The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Month 8 of 2021.

Month 17 for so many of my mates working from home.

It’s quite interesting sitting in New Zealand and reading all these companies releasing reports about ‘the future of work’ when they are doing it from a position of semi-blindness.

Yes, there are many, many benefits from working from home.

For a lot of people, the hours saved on commuting are incredible.

And there’s definitely a lot of benefits for companies having people work of home.

The savings on office space alone do that.

But the reality is after a year of that, being back in an office – albeit in a country that has dealt with COVID better than anyone – the impact has been huge on me.

It reminded me of the thrill of working with other people.

Debating ideas.

Discussing issues.

Talking bollocks.

There’s a camaraderie that you don’t get on a video conference.

In addition you don’t have to always be ‘on’.

Always look like you’re busy.

Always look like you’re paying attention.

Always look like you’re on top of everything.

That doesn’t mean you can be a slack bastard in an office, but it means the pressure of ‘being on’ reduces. That may seem counter-intuitive in an environment where you are always seen, but it is because of that you let your human side come out. The different forms of your energy and presence.

What all these companies banging on about having fixed ‘the future of work’ are actually saying is what is the future of THEIR work. What they want THEIR environment to be. What THEIR individual category allows them to do.

They can put out as many survey monkeys as they like to their employees, if doesn’t mean they know the future of work.

It’s also laughable these organisations are proclaiming they have all the answers when they were often the ones who encouraged/forced people to come to their offices every day … and would then actively fight against anyone who wanted to operate under slightly different terms.

If we want to learn what the future of work is, we’d be far better off listening and learning from companies or organisations who operated this way since before COVID forced change than anyone else. Which means I’d trust Mary Kay Cosmetics or even Anonymous more than many of the big talkers out there right now.

The reality is people can adapt more easily than companies have ever given us credit for. But what the future of work is for them and us is going to dependent on many factors … of which one is remembering what it is like to be in an office again.

At the end of the day it will likely be a balance – something that works for the 3 main parties of people, clients and company – but what I’ve found interesting from the people I’ve spoken to who don’t want to go back to the office, is they’re not just saying it for financial/commute reasons, but because they hated how the company made them feel constantly oppressed and judged when they were inside their 4 walls.

In fact, having spoken to a number of people on Corporate Gaslighting … many have said that working from home would have saved them from the worst of bad management.

Which is the real lesson about the future of work for companies post covid.