It's been a few years now since COVID hit us and we were all forced to work from home (if we were lucky enough to have jobs that allowed us to). It was a difficult time at first: we were unable to meet with actual people and some of us were not used to video call meetings. Who does not remember playing (or imagining playing) meeting bingo? That was at the beginning of the lockdowns. We are now in the post-COVID era; certainly, some things must be different.
One-size-doesn't-fit-all
I see a lot of companies and organizations use a one-size-fits-all rule. Whether it's "2 days per week at the office", "3 days per week at the office" or "5 days per week at the office", it's the same for all people in the organization. However, not everybody is the same. You might think that this is a fair system, but is it?
I think this is an easy system: there's not much thinking involved to set it up. What happens when you get exceptions? People will have to ask permission to work from home an extra day. This can be because maybe the plumber needed an extra day to finish up his work, and organizations might be inclined to allow it. But is that overhead worth it?
Since it's a rule to come to the office, there's a threshold to cross in asking permission to deviate from that rule. Some organizations don't call it a rule, but rather a guideline. Most of those will still be on the phone with you if you work from home more than the guideline tells you. Why are organizations so willing to make us come to the office?
Command and care
A big reason is control. Companies want to ensure you are working and they can easily monitor this if you are in the office. There will be social pressure as well, so they think getting their employees to the office is better for the performance of the work they are doing.
What happened with trusting your employees? Giving them the trust to do something will give them space to thrive and excel. Employees who feel trust are more willing to go the extra mile and are more motivated in their jobs. Employees with little or no trust, or a feeling of mistrust, will likely not be your employees very long.
To hide this, companies say they want employees to come back into the office because they care about the employees. This is great! This is what employees want! But just because a certain number of employees said they needed to come back to the office (for good reasons, maybe) doesn't mean we have to make this a rule for everyone. That's rather unfair for the employees who don't have a problem with working from home.
A minority of companies don't have a work-from-home rule. They allow their employees to choose. This is probably the best thing to do if you have an open organization where everyone can speak up if there is something to speak up about. Does that mean those organizations care, though? Putting the responsibility of where people work in the hands of the employees is not caring at all. Again, it's just easy.
Start to care
I am an individual who works well from home. I know a lot of tools that I can use for different purposes and I have no problem with not seeing my colleagues for a certain period of time. But that is me. Not everybody is like that.
Some people need to be together to work. They need it because they are more social or because they need more human interactions. Some might need it because it keeps them mentally okay. What I'm trying to say is everybody is different. And that is perfectly fine.
Think about disabled people. Do we want to force them to come to the office? Do we make exceptions for them with our one-size-fits-all rule and if so, is that fair to non-disabled people? Or are we singling out a minority because we expect our employees to come to the office?
It's taking into account that everyone is different that shows an organization cares about its employees. Why would you create one rule about working from home if you have all these different kinds of people working for you?
A better WFH strategy
A better method would be to check with each individual what works best for them. Maybe John is stuck in traffic for 1.5 hours to get to the office, while Alice needs to take 3 different trains to get there. What if Mark lives right next to a loud noisy business, making it hard for him to work from home? These are all things that need to be taken into account.
Maybe in a team of 8, half of them have a hard time getting to the office while the other 4 like to have some human connection now and then. You could work out a WFH strategy for that team: everyone is allowed to come and there is no restriction, but since 4 of them need human connection we ask them to come to the office on the same days. How many days and which days? That's up to them.
I've worked in a team where out of 15 people, one person indicated she needed that human interaction. These are the people an organization does not want to miss. But what if the other team members don't want to come to the office?
There are things we can do from home to also get human interaction. Some tools (like Around) allow us to work together as if we were in the same room. Other tools like Slack and Teams (to just name a few) allow people to instantly send messages to each other. It's the discipline of the team to respond to each other.
Interactions over tools
We mustn't forget something more important than tooling: interactions. If your people work from home a lot, make sure to check in regularly. Have a call with your employees. It only needs to take 15 minutes. Check how they are doing, and if everything is working out. Check how they are doing personally because working from home also has an impact on the work-life balance of your employees.
Instead of forcing your employees to the office a fixed number of days per week, have team retreats. Allow your team to come together once in a while, preferably periodically. People won't mind coming together once or twice per month if they have the freedom to choose where they work the rest of the time. Note that these retreats do not have to take place in the office. If all the members of a certain team live close to each other, why not facilitate a team retreat closer to home?
Additional benefits from WFH
Apart from the work-life balance and employee satisfaction, working from home has an impact on our environment. When more people work from home, fewer people are on the road to the busy cities where offices are located. Those people might be on the road for small, short, local trips like a dentist appointment, but overall we will spend less time on the road and our carbon footprints will decrease.
If fewer people come to the office, companies don't need the large office spaces they currently have. I'm not saying we should sell all business offices, as we always need to have a place to work for those people who need human interaction. But do we need our offices to be as big as they are now? Are we still going to pay for the electricity and heating of buildings that are only partially used? This is a way for companies to cut costs.
Last but not least, your employees might be a lot more effective working from home than they are working at your office. While human interactions like water cooler conversations are useful, my experience is I am doing a lot more of those conversations in the office when I work from home a few days per week. The actual amount of work done is more when I work from home than when I work in the office. I'm sure I'm not the only one experiencing this.
Conclusion
You've heard this one before but when it comes to WFH, there is no silver bullet. There is no one-size-fits-all rule that works. Rules made for control will scare your employees away. Rules made because you care about certain employees can make other employees less motivated and more likely to leave you for another company.
What your organization needs is a WFH strategy built with your employees. Talk with them about their situation and feelings. Which employees want to come to the office? Which ones don't? The results can be very surprising. Share the results among the employees. People are more likely to come to the office knowing other employees need it. And they are okay with coming to the office less if they know how much of a hassle it is for others to reach the office.
Whatever your WFH strategy will be, don't drop the water cooler conversations. There are ways and tools to have human interaction while working from home. Make sure you, as an organization, talk with your employees regularly. How they feel about WFH today might not be how they feel about it tomorrow. People's lives change. If you want to keep your employees satisfied and empower them to do the best job they can for you, be flexible to change your WFH strategy with them.