I'm Not Going Back To The Office

COVID-19 Restrictions Force Many Of Us To Re-think How We Work

The COVID-19 virus emergency compelled many professionals to leave their offices and work from home. Although professionals spent the same amount of time working, we no longer had to commute, spend “face-time” at the office, or attend endless meetings.

While working remotely, many of us discovered we could do the same amount of work in less time because we had fewer interruptions. Stress levels went down. We could get the requisite amount of sleep and not be forced to sustain our wakefulness with coffee. We had more time to spend with our families and friends and re-discovered how important and rewarding it is to be connected with people we care about.

Exogenous “black swan” events such as a death in the family, sudden career change, or adverse weather damaging our homes can upend our individual lives and cause us to re-think our life course. But the COVID pandemic is the first time since World War II that an event has occurred that upended the lives of tens of millions of Americans at the same time for an unknown period of time.

Since none of us have experienced anything like the ongoing COVID pandemic, this is a traumatic event we have all shared. Given the unprecedented steps taken by different levels of government, businesses, and us as individuals, there have been seismic shifts in our outlook on many areas of our lives especially work. The most profound? Many of us don’t want to go back to the office.

According to a survey taken in March of 2021 by Harvard Business School Online [1]:

• 81% either don’t want to go back to the office or would prefer a hybrid schedule going forward
• 27% hope to work remotely full-time
• 61% would like to work 2-3 days a week from home
• 18% want to go back to the office full-time

If such a high percentage of people don’t want to return to the office, a seismic shift in the working culture of professionals, and corporate executives wonder why we don’t want to come back? What is it about going to our offices we dislike so much? Before COVID, we worked in offices because we didn’t have a choice. Suddenly, we couldn’t work at the office, and we discovered that working from home is something we prefer.

Says Professor Sean Martin of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, “…that people don’t want to come back should be a wake-up call; it tells us that our prior “normal” wasn’t particularly great. People have experienced something different, and they no longer want what they had. Ignoring this be a tremendous disservice to your business and employees.  [2]

You may wish to reflect on this insight and your attitude about returning to an office. Equally important, think about the impact the pandemic has had on your clients. Have you found them willing to meet over Zoom out of necessity or because they prefer it? Don’t make assumptions about client preferences in your client experience delivery. 

The new normal won’t be “either/or.” Some clients will prefer returning to face-to-face meetings, others will now prefer Zoom, and some will want both. How will the “new normal” affect the way you schedule time with clients?  Your most important actions should be don’t assume, be flexible, offer options, and let the client decide how they want to interact with you by proactively asking them. The pandemic has forced us out of many familiar routines, and that is not a bad thing!

Resources:

[1] https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/future-of-work-from-home

[2] https://news.virginia.edu/content/qa-fundamental-reassessment-sweeping-american-workplaces

Contributing Writer: Subject Matter Expert Charles McCain

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