Every day SmartCompany covers the shifting world of work, while at the same time being active participants ourselves in the great global social experiment that is the “post-pandemic workplace”.
We know from recent audience surveys that most of our readers are working in similar hybrid environments to ours, with only 13% back in the office full time, 29% hybrid (with set days), 35% fully flexible (with no set days), and 12% fully remote.
How’s it going?
Encouragingly for Private Media, the data shows that WFH doesn’t impact productivity.
Culture is certainly affected if your definition of work culture is hitting the beers together after work, but a non-scientific straw poll of the Smarties crew shows we honour our company’s values, and support each other through life’s ups and downs, which – obviously – are other important definitions of culture.
Prior to early 2020, I could never have imagined doing a job like mine mostly from home, yet thanks to the pandemic – and the trust of Ai and Will – I’m a year and a half into spending more than 75% of my time WFH from rural Tassie.
As I’ve documented on LinkedIn – oversharing, much?! – occasionally this means I am still in my PJs at midday, but only if I don’t have a morning meeting.
At least one day a week I like to get to the beach before work – a five-minute drive – for a stroll or swim.
Typically, I am at my desk by 6.30am – actually my sofa for the first 90 minutes – rather than battling a commute, and most days have “eaten the frog” (aka nailed my most important task) before I officially start work at 8am, and join our morning meeting from my desk – actually a standup desk — outside if it’s warm enough.
I go pretty hard until our edition is sent, then try – usually fail – to get offline for an hour at 1pm. I’d love to use this hour to pause – it’s actually blocked out for a P-A-U-S-E on my calendar – but typically I’m working right through lunch (if I remember lunch). Most days there’s a virtual meeting or two (or three or four) from 2pm, and I still get time to “work late” before connecting with my kids and helping with dinner by 6pm, without any commuting.
That’s at least eight hours of focused work every day, give or take the odd stroll around the orchard to grab an apple and think something through.
Am I more productive than if I was in the office? I certainly feel I am.
Am I a better manager? Sadly, I don’t think so
Management is a mix of hand-holding, sound-boarding, role-modelling and cajoling, and none of these things are naturally done over Slack, email or the phone.
Pre-Covid I had spent 20 years in newsrooms – yes, I’m ancient – for the first decade of my career working with hundreds of journalists in person every day.
As a young reporter at The Times, I learned so much about our industry and craft by working side-by-side with experienced editors. Sometimes this was marvelling at their stories of prodigious drinking between deadlines on the Fleet Street of yore, but mostly it was improving my skills and understanding the ropes.
Sitting next to your editor allows them to hear how your day is going all day, and you to ask them their view on anything that pops into your head, anytime.
Today, I try to replicate this experience when I’m not sitting with my team, but let’s be honest, Slack ain’t the same.
I miss sitting with my team
I miss being interrupted by a colleague and asked: “can I get your view on this?”
I miss the chance discussions in the office and the intentional sit-downs over coffee.
I try to replicate this as much as possible. My team knows I like the occasional “Walk & Talk” 1:1 on the phone, but the phone or Meet isn’t the same as face-to-face. Is it?
The vast majority of my peers at bigger newsrooms than ours have decided WFH doesn’t work and are back in the office – with their teams – four or five days a week.
I’m not impressed by their groupthink dogma, but to be honest, I am a little jealous of their days eavesdropping sitting with their teams.
Which doesn’t mean I’m lobbying for us to do the same!