind of a distinct issue that applies to, I think, more about— that's more about class than about color, than about ethnicity. Yeah. So it's more about what workers can afford and what companies really need to help their workers of all economic backgrounds and all ethnic backgrounds have at least a basic, good quality internet connection, funding for equipment, funding for internet connection, funding for a safe home office. This is actually more of an issue, I would say, less of an issue specifically for ethnic minorities than for parents. We've been seeing a lot of parents, especially working women, having a lot of trouble with having a comfortable and safe working environment. So that's quiet, that's separated from their kids. That's a big problem especially. So in the white paper, I talk about funding for work from home, and I strongly encourage the companies that I talk— that I advise and the leaders that I talked with Overwhelmingly have decided to fund working mothers at a higher rate for their specific work-from-home spaces to address their needs as working parents, which, you know, they have higher expenses than the average Joe out there. So that's kind of—

That's perfect. And thank you for that correction because I didn't— I inadvertently was connecting those two. And it's, you know, it's a whole different case. I love that you're bringing up working women because We're losing so— the percentage of women that we're either losing or not getting able to return to work, from what I hear from HR folks, only anecdotal, is very concerning that there's a big gender difference. Okay. So the employees you've spoken about, some findings. I want to get you back on that track because it's such an insight.

Yes. So a couple of other findings that I think is important. On average, employees are substantially more productive when working from home. So we see employees, 75% are equally or more productive when working from home, 25% are less productive. So the 25% who are less productive, those people would be a better fit for going back to the office. And indeed, we see anywhere from 20% to 25% of all employees indicating that they would like to go back to the office full-time. So probably the ones who are less productive.

Yeah, they know that about themselves. And that can change over a lifetime too. When you're, you know, productive in certain environments, depending on what your life situation is, or, um, but that's interesting too, because I think a bias leaders have is they have this weird thing still. I think it's the, um, perhaps generational, but if I can't see you, you're not working. Yes.

That's one of the things.

So that finding really interrupts leaders' thinking because they think people are, some, some think people aren't as productive at home, which you're finding is not necessarily true.

Not necessarily true at all. And we're seeing overwhelmingly an increase in productivity. So 10 to 14% increase in productivity from people there. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. People don't have a commute, so they can— don't have that. They can also align their work more with their energy. So there's a lot of research as a therapist yourself, and, you know, for, for those folks who don't know about this topic, throughout the day, people have different levels of energy. So I'm the, for example, I have more energy in the morning than in the afternoon. Other folks, they have a different energy cycle. They have more energy in the afternoon. My wife, for example, she's very foggy in the morning, but she's great in the afternoon. And so this is just a fact about different people. And so when they're working from home, they can align their energy much more with what they do with their tasks. So it's They not only don't have to have the commute, which takes a lot of time, and of course they do less work, but they also can align their work more with their energy. So it makes a lot of sense that they're more productive in the home. But this applies especially to their individual tasks. So people tend to be much more productive on their individual tasks when they're working from home. They tend to be better and more effective on collaborative tasks when they're in the office. So this leads into— and we can talk about later— on the best strategy and arrangements for how people should work permanently post-pandemic. But I want to highlight the question of productivity, that on average people are more productive working from home. So we want to— so going back to what we're thinking, what we're saying from the perspective of what leaders want, I think you made a very important point. There's so many leaders who still have a feeling that if I don't see you, you're not working. I think that's one perspective that leaders are coming from. I think another perspective that leaders are coming from, and I've spoken about this too. So, like I said, I did 61 interviews with leaders, and a number of them who were kind of resistant to having their people work from home even part of the time, hybrid schedules and so on, what they told me was some version of the following. Well, they told me, well, I've, you know, worked in the office for 20 to 30 years. And these are people, of course, leaders of experience and so on. So, 20 to 30 years. I'm ex— you know, I've succeeded this way, you know, so everybody else who works should work the way I did if they want to be successful, you know. And

if they have a bias that, you know, if you want what I have, do what I did, like pay your dues. I'm like, well, if you hated paying your dues, why do all of us have to pay our dues? Like, let's— I'm talking a lot to people about before you put anything back, like, let's question it for ROI and whether or not it's really True. Um, I had a leader once and he would come in always perfectly dressed and just always centered and sane. He loved the office. And, um, we went on a team retreat, we brought our spouses, and I realized why he was so centered when he got to work, because he had a spouse that ironed his shirt and made his breakfast and kept the kids quiet. And I was running around with 4 young boys, like, you know. A crazy woman. And he— no wonder he loved the office. It was a really safe place. And for me, it was something I had to race to get to and was always in trouble for not being on time. And it was a hassle. It was so funny when I noticed how he did that. I'm like, well, he's got a whole team getting him ready in the morning. I'm getting my team ready in the morning. And it's very different.

It really is very different. And I think that's a very important insight that you're making, where leaders are kind of modeling these tend to be unfortunately still many more males than females because of the current situation which we're in, just the leadership gap, this glass ceiling. This is an issue. And this is something that many leaders still have that mentality, especially the older white male leaders. And so this is a problem that we need to realize that they're not really empathetic toward the needs of their employees. They're not realizing what's happening. And here we need to understand what are the cognitive biases going on for leaders. Leaders like that feel certain things that cause them to make mistaken judgments about others. And the cognitive biases, the dangerous judgment errors that they make, here are the ones that we need to be aware of. One is called the status quo bias. So the status quo bias is about when we have a certain situation which we perceive as normal, as appropriate, as right, we will tend to stick to that situation even when the world around us has been disrupted. So we strongly orient toward the status quo even when we should not from the perspective of what's best for us and what's the best for our goals, for our own career, for the company, whatever. So status quo bias is something that's leading a lot of leaders into making bad decisions about returning to work. That's one thing to be aware of. Then another thing to be aware of is called the anchoring bias, where the initial information we got about how to work appropriately is causing us to filter all of our information through this lens. So, for example, leaders who went up the ladder of command before the digital revolution, before the internet, they still have the perspective that all of these digital things are add-ons to what worked before. Whereas younger employees have grown up native digital. They've grown up with this world, and then they went into the workforce. So, they perceive the workforce as built on top of their digital activities that they did previously. So, they're much more comfortable with digital technology. And they see this year in the pandemic as, well, this is the way it should work, or many of them at least do. Whereas leaders see this as a total aberration and they want to go back to what they previously were anchored to, how they interpreted what the right things are. And so here, we get into another pair of cognitive biases which I kind of alluded to at the beginning, where leaders tend to not gather information that they are worried about would not confirm their beliefs. This is called the confirmation bias, where we tend to look for information that confirms our beliefs, ignore information that doesn't. I've been shocked by how many leaders fail to survey in depth their staff about going back to the workforce. I talk about in the white paper that you mentioned about returning to the office and benchmarking to best practices and doing so for competitive advantage. I talk about how so many leaders choose to avoid gathering this information. They don't do any sort of in-depth surveys. They don't do in-depth investigations. Instead, what they do— so imagine, you know, top-level CEO talks to their EVPs, executive VPs, and other, you know, C-suite officers and so on, and talks about to them, and they all agree that, yes, we like going back to the office. And that's what they do. They say we should all go back to the office, MF 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, 9 to 5.

It's so true. And I get that confirmation bias towards me. They'll ask me a question like, what's your opinion? And I'm saying, gather together, make intentional decisions, figure out what, you know, the organization, what tasks, you know, need to be done together and what don't. And, and they only hear the part where it's like, bring everyone back to the office. I'm like, for a week to make some decisions. And, um, so I see that confirmation bias even when they ask experts.

Mm-hmm.

Or opinions, the way they really sort that as well. Even, you know, if they hear something that causes cognitive dissonance, how do they resolve that is, you know, right? Bias is what we use to resolve cognitive dissonance. Nobody likes the feeling of, you know, I'm left wondering.

Yes. Yeah, I think that's a really important point. So the confirmation bias, like you say, it's where we look for information that confirms our beliefs and ignore information that doesn't. So when you give them this good advice, they're only looking for the piece of advice within what you give that confirms their beliefs and ignore all the pieces that don't. So this is definitely a problem. And a related cognitive bias is called the false consensus effect, where leaders tend to believe that others in their tribe, which is their company, have the same perspective that they do. They feel that, well, if I feel this way, then everyone else should feel this way. I don't even need to survey them. Don't need to take the time to do so. So this is a big problem where they don't take the time to do a full in-depth survey on the questions that I describe in the white paper, which they should. And it's pretty easy to do that. But unfortunately, they don't. And as a result, they make bad decisions and make serious mistakes.

Which is perfect. And we're going to keep going into such a fascinating topic. And Gleb, I know that you've got some time, but I just want to mention the white paper. It is, um, The Office Return, and we'll put the link in the notes and also on social media along with this podcast so that people can get there. But it's, um, tinyurl.com/theofficereturn. So we'll get you the link. So go ahead, because this is fascinating, and the questions are right in the white paper. This isn't hard, folks. Um, it isn't hard to break your biases. You just need to send out, you know, a SurveyMonkey.

Yeah, that's right. You need to send it out and you need to do that. It's really not that hard. So now after you send it out, what do you do? Well, overwhelmingly what people who actually do the survey find is that their employees indeed match the overall employee base where a substantial minority wants full-time remote work, where a majority, something, a substantial minority, meaning anywhere from 25 to 50%, 40%. I've actually had companies that were over 50% wanted remote work, but mostly it's going to be in the 20 to 35% range. Then you'll have something like 50 to 60 to 70% wanting hybrid work. So coming in half the time or something like that, 1 to 3 days a week is usually what I tell, 1 to 2 days a week is best, but 1 to 3 days a week if that's necessary. And then something like maybe 20 to 25% sometimes maybe 15 wanting full-time in-office work. And so that's where you get that information and you sit with it and you kind of, you know, if you wanted to go back to the office, as very many leaders do, you kind of have to deal with the 5 stages of grief. And

yeah, and I think what happens for leaders is a lot of them realize that they need to up their skill set because I think a part of people Wanting everyone back is, you know, that's what they know, as you've talked about. But I think it's a whole different skill set. It kind of outs you if you're not a good leader in connecting with your people. And if you're not that great at fostering accountability and you're not that great with technology, this is like the final nail in your coffin if you don't up your skill set.

That's a very good point that if you're thinking about the pandemic as an aberration, and you want to go back to January 2020, you're very likely doing it wrong. Yeah. Unfortunately, the pandemic is a huge disruption, and we've had huge disruptions before. You know, this is a huge disruption on the scale of, you know, the smartphone coming out and teams working very differently with the smartphone or collaboration software like Microsoft Teams and Slack instead of just using all email. This is a huge, huge disruption which will cause workers to work differently, which will cause companies to work differently, The winners and losers from this pandemic will keep going and being winners and losers because our world is very different. We have very different habits, values, norms, preferences after the pandemic than before. And so this is—

I think people misunderstand disruption. They think disruption is a blip in the radar and we go back to the norm. But disruption is that we will be forever changed by this. And I hope we're intentional. I talk to people a lot, don't waste a good pandemic. Don't waste the social uprising we've had in this country. Don't— like, let that not be for naught. Let this really undo your world, unlearn and learn again, and come back, you know, transformed for the better.

I think that's an important insight. And learning from this and acknowledging that it's important to let this impact you and not just stick with where you are, not have the status quo bias, is very important. But you need to understand that Companies that do not adapt to disruption and leaders that don't adapt to disruption, they go the way of the dinosaurs. They go the way of Blockbuster. They go the way of Toys R Us. That's not where you want to be. You want to grow.

It's like leaders want to impact the world, but they forget that to have impact that's relevant, you have to allow yourself to be impacted and evolved by, grown by the world. So, absolutely.

Yeah. And I think leaders need to remember that their biggest competitive advantage is their people, their people, and their people will tell them that, hey, if they're getting survey results which tell them that so many people want to work hybrid and remote and, well, they probably won't have a survey that says, you know, will you leave the company if you work, if we don't give you remote work, that probably people will not answer that very honestly. But there are ways you can ask similar questions. Do you think your coworkers will leave or something like that?

Yeah.

They will have serious, very, very bad consequences for their retention, just like Google suffered. And a number of other companies are suffering right now, which are— I mean, I know from some companies that are forcing their employees to go back to work 9 to 5 that they have employees leaving because this is part of the Great Resignation. You've probably heard about the Great Resignation, where a number of people, they've been cooped up during the pandemic and they are thinking about finding a new job. And so they haven't been changing jobs. And also right now, Now, so many companies are hiring because they're rebuilding for the economic rebound. That's a perfect opportunity for companies that are willing to accommodate the desires and demands of workers to find the cream of the crop, the best talent who are going to want more flexible and comfortable working arrangements. So, this is something really important for leaders to understand. And what I've been finding is the best, best approach is to have a hybrid approach for most of your team. With some remote-only options for those who really want them and for those who can be successful in doing it. So something like 10% to 30% of your workforce going remote and the rest of them going hybrid, coming in 1 to 2, maximum 3 days per week. That's the best approach. And that's the way that a number of companies have adopted this. And I'm not simply talking about Facebook and Amazon. I'm talking about companies like Nationwide. So very old insurance company, was founded in 1926. Companies like Novartis, a big pharmacy drugmaker, companies like Target for their back office employees, Siemens, major industrial production. So, all sorts of industries, all sorts of large companies are adopting hybrid schedules. And these schedules are the wave of the future, I'd argue. This is what seems to work best. And when you're adopting these schedules, you need to not simply say— and I've seen companies go wrong in this way too— they're saying, well, we'll have hybrid and some remote people and we'll go forward. That's a mistake. You need to understand that for the workforce of the future, for the work of the future, you need to change a lot of things in order to have an effective arrangement with hybrid and some remote workers. That means shifting your office. And the white paper talks about a lot of aspects of how do you need to shift your office, reframe your office space, all of that. How do you need to shape and reframe your evaluation system? Performance and evaluation will look very differently. How you need to let team leaders make the decisions. Not to have the top leadership make the decisions for everyone or individual employees, but the lower-level team supervisors, have them make the decisions for what their teams do. Then how do you adapt your culture, including the diversity inclusion component that I talked about earlier? How do you address funding for work from home, which is important? And also, how do you train your people for this new arrangement, for this future? Because they need to be trained. They don't know how to do this while the hybrid Workforce, virtual/hybrid collaboration and communication. So all of those things are part of the white paper. And this is what you need to do if you want to have an effective workforce for the future.

And I think it's so important, especially with, you know, performance management systems weren't working that well with everybody in the office. So, yes, fantastic. But I think what this is showing us is it's really outing things that aren't relevant and it's really there's going to be haves and have-nots with competitive advantage by people who, like, master this. And then when you do bring people together, to make sure that that is good facilitated collaborative time. Yes. Because I think people still believe collaboration happens, you know, naturally. And it really doesn't. Because when you come together, if you don't have a good facilitated experience, for folks, they aren't going to get the work done they need to get done. Um, you know, on our— we decided for us, because we, um, are able to work from anywhere, not even work from home, and what works for us is we're just going to use the money we'd use for an office to gather in cool places once every 2 months for some really set-aside creative time

and

collaborative time. Mm-hmm. And then work from home. So people get restored and, you know, get away from office and home, get a retreat setting where we can just really do some of our best work. And I'm excited about it. We're kind of blowing everything up. But, um,

yeah, that sounds like a really cool, good plan. And I think that makes a lot of sense with companies that I've worked with, that I've advised on this. The companies that are going to save a lot of their money on office space because there, of course, whether you're having a hybrid space with lots of your workers remote only, you're probably going to have, you know, your workers maybe working about 40% of their previous— 40% occupancy compared to 100%. If you— if pre-pandemic is 100%, you'll have something like 40% on average. That's like what the companies I'm working with do. So of course they're cutting down their real estate footprint and real estate, you know, office space-based services, anything from janitors and security to major commercial copiers. And, you know, so all of that, you're saving a lot of money. That money—

I hope they use some of that money, as you said in the white paper, to invest in that. If you have to be at work, what is comfort and flexibility about at work so that we create great spaces for people?

Yes. And that's one of the things that they need to do is change the workspace. So invest some of that money into changing the workspace to be much more collaborative. You have to do away with individual spaces and orient toward hot desking instead because people will only spend 1 to 2 days in the office on average. So, they don't need their own cubicle, they don't need their own spaces except for certain categories of employees that, let's say, need their privacy. You talk to your therapist, so therapists, for example, for leaders, of course, who need to have private conversations, but overwhelmingly, they don't need those. Much of your space should be shifted. If your previous arrangements, which is typical, were 80% private, 20% collaborative, you need to move to something like maybe 1/3 of your space being for hot desking and 2/3 of your space being for collaboration with conference rooms, lounges, comfortable spaces where people can have informal collaboration as well as more formal collaboration. But you have some more of that money. That's a one-time investment where you're saving year upon year upon year. Yeah. For real estate. And that money, the brunt of it should be spent on funding for work from home. Thank you.

I was just gonna lead into that because

that's the crucial thing. That's the crucial thing.

A lot of people aren't paying attention to that. They're kind of like just expecting employees to take— it's not even just the expense, but to have consultation where some of the office furniture companies I work with are having specialists that will Zoom with you and tour your home. And companies are saying, please work with my employees to help them set themselves up for success, ergonomic comfort, all of that.

Oh, yeah, you're absolutely right. So ergonomics is definitely— I talked about that in the white paper— is one of the elements that you need to do. Another one is some basic stuff like paying, having people pay for upgraded broadband. You know, so many people are working on basic broadband, and video conference and basic broadband is often not great. So upgrading your broadband package, that takes something like an additional, you know, $30 per month or something like that. upgrading your laptops, your video equipment, your audio equipment. Many people are still using their inbuilt video and mic for their laptop. That's terrible for the modern video conference software. And this goes with some executives. I was giving a training about 3 weeks ago to a team of executives. And one of the executives was using their inbuilt office mic, was the inbuilt office camera and mic. And we can hear like basically 2/3 of what he was saying. And it's not, you know, not the right time to point out in the middle of a training, but, you know, 2/3 were missed. And I'm just, you know, or 1/3 was missed. And that's not great, I'm sure, for his team either.

So, and lighting too, we've learned, you know, so much being on video, the lighting option as well.

That's a good point. So having that, having ergonomic furniture, then having things that would make the office quieter, especially for working mothers. That's a really important concern. Things like space separators, separating— if they can, ideally they would have a separate room, but if they can't have a separate room, then having room separators is very helpful. Some insulation, some white noise, that's very helpful. So what I advise companies to do is, depending on the situation in the company, what's going on, how much time that person's spending at home, to give people a budget of $2,000 to $3,000 per year for their work-from-home space, and then to give working mothers an additional $500 per year. And that's been the base point of the companies that I've been working with for helping employees have funding for work from home.

That's interesting. I love that you're highlighting that. I have a question that I'm hoping you still have time to cover.

Yes.

So there are just some folks that are essential frontline, although we have to question whether that's true, you know, but there's some frontline folks that have to be at work. And what I am finding is some resentment that has built up. I do a lot in healthcare because for people that have the option to work from home, we can focus on their comfort, their flexibility. And the people that don't have that option start to feel a bit resentful. And I'm just wondering, are there some creative ideas where if it's flexibility and comfort, Mm-hmm. that we can, even for those people that have to be with us on the front line, that we can somehow meet their needs, um, better as well?

Well, honestly, what I've been finding— so something I mentioned in the beginning is that people who are working from home are willing to take a reduction in their salary to work from home. It doesn't mean reducing their salary, but what is— what the companies that I will be— I've worked one with are doing is Reducing their increases for promotions, increases, and making sure that, hey, that that's part of the conversations with people. You know, if you want to work from home fully remotely, then you need to be okay with perhaps having lower pay increases, wage increases, and some of those increases will be going to full-time essential workers at our company or people who are coming into the office full-time, stuff like that. So that, I think, is one of the strategies that a number of companies have been doing. So for example, One of the companies that I've been doing was a national food chain company, and they've—that's the strategy that they're adopting. They're kind of putting some of that money, that the general fund for wage increases, for raises. They're putting that more toward essential workers who are working on the front lines. So that's kind of one dynamic: is paying them more, and people, of course, feel more rewarded and feel that's appropriate. And of course, comfort and flexibility is another consideration. And if you can. make people's work more comfortable and more flexible if they're working, if they're essential employees working in place, that's very helpful. Also, if you can give them more autonomy over their work, that's also been shown to be very helpful for people to feel more invested into their work.

I love it. I love it. And I think it's so important what you're bringing up is this can't just be like, we're going to send some people home. I mean, compensation systems need to change. Leadership skills need to change. Physical spaces need to change. You know, too many times we, we move into something new that is just kind of a retrofitted bad version.

Yes.

And, and so I think for this to not be transactional and for it to be transformational, we really need to look at what would, you know, an incredible next work situation look like, and how do we build that and disconnect as much as possible from what we had before and even what we have now. Like, what would be ideal? And let's put our energy on creating what ideal would be. That's what my team was able to do, and it was really exciting. It's like, forget what we know, just what could it be, and what do you need in order to make that happen? And, um, and we're not perfect either. We're a tiny little team. It's easy to do with 5 people, right? Or 6 people. But, um, the concept is so important to what you're saying. This just can't be a decision about how many days you don't have to come in the office.

You're absolutely right, Sai, and that's why I talk about in the white paper to approach this question strategically rather than tactically. You know, the tendency is to transpose your previous office culture onto this new dynamic, and that's a mistake because the previous office culture, of course, is built for 9-to-5 in-office activities, whereas people who will be working hybrid schedules mostly, with some people working fully remote schedules, That's a completely different dynamic. So what you need to do is again have adapt your culture to this very different environment. You need to train people for this different environment, and the performance evaluation system has to be very different. As you mentioned earlier in the podcast, leaders tend to still see performance as based on you know are you there? Can I see you working? That's a big problem because from now on for companies that even hybrid workers, when you see them working in the office, they'll be overwhelmingly on collaborative tasks. So you're meeting with people, you're brainstorming, you're working together, you don't see them working on their individual tasks. So that is something that you need to realize. And for that to be effective for your performance evaluation, to move away from that old, you know, quarterly performance evaluation, or even worse, the annual performance evaluation, Which is based a lot on how well do I feel you're working based on seeing you and talking to you.

Yeah, I'm always biased.

Yeah, yeah, that's a big problem. What you need to move toward, and I talk about this in detail in the white paper, is a task-based performance evaluation system, which is not about one-time big performance evaluations, but weekly small performance evaluations where the employee submits a report to their direct supervisor on their top 5 accomplishments or 3 accomplishments for the week, then on what they thought they did well, what they thought they want to improve, what they plan to do next week, and their self-evaluation for this week. So pretty brief report. Then their supervisor responds to this report, and then they have a brief meeting, 15 to 30 minutes, where they go through the plans of the employee, the accomplishments. There's some coaching from the supervisor on what they could have done better. And discuss and agree on plans for next week, as well as approve or change the employee self-evaluation. And that self-evaluation then gets fed into a promotion and evaluation system with a quarterly review that determines the employee's evaluation, raises, things like that. That is so much more effective and that keeps employees connected. So we talk about company culture. One of the big challenges with hybrid and fully remote workers is that they need to be kept connected to company culture. And the biggest way that employees report they're connected to company culture is through their direct supervisors. And this 15 to 30 minute meeting keeps them connected. So this 15 to 30 meeting— minute meeting is not simply about the report. It's about checking in how the employee is doing, what they're up to, how their work-life boundaries are, what's going on. And keeping them connected to the company culture, what the company is doing more broadly, their role and fit into the company. That's a very important mentoring, coaching, and evaluation opportunity for the direct supervisor. So this performance and evaluation system that's based on this weekly short meetings that's focusing on the tasks and what they did previously, what they plan to do in the future, and keeping them connected to company culture is a fundamental piece of this new way of working for the future.

And it's perfect because it's just in time. It's relevant. You can love people up. You can call them up. And for those of you that follow Reality-Based Leadership, it's your one-on-one agenda I've been asking you to do weekly forever. It's in the first book, RBL, because then those quarterly reviews that are more about promotion and development are just a review of the, you know, 12 conversations you already had that are fed in. And it shares accountability when the employee is making visible what they produce. They can self-reflect, and leaders can see where they can support them. It's fantastic advice. You know, a lot of people are fearing kind of the falling apart. And a lot of us are really excited because we didn't You know, many of us are grieving things we didn't even like as they fall apart. I'm like, you can't be sad about this. You hated that commute. And so one of the quotes I've had, I hang up quotes in my environment that just kind of keep me focused. And it's a haiku. It says, barn burnt down, now I can see the moon. And it's just so important— Mm. For people not to resist what's falling apart and, you know, let some things fall apart and focus This could be the coolest opportunity for us to, especially as Americans— and I know my audience is global— but as Americans, to get out of this whole concept that work has to be hard and you have to dedicate your whole life to it. And because work from home— I've seen people in the office when they're really fluent in something and they can get something done quickly almost get penalized because it didn't take a long time or it wasn't hard. Yeah. Especially those digital natives. And, you know, this really— if we get to task-based performance management or deliverable-based, however your company wants to do it, it really will say, you know, I don't care how long you work or when you work, as long as needs are met. Yes. And that gives people a natural motivation to get better in their work. When we're measuring time and how hard things are, it It kills motivation to get more fluent. But if we take away the time component and people go, if I get really— if I can, you know, keyboard faster, then I get my work done faster. If I get more fluent, it's like, yeah, you can. This is what I expect. And it gives them a natural motivation, I think, to improve themselves.

That's absolutely right. And I think it's very important to understand that this is where the world is going to. Let's be honest, how many of our employees were just performing some of the time that they were in the workplace? They actually did their work in a shorter period of time, and the rest of the time they were just slacking off or doing whatever because they needed to appear like they're working. That's not good for anyone. If they can get their work done in— some weeks they can get their work done in a shorter time, great. That's fine. Either that's— you don't— you should not Have the mentality. So many companies still have the wrongheaded mentality that they pay their employees for time spent on the workforce, whereas what you really should be paying your employees for is tasks accomplished, deliverables met. You know that that is what you should be paying your employees for. That's the focus. That's the key. Because who cares where you whether you control their time or not? What does that matter? What does it matter with if if somebody spends you know, 10 hours of their time but gets 2 units of production done for you, but somebody spends 5 hours of their time, gets 3 units of production done for you, I'd hire the second person in a jiffy. That's wonderful. I want that person. And that is a much, much better person to work for your company. So this is a fundamental shift, and this is part of the broader shifts that we're going through, where you are not going to be focusing on controlling the person's time. You are going to be focusing on the tasks that they can get accomplished effectively. Helping them get those tasks accomplished better, making sure that they're delivering those deliverables. That's what you are paying people for. And that's the mentality that you need to get into. So that's part of the fundamental changes that are going to be going on. And so we talked about the performance evaluation. Part of the changes that will need to be done, because this is a shift and this is an honest shift that you need to do for this to be effective, is training people for it. You need to train people on how they will work differently in this hybrid/remote space because they will need— if they're doing hybrid work, then coming into work, they need to focus on collaborative tasks, whereas they do their individual tasks at home. And it's much more important that they're prepared for their meetings well because they spend much less time in those meetings. They have many less opportunities to succeed in those meetings if they're coming in 1 to 2 days a week. So that's going to be important. It's going to be important to train them on, hey, now you're going to be evaluated based on tasks, not time. That means that it's to your advantage to get the tasks done as quickly and effectively as possible. Right. And that means that you'll have to shift your working style to be a very effective worker. And then you can spend the rest of your time however you like. It's your time. You do with it what you want. And how you communicate and collaborate effectively virtually, you know, It's challenging to communicate effectively virtually when you have, you know, some members of the team coming in remotely and some people in the office. In those hybrid meetings, you need to know how to collaborate effectively so that everyone feels included and everyone's ideas can be gathered and used effectively. Those are just some of the things that you need to train people on in order for them to be successful and for your company And for you as a leader to be successful in this new normal.

It's fantastic. And last week on the podcast, I had Erica Dewan, and she wrote all about like your digital body language, like how you communicate digitally, both on video and email. And that's just one example of the new type of training that people have. What I love about if we can get as many people who want to working from home is it decreases bias in a way, because I'm not in the office imaging, managing, you know, trying to match up to what my boss is hoping for. If we just measure work, it's almost like, as a scientist, doing more of a blind study. Like, you're really measuring work, but we don't need to dehumanize it because those weekly one-on-ones and all the other touchpoints would keep it very human. Yes. But it would take, you know, we need to measure people's work Instead of measuring how much we like people and how they work, and then, you know, work to support it. Really good stuff. I, even though you've been so generous with giving this white paper for everybody, and we'll publish the link, um, you do, I mean, your work is consulting with companies. And so how do people find out more about you or get in contact with you? Because I think everybody's struggling with this right now.

Yeah, so this is definitely a big struggle, and you're absolutely right that this will decrease bias and help everyone be evaluated fairly and appropriately. And I do consult on this. Like I said, this white paper is based on my consultation with 12 companies, helping them return to the office, make sure they have good post-pandemic arrangements. And in general, of course, I consult on good decision-making, risk management around people. Folks can check out my resources and get in touch with me through my website, disasteravoidanceexperts.com. There's blogs, videos, podcasts, white papers, coaching, online classes, consulting, of course, all of that stuff. Especially check out disasteravoidanceexperts.com/subscribe for a free 8-video-based course called the Wise Decision Maker Course on addressing cognitive biases to make the wisest decisions on people in all areas of your company. And all areas of your leadership. So again, check out that course, 8 video-based modules called the Wise Decision Maker Course at disasteravoidanceexperts.com/subscribe. And of course, the white paper will be linked in the show notes.

Perfect. Gleb, I'm so glad that you're here. I always end giving my listeners an assignment for self-reflection, and we've given them tons of areas to self-reflect. But so many people are looking for the right answer, and I'm hoping everybody backs up and makes sure that you're asking questions and asking the right questions. This isn't about the answer you come up with as much as whether your methodology you're using to make this decision is a sound one. And so this is a great experiential activity to use on your teams where it's not just about what people think and their biases needs to be done, but where you can actually show them how using a good decision-making model That collects data and mines that data for insight and, you know, really interrupts our thinking. It's a great way to introduce people to that model. So your reflection, listeners, is stop looking for the right answer and lock into a best practice methodology using evidence and data and, you know, thinking beyond your biases. And I'm So grateful you're on today, Gleb. Thank you for all your work in this and your generosity in putting out these keen insights.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you inviting me on the podcast.

Absolutely. I have a feeling we'll be talking more in the future about some of your other topics. So stay tuned. Good, good. Well, be well. And I'm, I'm sure you're adding tons of value out there. So thank you.

Thank you.

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman.