Back to the Office?

With companies bringing more of their employees back to the office I’ve had many conversations with still-working friends about the pros and cons of office life. The cons, other than commuting again, are, I thought, mainly about shifting from the convenience of being home. The pros are based on physically being with your team; improved communication, increased productivity, and the ability for ad hoc live sessions to address issues or work on planning.

       A former co-worker told me of a few new cons that resulted from the office reconfiguration to no assigned cubicle space and fewer offices and conference rooms for in-person meetings. Originating from the advent of flexible schedules in which employees are in the office 3-4 days a week and home 1-2, the concept was sold as a way to accommodate the shifting mass of workers without cubicles sitting empty while their occupants worked from home. Another of those ideas that look good on paper but can implode badly in practice.

       To begin with, this company has a Credo with 1 of the 4 paragraphs dedicated to how employees are valued. So much for that as this configuration means employees must compete for desk space daily (like having general admission tickets for a concert), can’t have personal items unless they want to carry them in and out each day, have to carry all their work items – including any files, etc. – with them all the time, need to continually locate the nearest printer for any hard-copy documentation, and worst of all, usually are nowhere near their team members. As a final insult, there are days when no desk is available so those left out of the musical chairs game wind up going back home to work – after wasting time commuting both ways. The architect of this design clearly didn’t think it through, or the companies that use it just don’t care about the impact on their employees.

        For me, not being with your teammates is the biggest flaw in this configuration. My friend told me she ran into one of her teammates after not seeing him for months. What is the sense in being in the office if you are not situated with your team? All the benefits of being in the office – except for management being able to physically monitor employees – are negated when you are alone in a sea of cubicles with your team scattered about on their individual rafts floating around on their own. And with limited conference room space, many meetings are on Zoom or another web platform anyway. All of this makes me glad I retired when I did, just before this concept swept through the company.

       Don’t get me wrong. I am a strong believer in being in the office – with your team – at least a couple of days a week as it fosters stronger working relationships and improves productivity. But to realize those benefits, teams must be able to work together in the same space. Having them spread around to the point of not physically seeing each other for months at a time negates most of the benefits of being in the office.

Finally, this open concept completely de-personalizes the workplace and clearly displays what the company values most – and no matter how much the company talks about how it values its employees, this arrangement shows that profit is valued over everything and everyone. Again, it is an idea that sounds good at first but if not implemented with all employees in mind it can have the opposite of the intended effect.

www.RetiredandInspiredat55.com  09-23-2024