It’s Impossible to Explain – Managing Hybrid/Remote Work Part II

May 18, 2023

In our last blog on this topic we tried to understand why companies would use elementary school policies for monitoring work as well as treat people as commodities when recruitment and retention are major challenges today. Since that post a few weeks ago, more of the same types of examples continue to roll in.  Here’s the most recent.

In a Teams chat, an employee shares that his internet went down and he is working on it.  He also provides his supervisor with details of a client issue he was working on when it happened.   Within a minute the leader responds by asking him to send a screen shot of the outage (no mention of the customer issue).  This company set up a system that focuses on compliance and proof versus results and high performance outcomes and exceeding customer expectations.

On another note, CNN Business reported that employees are the happiest they’ve been since 1987.  In thinking about the last blog, we’re wondering – Why?

The answer is that they are in a position to demand more in terms of pay, benefits and flexibility.  They are taking opportunities to switch jobs to ones more in line with what they want.  Based on the study, the majority really like the hybrid model vs. total in office or total remote. We’re not surprised that people prefer a hybrid or flexible model because that’s been our experience too. It’s such a hot topic that in one of our workshops a team made a very persuasive case for flexibility.

If lack of trust, controlling supervision and the seeming power employees now enjoy is true, it continues to be impossible to explain why some companies are not responding positively and proactively to the employment market of today.