Category Archives: Future of Work

Collaboration, Innovation and Connection: Unpacking the Buzzwords of Work

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What does collaboration really mean? Should we think move about connection before collaboration? Don’t worry serendipity hasn’t died yet either. Does your organisation actually want innovation anyway?

These were some of the questions discussing “Driving Collaboration, innovation and connection in the workplace” last week , as I joined Angela Sampson (HASSELL) and Clarissa Lundy (Gensler) on a panel at Sydney Build Expo.

Angela did a fantastic job moderating deftly bringing her own experiences to the discussion all while asking the challenging questions. Clarissa (who was making her panel debut) brought her own perspectives as an amazing workplace designer along with some research from Gensler.

Collaboration is such an overused term in workplace today, it’s almost become a fetish. All over the internet and in every workplace I hear about how we need to collaborate more. But very infrequently do we discuss what this actually means. I have found the term is used very differently in different contexts, organisations and job types. Here I like to draw on the work of Dr Agustin Chevez. Dr Gus talks about collaboration as being one of the many ways we work together – and that we also need to think about cooperation, coordination, delegation, negotiation and socialisation (I like to call them the ‘tions’ of work). To this list I would add connection. Often when people talk about improving collaboration across an organisation connection, is actually what they are referring too. We can’t collaborate, or cooperate, coordinate, delegate,  negotiate or socialise, until we are connected.

These different ways of working together require different types of space. Clarissa and I both talked about how important it is to match the types of spaces to the organisation and the type of work. Small details like the type of furniture and its height can really start to matter.  Large round “collaboration” lounges next to workstations won’t work for most of these ty[pes of collaborating.  Details like the height or shape of a table, the positioning of a touchdown desk will impact how, why and what it gets used for.

The spaces between are important too. The main circulation routes are often where serendipitous interactions which support cross organisation connections occur.  One of the great stories I shared is our own CBRE Sydney workplace which was refurbished just last year. We made a bold decision to relocate the existing stair – out of reception to the back of the building behind the scenes. If was a choice that was debated – it certainly had time and cost implications, and also means there is no showpiece stair in the client space. The reason to move it – was to create better connection between the teams themselves and the employee social hub (as well as stop the stair taking up the best views!). There are also spaces around the stair one can pull away for a chat when you run into a colleague. Two months after we have moved in, the amount of people I see using the stairs suggests it is working!

All the stairs in the world won’t build true connection tho. We need to know each other before we stop to chat on the stairs. Connection and creating a genuine sense of community are essential for true collaboration. If we are burnt out, stressed out and disconnected we won’t bring our best collaborative selves to work. Workplaces and precincts can support this through genuine community building  –  this won’t only come through spaces to, socialise and collaborate but needs to be supported by culture and operations. People need to feel they have the time and permission to participate in events and socialise – to use those alternative types of space.

One important point to remember in all of this is that all of our work in not collaboration. A lack of space to focus and noise are the biggest sources of employee dissatisfaction today Perhaps it is productivity and incremental improvement that is more important than innovation. A quick question of the audience “whose organisation wants them to be innovative?” showed very few hands up – even among what was a largely design oriented crowd! Few organisations today really define productivity or innovation well – so it is hard to measure how well our workplaces might be supporting this. It’s clear however they are not supporting focus work well. It still is true that our workspace can help us to connect, collaborate and innovate – I really should have mentioned the famous building 20 at MIT – which you can read more about here. However in the case of building 20 – it was about user centred design more than anything deliberate!

We also talked about what collaboration might mean in the future, AI is already becoming a team mate and collaborator, robots will start to become more common in workplaces too (and in fact we saw a drinks delivery robot at the bar afterwards).  The future of AI as a collaborator could have a big impact on how we work and the spaces and technologies we need to support more voice activated work or holograms.

Finally I loved that Angela brought up the humble desk. Do we still need them and in fact do we need diversity at all if we sit at our screens more than ever? Whilst there were some disagreements amongst the panel over how necessary desks might be today and into the future – one thing we all agreed upon was that diversity of different qualities of spaces – different light, sound qualities, different types of furnishings – are beneficial particularly to those who are neuro-diverse and more sensitive to noise and sound, but in fact to us all. Universal design means better space for everyone, and natural light or plants can help stimulate our brains and make us feel better – even if we are on a teams call.

Thanks to Sydney Build, Angela and Clarissa as well as everyone who joined us on the day. It was a great conversation to spark a lot more thinking about Connection, Collaboration and Innovation for us all.

Ceilidh Higgins

The Future of Work Needs a Redesign

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What if instead of starting with the design of the workplace of the future – we need to start with the design of work? For many work is broken, out of date and just doesn’t work anymore. In any ways, maybe it always was but most of us kept going because “that’s the way it’s always been”. But in fact it hasn’t.

What if instead of starting with the design of the workplace of the future – we need to start with the design of work? For many work is broken, out of date and just doesn’t work anymore. In any ways, maybe it always was but most of us kept going because “that’s the way it’s always been”. But in fact it hasn’t.

The world of 9-5 work, the office, the corporation- are all constructs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Just like the landline, gramophone and steam train – should we snap back to those too? The traditional world of work was conceived in a world were mothers didn’t work, fathers didn’t spend time with their children and most of the work was designed like a factory production line.

More and more talking to both leaders and their teams I am realising there is something missing in the way we approach work.  It’s not so much about workplace as it is about how we do the work itself, how we connect, the processes, what tools we use.  For a while I didn’t even know what to call this aspect of work. It’s not strategy, or experience or organisational design or workforce planning, although it is a piece of all these things. Then I heard the term “work design” not “workplace design” but work itself! How simple, how obvious – this should be easy.  But it’s not,  not many teams or organisations are really thinking about it.

Long before the pandemic, Fully remote organisations like GitHub and Basecamp started thinking about the design of remote work. Atlassian have now built a big part of their brand message on it. Often these companies are just viewed to be doing this so they can sell software, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t learn something from what they do. You don’t have to be remote first to benefit from work designed and optimised for the twenty first century.

One of the reasons hybrid work seems so hard is that often it hasn’t been deliberately designed. To really work, it requires a rethinking, a redesign of the processes of work and not just replacing meetings with virtual links. As I’ve written about before – part time or dispersed working also requires more thought about the process. For years organisation’s have been tinkering at the edges of process, layering on agile methodology or  new software to communicate and coordinate. But if we don’t bring intentional design to this process we keep layering these new ways and tools over the top of the old and creating the mongrel beast that work was become today – where people’s job is all about replying to emails and going to meetings. These are things that do need to happen as part of doing with in the twenty first century but they shouldn’t be the main thing whole teams are doing.

Often the problems are seen as software problems, email is the problem, zoom is the problem (or insert any industry specific software – in building design revit is the problem). However often the software isn’t the problem – the process itself is the problem.  However with many of the companies trying to address the problem (such as Atlassian) – the problem is still seen as software or something simplistic like too many meetings.

Even within the word of work, I (and others I’ve talked to) we’re struggling to work out – who can help fix this? There is no commonly used terminology to describe this problem or the type of consultant you might hire to work with you to solve this challenge. Recently I came across the work of Sharon Parker,  and The Future of Work Institute using the term “work design”.  Light bulb moment!  This is so simple conceptually but exactly what we need. Work needs to be redesigned! (Thanks also to Melissa Marsden for introducing me to Sharon’s work thru her podcast.)

The SMART work design model is based upon crafting work that is more meaningful and motivating, allowing people to build better working relationships and achieve better work outcomes. Similarly, the Four day workweek (or reduced hours workweek), where people work less hours for the same productivity and pay is a redesign of work.  In order to work less achieve the same outputs you have to reconsider, rethink and redesign how you do it.

What does work designed for the twenty first century actually look like? In my view, it does have to mean digital first, optimising whatever you do for best in class technology. Integrating AI will be part of redesigning work.  Likely so will new means of interacting with technology – the keyboard is surely reaching the end of its lifespan. Voice will become bigger but what else?

It also has to be designed for people, for individuals – the face of capitalism has changed. Many behaviours or work practices of the early twentieth century are no longer acceptable. So let’s also accept that work can be designed for both individuals and companies alike – it needs to be flexible in both place and time so we can draw upon the most talented and divese teams. It needs to be intentional.  We need to stop being busy for the sake of it,for the fact it’s always been done a certain way and think about what is really important to the outcomes, for our clients, our teams and the work we deliver.

Intention takes work.  Redesign takes work.  Structural change is disruptive. Some people see booking a desk or  coordinating a time to meet as hard. What they may not realise is that for others, coming to the office 5 days a week is harder. None of this is easy. People don’t like to change, especially if the can’t immediately see the benefits to themselves. The redesign of work should benefit everyone. But there are people who have been privileged in the past who might find this harder to see.  It’s been well documented (McKinsey etc) that more diverse companies outperform less diverse companies. The potential benefits are huge. It think it’s worth the effort – don’t you? Four day workweek anyone?

Ceilidh Higgins

Image via Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/water-ripple-Q5QspluNZmM

Balancing Act: Unlocking the Value of Hybrid Work for the 21st Century Workplace

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Let’s stop talking about how many days a week we work in the office – and start talking about how your organisation works in the twenty-first century.

Recently I had the opportunity to write this article for CBRE In-Sites Magazine – check it out on page 16. It’s fantastic to have the opportunity to transform my hobby (writing this blog) into a part of my job!

Ceilidh Higgins

Image via Unsplash

Hot desks or No desks?

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Post pandemic hot desking has become something of a hot topic – and not always a popular one. As soon as we mention unassigned desking, someone in the room (or on the call) will mention the words.  It is a term that has become widespread but is also frequently misused and misunderstood. So what is hot-desking anyway? Is it, or any form of unassigned desking, the future of work? Or are new and more radical workplace solutions with no desks (or even a lot less desks) going to be the answer?

Maybe you think your organisation  is planning to implement hot-desking  – but don’t get upset too quickly and assume that terms you might hear such as team neighbourhood working, unassigned desks or agile working are actually the same thing.  To most workplace professionals hot-desking represents only one type of desk sharing scenario.

Internet sources vary but the term hot desk it appears to have been invented in the late eighties. The term may have come from a Navy term ‘hot-bunking’ where different shifts use the same beds, and the bed is literally warm when you get into it (eww!)  Obviously your desk isn’t going to actually be warm in any scenario!  Early experiments in hot-desking reported in the media where in 1989 at EY office in Chicago and later a well publicised and largely unsuccessful workplace experiment by the advertising agency Chiat/Day in 1994.  (The best summary on the topic I found online is here)

The Chiat/Day “virtual office” was a farcical failure – for many reasons.  There was no change management, there were not enough laptops and phones, there was insufficient private and team space and the technology just didn’t exist to create the new work processes to support a paperless and virtual office.   Frequently the technology is blamed and sometimes it has been said that it was a failure because it was too far ahead of its time.  Yes, technology (and lack of expenditure) played a part.  So too did a lack of change management.  A final factor in why the Chiat/Day experiment failed was that it was what we would now call hot-desking.  Hot-desking means a free for all on where people sit throughout the office.  All the stories of hot-desking environments where people are arriving to the office and being unable to find a seat, of having to arrive at 7am to sit with your team – in an unamanged unbookable hot-desking scenario this will probably happen.  This is the reality of hot-desking.  Hot-desking is not a suitable workplace strategy for most organsations.  In fact today (in Australia anyway ) it is also actually relatively rare to see organisations implement this very kind of basic and brutal hot-desking.  So why the term has become the most popular way of referring to desk sharing is a mystery.

Hot-desking or other forms of unassigned desking in the pre internet days was difficult as office technology really wasn’t ready for it.   Over the last 20 years or so as mobile technologies have improved and become more readily available, the term has become more and more common but its less and less likely that the workplace you are going to work in is actually a hot-desking workplace.  Post pandemic as more and more organisations move to some form of unassigned desking it is a well known vernacular term – for some reason much more so than other terms such as hotelling, agile or activity based work.

There is evidence to suggest that other forms of early experiments with unassigned desking models were more successful.  IBM may have in fact the first company to experiment with an unassigned desk model – back in the 1970’s!   The “non-territorial office” was a space “that would accommodate motion between different kinds of work setups, based  on the particular tasks at hand”.  Not just hot-desking but potentially Activity Based Working which did not reappear again for 30 years (see below), which is surprising given that employees were enthusiastic about the model (after experiencing it) and internal communication increased. (Cubed by Nikil Saval, 2014)

So if hot-desking is guaranteed to fail – what are other forms of unassigned desking and how do they work?

Hotelling

At the same time as the term hot-desking was gaining popularity, the term hotelling was also in use.  Hotelling is in fact one of the most common forms of unassigned desk environments today – and means that a desk booking system is in place.  Generally booking systems are based upon individuals booking single desks or meeting rooms.  Often this concept is combined with touchdown desks which are unbookable desks and typically expected to be used for shorter periods of time.  Touchdown desks are more likely not to be workstations, may not have computer accessories such as docking stations/screens/keyboards etc and different forms of seating (eg not typical office chairs) or even standing height.

Activity Based Working

Around the same time as the Chiat/Day virtual hot-desking office, a new concept in work was emerging in the Netherlands.   Activity Based Working (ABW) was a term invented by Dutch workplace strategists, Veldhoen and the first ABW office in the world was Interpolis in 1995.  Very similar in concept to the original IBM “non-territorial office”, a range of different spaces are provided for different types of work and employees are expected to move throughout different kinds of space throughout the day.  Working from home 1-2 days per week was also a key component of the concept.  One of the biggest differences  between ABW and hot-desking is that teams are assigned to neighbourhoods – areas of workstations which can vary in size from 10-12 to up to 80 people depending on the company and model.  However, there is not a provision of 1 workstation per person but a “desk sharing ratio” where workstations might only be provided for the 70-80% of the population expected to need a desk at any one time.  These neighbourhoods are intended to help teams sit together and for people to find one another.  In practice though, again you might start to see the early arrivers sitting at the same desk everyday and if a clean desk policy is not enforced starting to leave belonging – in a sense marking their territory – known as ‘nesting’ a term which actually appears to have been invented at Chiat/Day.  

Typically an ABW office has more collaborative spaces than a traditional open plan office of assigned workstations, but it is still dominated by workstations.  The other kinds of spaces are usually for collaborative activities mostly focused usually on in person meetings in a mix of open or enclosed spaces.  An ABW office might also have a booking system, overlapping with hotelling.

Over the last 15 years or so, ABW has become a popular way of working in many industries and locations, no more so than Australia where Veldhoen opened its second branch, with many major financial, professional services and even government departments had adopted ABW prior to the pandemic.  In other regions, in particular the USA, the uptake of ABW has been slower, perhaps because so many companies were still working in cubicles and even open plan was seen as revolutionary until fairly recently.

Agile Working

ABW and agile working often overlap and are frequently used to describe the same kinds of work environments.  Theoretically, agile does not describe a work environment but a way of working.  Agile work refers to flexibility in how and where work gets done.  In theory, one can work in an agile methodology but have an assigned desk (just not be expected to be at it all the time).  In practice, agile work methodologies are going to make more sense in environments with a range of flexible work spaces.  Typically agile environments would have less desks than ABW environment’s and more team based spaces.

Why unassigned desks anyway?

Real estate is expensive, and fitting out offices is expensive too.  Prior to the pandemic, the majority of desks in a traditional office environment were already only in use 70-80% of the time.  The rest of the time  people were in meetings, visiting clients, on leave or sick.  Of course this does vary by role and by industry.  Post pandemic this can drop to 30-50% in organisations that have adopted 2-3 days per week hybrid.  That adds up to a lot of unused space and a lot of wasted dollars.  Do you really want your organisation spending that much money on space that is not even being used?  Or could that money better be spent on a nicer and different kinds of spaces, a hospitality style level of services, more training, technology or that extra team member you could really use?

Today there are many different models of unassigned desking and the ones I have discussed above are the more commonly talked about. Note that one thing that does not exist is a Hybrid Office – hybrid is a way of working not a type of workplace.  Post pandemic many organisations are experimenting with different ways of working and we may see many other models develop in the next few years.

So what is the best model of workplace today?

There is no one right answer.  It depends on a whole lot of organisational and cultural factors.

While unassigned desking is frequently viewed as a cost cutting exercise, it should be undertaken as contributing to autonomy, a component of offering employees choice about where, when and how to work and the best mix of spaces to do different types of work.  For some teams who spend large amounts of time working in the office as a team then perhaps unassigned desking isn’t necessarily the right solution.  But this should be looked at in the overall context of work processes and not because ‘we have always done it this way’.  Moving to, or even adjusting to a new type of unassigned desking model requires planning and change management.

But I like having my own desk…but will you always need one?

Some people are not bothered at all by not having their own desk and don’t want to sit in the same place with the same people everyday.  For others, this creates a new source of workplace anxiety.  Can we solve this through workplace design?  We might need to sooner than we think – what happens if the day comes when we won’t need a desk at all anymore?

The workplace as we have known it for the last 100 plus years is a 20th century solution to a 20th century way of working.  Work no longer needs to be a one size fits all solution.  All of these workplace models are still based upon modifications to 20th century ways of working – usually with ‘the desk’ at their core.  Post pandemic we still seem to be tied to the desk with very little change in actual workplace models.  Given the rest of our lives are now driven by mobile technologies, why do we feel so attached to our desks?  I know, I know, its all about the dual / big monitors these days but… what happens when we no longer need the monitors and can create a screen anywhere? What happens when we all wear VR glasses? What happens when we talk to our devices instead of typing?  What happens when technology changes in ways we haven’t even though of yet? Will we still need a desk then?

I’d like to suggest that we need to move past counting desks or worrying if they are assigned or unassigned and discover what 21st century working might actually look like.  What other ways will we create vibrant and functional workplace without desks? If you go visit any public library there are no desks with monitors but a wide range of seating types and in a well designed and appreciated library – often full. The people are choosing to go there. So why not start now with a similar approach to the workplace? 

Ceilidh Higgins

Image generated using Microsoft Bing AI

Beyond Home versus Office – Dispersed, Decentralised and Async Work

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We talk a lot these days about remote work and hybrid work, but one concept that gets less attention is what I’d term dispersed work – the notion that team members are working together across different locations. In fact this kind of work has been common a lot longer than the concept of hybrid. While getting dispersed work right has a lot in common with both remote and hybrid it’s not quite the same set of challenges – and for many companies has the potential to yield huge benefits.

I’ve spent a significant proportion of my career working in dispersed teams – and not only in large companies either. Smaller companies can use dispersed work to team up for delivering projects in different locations, to retain employees moving for personal reasons, to diversify business across 2 or 3 smaller (potentially lower cost or busier markets) office locations or even to hire remote employees. Larger companies more naturally have multiple offices but dispersed teams can allow for better balance of resources to meet demand, reduce hiring or overhead costs or to tap into specialists which are not feasible to employ at every location. It’s also very similar to the way, DBEI have worked to deliver the BILT event series.

Different reasons and structures behind dispersed work will result in different models. Maybe you only need consult a remote specialist now and again for a particular project – or maybe your team is spread across different locations around the world.  Maybe you get together in person once or twice a year, or maybe your face to face time is project related.  Regardless of face to face time. when you work in a dispersed team some of your colleagues and maybe your boss are remote pretty much every day – and it doesn’t matter who is in the office or at home. At an extreme this could mean you have an office, perhaps full of colleagues (fellow employees) but there are no team members (people you actually work with) to see when you go there. Every day is a remote day in some sense. You have to have virtual team meetings, training, social catch-ups or one on ones – your only choice when you have a geographically dispersed team is to have these events virtually or to not have them at all.  In any ways work needs to be managed as if everyone is remote, working from home.  At the same time though the office offers opportunities for cross team connections, training and socialising but with a lot less daily benefits to going there. 

Dispersed work frequently used to involve a lot of travel. Sometimes it meant people literally would wait a week to ask a simple question (I’ll talk to you when you are in) These last 3 years have all of a sudden made dispersed teams a lot more manageable. Now its much easier than it was 15 years ago and people are way more accepting of the concept. In the past most people were unused to any virtual or remote working, these days most knowledge workers have at least a regular acquaintance with teams or zoom. But like remote and hybrid work, dispersed work takes more than the ability to use a video call to be a genuine and ongoing replacement for all sitting in the same place.

Dispersed work naturally sits alongside the concept of async work – once you introduce teams in different locations the likelihood is you will start to work across timezones. I had been working in dispersed for many years before I came across the concept of async and it was one that totally resonated with me. (this is a great resource on async work)

What do we need to do to support dispersed work and build genuine and deep cross locational teams and relationships? I think it’s a mix of the same things that support other forms of work that are not in person such as remote, hybrid and async work.

  • All meetings are virtual. Ideally each person has their own screen even if in one room.
  • Regular team meetings are essential. It’s a key way team members connect. But they should have a specific purpose and reason to attend . There might be different meetings for sharing knowledge and training, for socialising or for specific tasks (marketing, specific software or project teams etc). Maybe the whole team doesn’t need to be part of all the meetings either.
  • One on ones – and not just with your manager. You need to allocate some time to get to know your allow team members more informally so spend some time with each person who you work closely with.
  • Use your meetings to build relationships and rapport.  I think this is the explanation behind why  I am  against a “no recurring meetings” culture!

But it’s not all about meetings and virtual  “face to face” time, if meetings are focused on relationship building how do we get the work done? While sometimes a virtual meeting, workshop or video call is the answer, if this is our default, we struggle to find time to get work done. Chat is one answer but again can become stream of interruptions.  Some of my suggestions are

  • Replace daily scrum or update meetings with virtual updates via chat (or you could also  try voice message?) – this allows for different start times and time zones whilst still building into your daily routine a check in and hello to your team members
  • Review documents and provide comments using cloud collaboration tools (as basic as Microsoft’s commenting tools through to specialised collaboration software for your industry like Revizto and BIM Track) as a starting point  – follow up with a meeting only if required.
  • Use written / recorded briefs / instructions as a starting point – again follow up with a meeting if required.
  • Use tools like Trello or Monday to plan and share work across the team.

One of the biggest challenges to dispersed work in larger companies  can be in relating to other teams who are less widely distributed and maybe still have very office first cultures. I would describe these as hyper local. Often there might be a basis of functional reasons for why these teams are less dispersed (eg roles that require physical presence) or maybe they have just never had any reason to get used to remote or hybrid ways of working – and often see no benefits to themselves or their teams in changing the ways they work. In these situations it can be difficult to agree on a set of etiquettes that apply as the two team’s etiquettes are likely very different. Should the dispersed team members have to revert to the etiquette of face to face? The skills and etiquettes of working face to face and working in a dispersed team are very different and meshing the two cultures can be hard.

The likelihood is though that in the future dispersed work will become ever more common. This article from Workforce Futurist talks about the concept of decentralised work – this concept is linked to dispersed work but is one step further, essentially the potential for work to be based more and more around individuals coming together on a project basis (more like a movie structure than a typical company structure). This idea has been discussed in future of work writing for some time but as this article discusses, technologies make this possibility easier and a more likely future.

I believe the concepts of dispersed and decentralised work take us beyond the polarising debate of home versus office and into the future of work. Work is not the same today as it was in the twentieth century when the office as a concept came into being – its not even the same as it was in 2000 (which is around when I started working) despite the fact we had email and computers by then. Even before the pandemic technology was changing the way we worked and allowing different modes of work to exist. Workplace Futurist (and others) liken this change to the industrial revolution. People will continue to work from offices, they will just use them differently. People will also work from other places (as many already did). The biggest challenge is how we develop our workplaces, processes and cultures to support these new ways of working. Most importantly not only at a company or team scale but how we can support individuals to work together in ways that allow autonomy, flexibility and each of us to produce our best work.

What do you think? Can we move beyond the home versus office, remote versus in person debate? How do we help both teams and individuals transition to new ways of working?

Ceilidh Higgins

Image credit: Compact Fibre via Unsplash

Has the pandemic rewired our brain and its relationship to work?

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Neuroscience has proven that significant experiences such as parenthood, chronic pain or stress can change the way our brain fires, even our everyday behaviors change our brain.  “Of course, nearly everything changes the brain. Musical training reshapes parts of the brain. Learning the convoluted streets of London swells a mapmaking structure in the brains of cabbies. Even getting a good night’s sleep changes the brain. Every aspect of our environment can influence brain and behaviors.” Has the great remote work experiment achieved the same?

This recent piece in Workplace Insight got me thinking about how this applies now, post pandemic to the world of work and workplace.  In 2022, it is now the case for many office workers that too much has changed to just go back.  It seems very likely that a big part of what has changed is our brains.  It is not just working from home.  It is the homeschooling, the isolation, the anxiety and the difference of our lives before Covid and during Covid, its how all these things and more added up together.  I’m not a neuroscientist but I’m pretty sure it’s not just a changing of priorities or a reassessment, a great rethink or a great resignation.  A more fundamental shift has occurred – inside our heads – perhaps without us even being aware of it. 

Many of us were already changing even before the pandemic.  One of the things having the greatest impact today on our neuro wiring today is the smart phone.  Smart phones and our access to  endless information is changing the brains of adults in ways we don’t really yet understand yet –  from how we use our memory, to our attention span and even to how we perceive direction and understand maps.  Neuroscientists are finding many ways our brain changes as it interacts with technology, from smart phones and social media to virtual reality. 

If the brains of adults are changing, what about kids or even young adults in their twenties who have grown up with all this technology?   Even without having experienced a pandemic, their brains were likely to be very different to those of baby boomers when they started working in an office for the first time.  We can no longer relate office life in 2022 to ‘how things used to be’.  Even before the era of remote working, humans had already started to change.  And the speed of change is faster than ever before in our history.

Potentially the bigger challenge to how we think and relate to work is not about where we work but our relationship to our colleagues and the organisations we work for.  Over recent decades the idea of company loyalty and the value of a permanent role had already disappeared. Over the course of the pandemic the connection to organisations and the social bonds of work further disintegrated.

“Part of the problem is that the collegial, purpose-driven office that senior leaders idealize feels like a myth to many young workers. Since long before Covid-19, most offices weren’t delivering the mentoring, collaboration and social fabric that makes in-person work feel worthwhile. Indeed, many of the offices I visited in recent years were desolate, open plan landscapes dotted with individuals staring at screens, headphones on.” I’m sure many of us can relate to this statement, although in this article quoted, the author is trying to convince young people to go back to the office. 

If neuroscience is changing our relationship to work could a better understanding of neuroscience help us to better understand the way we work together and help solve these new challenges?  This 2017 article says we can.  Based on a decade of research, Paul J Zak (who is a neuroscientist), suggests that building trust is a key aspect of leadership and building teams and there is evidence that this then leads to  business success.   The essence of workplace culture is based upon social norms and the strength of our relationships. (Bruce Daisley has some great blogs, podcasts and videos on workplace culture for lots more depth)

Remote relationships change and challenge the way we build trust.  Some people would question is it even possible to build trust remotely? It’s not impossible but often it is likely to be a lot harder than in person.  Although again, this might be starting to change for those brought up with connecting technologies.

Recent research from Lendlease and Leesman  “found younger generations really pushed back against the notion you can’t make meaningful connections online, or those connections could only happen in person.  For this generation, that’s simply not true,” she said. “That’s not their lived experience. And in fact, they called out the awkward experience of making connections in real life.”

It’s possible that many of those sitting with their headphones on, might still have been interacting with people – they might have been emailing, chatting or using social media, communicating with colleagues inside the organisation or networks and friends outside.  They might not have been feeling any lack of in person interaction while sitting at the desk.  They might not have even needed or wanted that.  But in 2022 they know that this form of interaction can be done from home, a cafe or the beach – there is no social expectation to turn up, to be present anymore (or not everywhere anyway).

The reality is though that most of us don’t want all our work connections to be online and that some time spent together helps build relationships and trust. Neuroscience also posits that the brain reacts differently to someone we have met in real life to someone who we have only seen in a video screen (I first heard of this concept in a presentation from Fiona Kerr, Neurotech Institute). And I’m sure many people agree it’s harder to recognise someone in person that you only met online on zoom that in a real life meeting. If this is the case, then it doesn’t mean remote work isn’t possible some of the time but it adds another layer of information as to why we need to come together sometimes.  While our brains may have changed at one level, there remains much more ancient wiring that connects us together as a social species.

When we don’t all work in the same physical place every day, we need to start to be more intentional about the times when we do interact in person. We need both our processes and our physical workplaces to support this intentional coming together and no longer just be a sea of cubicles or benches for production. Work has changed – and so have we.

Ceilidh Higgins

Image Credits: Thanks to David Matos @davidmatos for making this photo available freely on Unsplash

Part time, hybrid or asynchronous – Building a culture of “Sometimes There”

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Over the last 2 years of this new world of work, I’ve noticed that part time work is becoming much more easily accepted – its no longer so strange to ‘not be in the office that day’ or even ‘not working at that time’.  As we have changed our ways of working due to COVID, more and more people are in the position of working this way – its now becoming more of a cultural norm.


In Australia, it has long been the law that if you have school age children or younger an employer must allow you to work part time ‘unless there are reasonable business grounds’ (this is in fact our legal definition of flexible working). The reality of this meant many companies technically permitted part time but individual managers, might not make it easy or comfortable. It was also common for this to be accompanied by little opportunities for pay rises and career progression . So it’s wasn’t surprising many part time workers ended up feeling like second class citizens.   Finding an employer and team that genuinely supported and believed in part time was a difficult proposition.  Promises made at a corporate level or at interviews didn’t always translate to reality.


Particularly when employers are finding it hard to get great employees, employers and managers might sell their company culture as being genuinely friendly and positive to part time employees when it’s only surface deep. The same is now happening with remote and hybrid work. Whilst some employers feel the power is with the employees they will “allow” hybrid (or part time or remote). For anyone looking for a company or team that genuinely believes in different ways of working – the fact they use the word ‘allow’ demonstrates straight away their true beliefs on the subject! 


While part time work is now better accepted and easier to fit within the framework of a hybrid work culture, these challenges still remain, the difference is that now a larger group of employees are potentially being exposed to this attitude – will remote, hybrid or asynchronous work hurt peoples careers? Many organisations and teams are still struggling to build cultures and processes that support all these ways of working, and at the same time support employees who want to work part time too.  A culture that supports these kinds of working should also easily translate to a culture that supports dispersed working over multiple geographic locations (something almost every larger or multi office company has longed to achieve) as well as asynchronous work (allowing working at different times – creating more flexibility and the ability for team members in multiple time zones to work together) Perhaps even more boldly in the future – could these cultures also support the idea of everyone working 4 days a week with the same pay for reduced hours?


What all of these kinds of working have in common is that not everyone is there is one place all the time (or at the same time). There are a couple of different challenges with all of these kinds of working.


One is the most obvious difficulties that everyone talks about is the challenge of mixed presence or hybrid video meetings.  Just 10 years ago the idea that we could all communicate and meet via video this easily was possible but still incredible, using expensive meeting room based VC was still considered somewhat wow.  But now people complain that hybrid meetings are not good enough.  Technically this is still some way off from being solved.  For now though the best solution is quite simple.  All participants to have their own laptop/device cameras, and reduce reverberation by using a single microphone and choosing your room carefully.  Otherwise – you are better to choose an all remote meeting.  Its surprising to me to see how many people don’t seem to get this basic right and still try to cram 6 people into a room with one camera, a crappy laptop mic and poor acoustics.  Then wonder why the people on the hybrid end are getting frustrated by not being able to hear and everyone is having a poor meeting experience.  Get this right and for many kinds of meetings, hybrid works. 


That is not to say that we should be spending our day on teams or zoom.  There are many kinds of meeting that benefit from being in person.  From meeting new people, to performance discussions to networking – meetings or events that require an emotional connection and are not just about facts are better conducted in person.  But if possible, they are better conducted with everyone in person – not some people in one place and other people as faces on a screen.  If essential these things can be done online (as we provided during lockdowns) but these are the kinds of interactions people want to come to a workplace for – regardless of if its 3 days per week, 1 or 4 times per year.  People don’t want to come to the office to spend all the time sending emails or on Zoom/Teams.  I think most of us accept that some of our office time on these things is inevitable but not whole days.


Regardless of if meetings are online or in person, the biggest challenge to the part time, hybrid or asynchronous worker is a lack of planning.  Not just planning for meetings and on site physical presence but planning around who does what and when.  If there is an assumption that everyone is always available and you can grab them anytime for input, meetings or even team social events then those that work part time have historically often been left out – both from gaining relevant information and building connections.  Ad hoc is the enemy of sometimes there. Ad hoc can be good for friendships, for networking, for social media. Ad hoc and the serendipitous can be great for business relationships too. But as hoc shouldn’t be the cornerstone of how you deliver in your business. It’s not how to get a project done.  Relying on ad hoc literally means you are relying on chance to get work done well.  Everyone benefits when there is some level of planning and expectations are clearly set.


Planning is not just about booking meetings and all these ways of working shouldn’t mean more meetings but can in fact mean less.  By planning work in different ways, you should need less meetings.  Often a meeting isn’t the best way to allocate or check someones work.  Meetings are best used for questions and interactions not listing tasks and deadlines or reading documents in front of someone else.  Working collaboratively in documents using comments and tracking, using tools like Trello or Monday, or specialised collaborative software like Revizto or BIMtrack allow for people to allocate, comment and work together as a team regardless of if they are in the same place or working at the same time.  Not all of this has to be about typing or writing either, tools like Loom allow for creating screen recordings and videos to share with colleagues.  Yes, sometimes there will be some things won’t get solved as quickly as they would in a phone call or a meeting, but then a short meeting can resolve the important or misunderstood issues.  Overall the time saved for everyone and people can spend more of their time focussed on getting work done.


Planning isn’t just about being organised.  Its also about respecting the time of the people you work with and trusting that they will get it done.  If you work in this way – you don’t need to be constantly ‘checking in’.  Planning doesn’t mean that something can’t ever happen by chance, that you can’t have an ad hoc coffee with a colleague, it just means that its not the primary basis of how work gets done. Serendipitous, cross team encounters and overhead knowledge are one of the biggest challenges to overcome, and perhaps another subject for a blog post on their own sometime – although interestingly enough this old one from 2013 actually still covers most of it!


Often the complaint that “it’s easier” in person (sitting alongside this is always how we have done it) means it’s easier for the manager. It doesn’t mean it easier for the organisation or in fact that it’s either  the most  efficient or effective way to get things done.


Personally I think of all the emerging description for all of these different mixes of working which don’t involve 9-5 at the office, I’d choose ‘liberated work’ a terminology and concept from John Preece from Hub Australia originally in this article , with a further paper that can be downloaded here as well as frequently discussed in his Linkedin Posts.  The concept of liberated work is all about choice and true flexibility not just of place but also time.  At its heart success at liberated work relies on mutual trust, respect and consideration.  It doesn’t matter if you work part time, hybrid or asynchronous – these all require the same ingredients to succeed.  Some companies have always worked with these kind of ideals. Others will never get there. What will be interesting to see is how this plays out now that more flexible work options are the wish of many employees and not just a small minority. Will these new ways of working end up like activity based work did, with many companies claiming they offer a version of ‘hybrid’ but doing it poorly because they don’t truly believe in it?

Ceilidh Higgins

Image Jon Tyson via Unsplash

What if instead of ‘learning by osmosis’ we tried sharing with intention?

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Before 2020 if you googled ‘learning by osmosis’ you would mostly find memes of cats and students asleep atop a pile of books, alongside articles telling you this was no way to study.

Then came lockdown, and all of a sudden the idea of ‘learning by osmosis’ was everywhere and all of a sudden I realised I now had a name to put to the problem I had been seeing with many many graduates of 2-5 years experience. No-one was actually teaching them anything and they were just expected to be learning because they sat there working in an office.  Similar to the people who believe that a positive workplace culture comes from just sitting in an office together, there seems to be a lot of people who believe that learning happens just by being together.


So is leaning by osmosis really the best way to expect professionals to learn? Do graduates actually get exposed to training and life lessons through overhead phone calls and incidental conversations? Do many people even have phone conversations anymore? Or is it just like culture, in that you might find you get better outcomes if there is some intentionality behind how you teach, coach and mentor.  Maybe more learning happens by inviting them to sit in on client meetings and spending time explaining the concepts behind what we are asking them to do?  Maybe even investing time in regular group training (which can also easily be recorded for future use).  All of these things can happen both in real life and virtually too.


It’s not just about learning for graduates but other ways we communicate and share information in the workplace too. The pandemic has highlighted the function of the office as a place where frequently all kinds of project and organisational knowledge is shared on an ad-hoc basis between whoever happens to be physically around at the time.  Long before Covid and remote work, larger companies have been aware of the need to create ways to record and share knowledge beyond smaller groups and individual teams who might speak to each other on a day to day to basis – to share across different disciplines and geographically dispersed locations. Anyone who has worked if a dispersed team has probably noticed this and perhaps thought about how to change it. I believe it’s one of the biggest reasons why dispersed and hybrid teams are often so difficult to setup and manage.


Do you want to rely on the right person happening to overhear the right phone call to learn or know something? Its a pretty chancy way of communicating even without the fact that people taking taking phone calls in the open office has been on the decline since before Covid (unfortunately though still to many people think its okay to do a Teams in an open office). More business is today conducted via email and scheduled meetings. Frequently one on one phone calls just create confusion when multiple parties are expected to be on top of the issues and part of the decision making. Copying everyone into an email or scheduling a meeting became the solution to ensuring no-one was inadvertently left out. While endless meetings are not ideal, sometimes it’s better than circles of calls (and messages) trying to keep everyone in the loop. Even when phone calls do occur, with mobile phones now the default number to call, frequently they are taken while on the go, or in a meeting / focus room so as to not force your colleagues to have to listen in.


An informal and ad-hoc approach to sharing information also can create disadvantages for many in the workplace. The people who are part time, work shifted hours, work on site some days or happen to have the day off. Even someone who was in a meeting or at lunch.  Whenever we communicate based upon whoever happens to be physically present at the time, we are potentially creating inequalities of information (which can even become a form of bullying).  A more intentional approach to sharing information, whatever level people are at helps avoid this bias.


Intentional teaching and sharing also helps address different modes of learning or language barriers.  By writing down or recording what we are communicating, we allow people to review and learn at their own pace and to check back in later.  Written forms of communication particularly where shared amongst the group – such as chat, planner platforms or shared documents are invaluable for dispersed and hybrid teams. As long as people use them! Make these methods the starting point for all your team interactions and very quickly most people will see the benefits. Not everyone finds writing the easiest way to communicate though – video and screen recording is now so accessible sometimes this can be an awesome way of communicating and learning. (Thanks to my recent grad who demonstrated that to me one day recording her software troubles on video to share with me).


For individuals and teams who work closely together and need to communicate frequently, scheduling time together regularly and in advance is an easy start. Both group time and one on one time are necessary depending on the structure of your teams. It doesn’t have to be weekly, maybe for some people it’s monthly.  Rather than focus valuable time together on who is doing what (which is easily written down and doesn’t always need discussion), consider discussing project issues and problems as a group so everyone can learn from one another.   


Sharing knowledge with intention means people are going to learn what they need to know and do it faster than if you rely upon  chance.  It has been a long time since I’ve spent a lot of face to face time with my team (long before covid), but I’ve always spent a lot of time teaching and coaching with intention.  One of the graduates I worked with told me she learned more from me on 3 months than she had in her previous 3 years of work.  I probably saw her 2 days a week. Throughout my career, I have experienced different models of distributed and remote work which have frequently meant I didn’t work in the same physical location as people who I could learn from, people I needed to share information with or teach – either inside or outside my organisation. Being open to learning, sharing and collaborating remotely opened up many more opportunities than it would have reduced or constrained my learning.


If the workplace is not for learning by osmosis, what is it for?  One of the things that is much harder (its not impossible) to either learn or do virtually is to network and build ties within an origination outside of your own team.  There is a lot of research starting to come out on the importance of weak ties and this is one of the challenges that remote and even hybrid work will need to overcome. Its not learning stuff that matters but connecting with people. In this way workplaces, real life conferences or networking events all serve the same function. You create connections that can help you later. You don’t need to learn everything yourself, but to know the right people to help you.

Ceilidh Higgins
Image via Marco Chilese on Unsplash

The Future of Work is a ClickBait Headline

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I’m a big fan of flexible working and felt positive that the highly successful experiment of months of working from home was finally going to change the world of work. But perhaps not surprisingly, change isn’t always as easy as proving something can be done.

The evidence from any significant reputable source is pretty clear. Overall working from home has been a success. We are more productive and happier. For me, one of the major reputable sources of scale is Leesman, which has surveyed over 150,000 people working from home and reports an overall satisfaction level higher than the office. There are also some people who do still want to work from the office all the time too. Study after study reports that more workers are more satisfied and more productive working from home but, and this is important, most people still want to spend some time each week working in an office.

So I was quite surprised last month to come across this article headlined “The evidence is in: working from home is a failed experiment”. Huh? Really? At least The Guardian labelled it as an opinion piece. Just like the articles of the past that complained about the open and noise and claimed to show “evidence” of the failure of open plan, this article is going to make all the non believers feel better. The author reassures readers not to worry about being “old school” – at heart everyone else feels just like you and is just to nervous to admit it. To prove it – apparently two thirds of worker are craving time with colleagues. I would point out though “More time” doesn’t mean full time. If you actually click thru to read the referenced Microsoft study – under the first heading Flexible work is here to stay “Employees want the best of both worlds: over 70 percent of workers want flexible remote work options to continue, while over 65 percent are craving more in-person time with their teams. ” That’s not saying working from home is a failed experiment!!!

Even the author admits pretty quickly the headline is wrong “But this point of view is shared by more than a few clients of mine. Mostly, they fit a similar demographic: older, set in their ways, long time in business, family-owned companies. It’s obvious that most companies will need to offer work from home options in the future.” Again that fits with other research which suggests men in middle management struggle the most in seeing benefits working from home or working from home themselves. (Workplace beyond 2020 research by HASSELL, a small sample size but certainly something which is being anecdotally recognised and this gender bias could be a great topic to see more research into)

So a few grumpy middle aged men don’t want to have their staff work from home. But generally the world accepts this is going to be the future? That’s evidence of a failed experiment? This is pretty lazy journalism. Do we need to continue? But this is so much fun let’s do some fact checking on the rest of the “proof”. 

Issues of being stressed, anxious and over worked are not necessarily about working from home but more likely related to other aspects of the pandemic – working from home whilst in lockdown and homeschooling children does not compare to working from home by choice a few days a week.  This last year has not been the norm that working from home could become.  Feelings of too many meetings and too many emails existed long before the pandemic.  The idea of creating ‘meeting free’ Fridays (or any other block of time) makes sense regardless of if you work from home or from an office and if your meetings are in Zoom or in person.  This is clearly acknowledged in the article about LinkedIn giving its staff a week off to cope with burnout – its not about working from home, its about the overall stress of living thru a panedemic.  If you read through to the end of the article, LinkedIn are in fact planning a hybrid working future – with all staff able to work from home up to 50% of the time.  Again, what is the ‘failed experiment’?

As seems to be frequently the case big finance makes an appearance. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are determined to get back to the old normal! Does anyone really want to reflect Goldman Sachs culture?  If you missed it, the company was recently in the news after some graduate employees created a powerpoint criticising ‘inhumane working conditions’ and demanding a better work culture and work life balance.  I honestly laughed out loud that the author choses this company as one you would want to aspire to.

It’s clear to me that this author doesn’t get the employee side  “there’s this illusion of more independence, flexibility and control over one’s life”.  It is only an illusion if you are working for the wrong boss.   If more people are happier and more companies are making money, I’m not quite sure why its a problem to change the status quo?  What exactly is the point of keeping the old normal of commuting to an office 5 days a week?  From the perspective this article seems to be aimed at – the small business owner – it is really a business decision you are making.  Do you want happy engaged satisfied employees who are more productive?  Do you want to be able to draw from the largest talent pools – both in terms of locations and workstyles? Or is it more important to you to have all your staff in front of you? 

If you own the business – it is still your choice.  Although it is possible, in the future it won’t be – flexibility and options to work from home could well become legal rights for workers.  But as someone who has experience part time working within cultures where its only allowed because it had to be – if I was looking for a forward thinking flexible culture, I know I wouldn’t be choosing the company who were working more flexibly because they had to but the one who valued it.

According to the author of this article, study after study proves it all – it seems Leesman with its database of  over 150,000 responses must have got it wrong.  Instead lets rely on a survey of 2000 Americans, which again proves that working thru home in isolation during a pandemic is stressful, not that remote working is a failed experiment.  The other study refers to data from a 2017 study, which also isn’t a true reflection of what the future could hold.  Before the pandemic, working from home was not normalised in the way it is now.  Whilst some companies worked that way, it was the exception rather than the rule and those working remotely were isolated from those physically present.  The idea that we could achieve an equality of experience between the two and create a truly hybrid working culture was certainly not mainstream.

Whilst in many countries, remote working is still a requirement, here in Australia (and hopefully soon many more able to follow) it’s optional – offices have been gradually opening up again over some months and the “new normal” is now here.  This  kind of headline attracts the people who fit this demographic “older and set in their ways” –  who might be feeling  a bit defensive right now.  I’m really interested to try and understand these opinions.  I think its important to recognise that there are 2 groups here – some are employers and some are employees. The way I see it, for employees, this new normal  becomes another factor to take into account when choosing a new job, or if we stay in the old one.  For some people flexibility and the choice to work from home will be important, and for others it won’t be.

For employers, who are running the company, you can make your own choice so why is this discussion seeming to be such a defensive one? Perhaps again, it is not so much about the realities of working from home and remote teams, but about the stress of running a business during a pandemic and anxiety over lack of control and a lack of knowledge of just how to manage this new world of work. It is also true that many of the studies are focused on the outcome for employees and small businesses are less likely to have been as aware of research and understanding of employee satisfaction and engagement and also want to see the evidence of how this new way of working relates to their industry and their business. This research from Bastion Insights and Pitcher and Partners (although a small Australian sample size) is a really great starting point for comparing and understanding the viewpoints of employers as well as employees.

Finally, lets talk about innovation. The author claims “The model has proven to create more disruption, less productivity and diminished innovation.”  The one point I won’t dispute is the potential impacts of working from home on long term innovation.  However again, we have to consider than extended lock downs with no face to face contact, doesn’t reflect the more realistic new normal of hybrid working where teams connect in person on a more regular basis.  At this point, we don’t really have the data to know what the long term impacts on innovation might be – however I notice that most of the companies which had all / heavily remote cultures pre pandemic were tech companies – so maybe this is all the proof you need…

But either way I’d question if a company run by someone who proudly claimed to be “old school” was innovating anyway.

The biggest point is – it’s not either work from home or work from the office – the benefits are going to come from being able to offer a mix of both. And if you are an employer and you don’t think it works, you don’t have to do it – but maybe it is worth researching a little bit more widely and setting up your own experiment of hybrid – and you can see what might be possible. There is certainly plenty to read out there!

Ceilidh Higgins

PS. I know I haven’t mentioned learning by osmosis – I think that could be the topic of a whole blog itself!

Image: Windows on Unsplash