Navigating Our New World of Work

One unintended consequence of World War I was the redrawing of the maps of Europe and the Middle East. Gone were the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires that had stood for centuries. In their place were more than 20 new countries, including Poland, Finland, Iceland, Iraq, and Syria. Likewise, the end of World War II saw yet another global reshuffling. It included not only the partition of Germany into East and West, but also the independence of India and Pakistan from the United Kingdom, Indonesia from The Netherlands, and the Philippines from the United States, followed by the release of European colonies throughout Africa soon thereafter. And, of course, the end of the Cold War triggered yet another international rearrangement as the Soviet Union fractured into independent republics and Yugoslavia into six sovereign states.

But countries and empires aren’t the only systems that tend to reorganize themselves due to trauma. Companies do, too. In the recent Harvard Business Review article, “Redesigning How We Work,” writer Lynda Gratton cites the work of German-American organizational psychologist Kurt Lewin who, according to Gratton, predicted “that when organizations are faced with an external threat, such as a merger or a new competitor, their firmly established assumptions and norms are put under pressure and begin to ‘unfreeze.’ What follows is a period of uncertainty and transition, during which new assumptions and norms take shape. Eventually they ‘refreeze.’”

Right now, businesses are in a chaotic state, not just because of mergers or new competitors, but due to traumas triggered by the COVID-19 shutdowns and the positive results that many remote work experiments produced during this turbulent period. Just as World War I left rural Americans wondering, “How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paris?”, America’s CEOs and company owners are now bemoaning, “How ya gonna get ‘em back to the office after they’ve worked from home?”

Extrapolating from the disorder we have experienced in the last three years, one thing becomes clear: the titanic shift in how work gets done is not going to be sorted out any time soon. What’s more, we aren’t likely to return to pre-2020 ways of working. Employees won’t stand for that. (Also, record low unemployment leaves employers with little leverage with which to mandate such policies.) Meanwhile, as some organizations experiment with so-called “hybrid” schedules—some days at home, other days at the office—business leaders must become ever more intentional about determining how to address the question of how work should get done in our ever-changing corporate milieu.

For starters, the most important thing today’s CEOs and Human Resources leaders can do to find a workable solution is to listen to their people. The process needn’t be convoluted, either. Simply ask them, survey them, poll them, and continue to talk with them about what they desire regarding work locations and schedules, whenever possible. Obviously, some types of work, such as serving clients and the public, must be done in person. But if some aspects of one’s job can be done just as efficiently—or even more efficiently—offsite, “tradition” is hardly a convincing justification for requiring a return to tired, decades-old practices. Especially ones that have led to a mass personnel exodus, such as The Great Resignation.

Next, along with asking employees how they want to work, it’s advisable to engage them in determining how to address the very question itself. The more employees are involved in determining how to approach the problem of when and where people work, the more they are likely to accept the result. Clearly no one will get exactly what they want. (Nor should they.) And business leaders, especially given the nature of their roles, will need to make the final decisions. Still, simply “being heard” tends to make people more agreeable. It also sets the stage for a system that represents a “win” for all stakeholders.

Now for some macro considerations. Given the degree of autonomy over when and how they worked during the initial 2020 shutdown, most employees still want flexible work arrangements. They also want to be able to live their lives and meet their personal commitments while holding down their jobs. We must remember too that most employees were more productive when sent home to work than beforehand (pointing to the need to embrace employee wellness considerations and help employees set boundaries around work.) Last, savvy employers would very much do well to recall quality employees tend to be more productive when given latitude around when, where, and how they work.

For personalized help on “refreezing” your now fluid work policies into something that better meets the needs of the post-COVID age, please contact me at laura@conoverconsulting.com. As a corporate culture and compensation specialist with decades of experience, I’m more than happy to help you and your organization successfully navigate our brave new world of work.