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The Future Of Work? It’s Personal.

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By Rachel Rosenfeldt

Are you languishing, too?

I came across this word in what has since become a widely shared NYT article. It names so much of what we’re all feeling right now: not burnout or depression, but a hard-to-shake sense of joylessness, aimlessness, emptiness. Described as “the dominant emotion of 2021,” languishing puts a tidy wrapper on my perpetual grasping for words or metaphors to try to wrap my head around… all of it.

This year has brought the same rough seas as 2020, but with each of us traveling in different vessels. Canoes. Some sailboats. A handful of yachts or cruise ships. All too many leaky dinghies. If you have small children (or are a Disney fan), you’ll understand when I say that this year has felt a bit like Hei Hei slipping back and forth in Moana’s boat.

This journey has been one of mental, emotional, and physical… complication. I have conversations every day with people who continue to navigate the storm. A mentor facing retirement who longs to be face-to-face with colleagues and clients. A cohort of women leaders watching their colleagues struggle with mental health and wellness, wondering how to take care of their people without forgetting to take care of themselves. Friends who have found new meaning through a change in career, the discovery of the outdoors, the launch of a new business.

The languishing comes from all of it – the accumulated toll of the mental, emotional and physical impacts of the past year. But in this disorienting storm, we are finding a new sense of empathy. Not just a surface-level desire, but a visceral need to better understand our peers and colleagues, friends and family. In this curiosity and care, I see glimmers of a life beyond languishing. A grace and connection and shared purpose. I see the possibility of moving past dogged survival, and thriving again.

So, what does this have to do with the future of work? I share all of this context because every single one of us will bring our own version of the past year to work. Organizations need to thoughtfully consider this as they plan their re-entry strategies. What will it take to fill a languishing workforce with energy, drive, and enthusiasm?

The Complexities of Designing a Post-Covid Workplace

CEOs and CFOs, return-to-work task forces and advisory groups are all grappling with the seemingly unending considerations for their post-Covid workplace strategies:

  • How will we maintain the health and safety of our people while still achieving some sense of normalcy?
  • How much real estate do we actually need?
  • When and how do we return to the office?
  • Do we require our people to be vaccinated?
  • How much choice and flexibility do we allow our employees – some who can’t wait to get back to the office, and some who are happy to work from home permanently?
  • What’s our philosophy on business travel?
  • How do we make the best use of the technology we’ve invested in over the last year? What additional investments might we need to make?
  • How will the employee experience differ between those who are in the office and those who are remote? How do we ensure our commitments to equity are upheld when some of our people might not be afforded as much “face time” with colleagues as others?

There is so much to work out logistically, tactically, and financially, it will be far too easy to lose sight of our people. It took us a year to reach what many have (I believe accurately) labeled a physical and mental health crisis. It will take far, far longer than that to recover. So our employees’ well-being must be central to our thinking as we return to the workplace.

If I’ve learned anything from my own experiences this past year, it’s what I hope the future of work looks like.

What we don’t need is a return to the way things were – a standardized set of norms around what an office “should” resemble. Even a year ago, we can all admit that most offices essentially looked alike. Sure, some were fancier than others, or had fewer frills, or prided themselves on really standing out (hi there, Google, Apple, Facebook...). But even progressive workplaces still (mostly) had private offices for executives, conference rooms and break rooms, and a workforce whose time on site was seen as more productive than remote work.

As we take this moment to reset and build workplaces that work for us, we have the opportunity to realize something very different. We have the opportunity to question what the workplace can do for our people and our businesses.

We have discovered new capabilities (remote work, less travel, lightning-quick strategic pivots), as well as new priorities. We must listen to what our employees, our customers, and our organizations will really need to thrive as we emerge from the pandemic.

A Personalized Approach to the Future of Work

I like to think that what we need is a deeply personal approach to our workplaces. But what does that mean exactly? What does it look like, and what are some of the risks?

First, what do I mean by a personalized approach to the future of work?

A personalized approach to the future of work is one where the business does not look to norms, best practices, or what everyone else is doing. Instead, start by asking what will best support our employees, provide value to our customers, and deliver top-notch products or services? It’s about taking all of the inputs – culture, customer experience, physical needs, financial considerations – and designing a workplace strategy that is bespoke to the business it’s built for.

The “strong bones” of a personalized workplace:

  • Fit-for-purpose. Design based on what’s best for employees, customers, and the business. This means thinking about our workplaces using a 360 view rather than putting all of our attention on our products and services, or becoming a “customer-centric” organization. By viewing the organization more holistically, we can better design workplaces that are bespoke to our specific needs.
  • Embrace and empower employees to own the future. Personalized medicine empowers the patient to take control of their care. It increases preventative care, which keeps people healthier and out of hospitals, leading to better outcomes and - eventually - a more financially sustainable system. Similarly, a personalized workplace would enable employees to help shape the business’s evolution as markets shift, customer needs change, and new strategic priorities emerge. It would treat employees’ ideas, priorities and energy as valuable resources, combining in sustainable, supportive ways.
  • Flexible and adaptable. The next-worst thing we can do, aside from going back to the way things were, is to create a “next-gen” workplace that simply establishes a new, static state of work. This year has taught us the value of being prepared for inevitable unpredictability, and we must design workplaces that can shift and adapt to the changing needs of our employees, customers, and business environments.

“But it can’t be that simple,” you say. True… sort of. I’d argue it’s critically important to keep it as simple as possible. Who needs more complexity right now? But simple isn’t always easy, and personalized workplace strategy certainly isn’t without risks. So, what do we need to watch for?

  • “Us vs. Them.” In the return to the workplace, we must consider differing perceptions of those who come into the office and those who choose to stay remote (either fully or partially). I’m already hearing from executives that this dynamic has been amplified during the pandemic. Frontline employees have continued to show up every day without interruption, while those in “office jobs” haven’t seen their desk in more than a year. The field worker might assume everyone working from home has it easy and eats bon-bons all day. On the other hand, many who have struggled to achieve balance in our Zoom-all-day world look enviously at those in the field – surely, this past year can’t have been as hard for people whose work routines were hardly interrupted. To combat “us vs. them” perceptions, build empathy, and create a sense of community, it will be critical for the workplace strategy to incorporate intentional collaboration points between on-site, remote, and hybrid employees.
  • Talent attraction, acquisition, and retention. In the quest to build a personalized workplace, one result is that, inevitably, our organizations will be more unique. Ideally, each organization’s purpose, culture, and value will become more visible and more prominent. But one downside is, without a solid recruitment and retention strategy, top talent might shop around for the most attractive workplace setup. If you have a business that will require significant on-site work, those who are seeking a more flexible environment will need convincing. Conversely, people itching to return in person might be unsatisfied by the quiet of an empty office. To mitigate this, we must be clear about our philosophy on how we work together; make workplace decisions that not only support our current employees but attract the talent we will need to grow and evolve; and continue to clarify, amplify, and reinforce our purpose and values.
  • Designing for a few instead of many. A traditional approach to workplace strategy is to designate a sponsor or small group to lead the design. Perhaps they tap into an employee focus group, or maybe they conduct a survey. But this approach still relies on a select few people, who inevitably make assumptions and insert their own personal experience and preferences into the design. The risk is that employees feel the strategy hasn’t considered their desires and needs – creating resistance, skepticism, and fear rather than confidence and excitement. If we want everyone to truly look forward to the future of work at our organizations, they need to feel involved in creating it. While this might feel counterintuitive from an efficiency standpoint (and we can’t make everyone happy), there is merit in the old saying that “many hands make light work.” By bringing many people into the design discussion – and far earlier than we used to – we can generate more creative ideas and more positive anticipation for the return to work.
  • Boundary-less work. As we consider the benefits of remote work, the adoption of hybrid workplace models, and the absolute demolition of our traditional workplace boundaries (how many of your coworkers or clients’ bedrooms have you been privy to this year?), we run the risk of allowing the lack of boundaries to creep into our workplaces in a not-so-healthy way. Among other things, this could manifest as a continued expectation to be “always on” – even during commutes, family time or vacation. Eliminating boundaries will – and has so often this year – lead to burnout. In order to counteract this, we will need to articulate principles and expectations for how we work together.  And set up the mechanisms to role model, reinforce, and keep each other accountable for upholding these principles.

If you’ve stayed with me all the way until this point, I’ll take that as a sign that you’re feeling this, too. I know I’ve spent countless hours reading blog posts and articles, finding the camaraderie in shared experience and gaining nuggets of ideas I can take into my own life and work. I’ve been in high-consumption mode, with an eye to finding some guidance, some pathways, some bread crumbs to follow.

Yes, we’re languishing. But we don’t have to feel this way forever, and the only way out will be together.

As I look to the next year (or two, or three, or five, or ten…), I know the road will be bumpy. There will be many forks to consider. But we’ve learned a lot in the past year – and we’re continuing to learn. I still believe that we can all be in this together to chart our path forward, especially if we’re there to see and hear and support each other in our own little vessels.

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