Tired of Remote Work?

Are you tired of working remotely due to the pandemic? If so, you are not alone. With more than 50% of employees in the US working remotely due to Covid-19, there are sure to be as many opinions about remote work as there are people currently engaged in it. In fact, as the response to the virus has matured, businesses such as JPMorgan Chase , IBM, and L’Oreal have already started efforts to bring their employees back to the office. Most business leaders expect to have more than half of their employees once again working from the office by the end of September according to a CNBC pole data. A recent McKinsey report showed similar expectations with survey participants indicating that they expect more than half of their employees to return to the office, by December.

There are certainly reasons why it took a virus for work to go remote at scale (I encourage you to read more about them here). However, now that so many more businesses have become more familiar with remote work, it is worth asking the question: why are so many business leaders advocating a return to the office as soon as possible? Are we really tired of remote work or are we tired of remote work in a pandemic? This is not a flippant question. In fact, it touches on what may be the single most important element that will determine the amount of wisdom and organizational learning about remote work that will come out of this. That is the element is context. 

Almost every business leader operating in a developed economy has been given a crash course in remote work and leading distributed teams since the outbreak. They have developed new insights, techniques, and strategies using remote work to keep their operations afloat for the last six months or more. However, if they hope to harness these lessons learned in ways that they can apply to future challenges, they must take care to distinguish between their subjective experience and feelings about remote work from remote work itself as a strategic element in the organizational tool kit.

If there is one thing that CEOs and senior executives must keep in mind it is this: Do not make assessments about remote work without considering the context of the pandemic

It is tempting to use the Covid-19 outbreak to evaluate how well your firm's culture, business model, and leadership capacities lend themselves to remote work. After all, we have never seen remote work being used more than it is being used right now, right? When will we ever have more data with which to make an informed decision about remote work? While this line of thinking is understandable, and even feels logical, ignoring the context of the pandemic will undermine your decision-making if not properly addressed.    

Forming an opinion or judgment about the effectiveness of remote work by examining your experience during the pandemic is like judging the merits of Mexican cuisine based on your experience at Taco Bell. While the base ingredients and even the names of menu items may be the same, there is a world of difference between a Taco Bell burrito and the one served at Fonda San Miguel in Austin, Texas. Likewise, working remotely during the Coronavirus pandemic bears only a limited similarity to remote work in general. The tools (ingredients) may be the same, but the experience for everyone involved is drastically different than it would be without the pandemic. Organizational priorities are skewed toward survival and adaptation to rapidly shifting realities for customers, employees, suppliers, and policymakers. Internal and external stakeholders alike are juggling multiple challenges from school shut-downs and childcare issues to mental health challenges and social isolation. These and other pandemic-related challenges can confound any results evaluated during the outbreak. In other words, firms are looking to remote work for quick wins, short cycles, and whatever financial sustenance they can find. That sounds more like fast food than fine dining to me.  

The pandemic has created a wonderful opportunity for leaders to assess their company's resiliency, connectivity, and communication plans. Customer needs are perhaps more transparent now than they have been in the last decade and it may never be easier than right now to identify the products or services that are the most resilient to interruptions in market demand or supply chain logistics. However, when it comes to remote work, it is imperative to avoid the temptation to draw sweeping conclusions about the role it should play in their organization over the long term.

Separating your pandemic-related feelings and frustrations from both the merits and shortcomings of remote work is hard. However, it is critical for those wishing to harvest meaningful wisdom from 2020 about how remote work can help your business. We are all tired of dealing with the virus. We all look forward to seeing Covid-19 in the collective rear-view mirror someday. It is critical that leaders separate pandemic-fatigue from their evaluation of remote work. It will not be easy, but outside perspective can help.

Let’s get to work!

Note: a version of this article originally appeared on the Wendworks company blog.

 References:

• Brynjolfsson et al. (2020) COVID-19 and Remote Work: an Early Look at US Data, MIT
• Macauley (2020). Where Do Bad Decisions Come From? Wendworks Company Blog
• Macauley and Dixon (2020). Why Did it Take a Virus for Work to Go Remote? Wendworks Company Blog
• McKinsey (2020). How US Companies are Planning or a Safe Return to the Workplace. McKinsey.com
• Melas (2020). L'Oreal workers are worried they could lose their jobs if they don't return to the office. CNN.com
• Murphy (2020). Are You Still Working From Home? JPMorgan Chase Just Made a Big Announcement. Inc.com
• Vasel (2020). How to Bring 352,000 Employees Back to Work. CNN.com