There is a lot of discussion going on about the opening up of the marketplace and with it comes the question about whether people will go back to the office or would like to continue to work from wherever they wanted to work from.
I know that there are people who are waiting to get back to working in their respective offices and then there are a lot of people who are enjoying their freedom of working from wherever they want to.
Recently, Dan Ariely (James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight) and the author of the influential books – Irrationally Yours, Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty) shared his perspective and prediction on how this decision is going to play out in an Instagram post.
You can watch his Instagram post here.
One of his claim is that working outside the office for the past 15 months or so has meant that we have forgotten the experience of working together with people in person. It is the little things like a random conversation at the water cooler, the nod from our colleagues, a pat on the shoulder, the little smile and a high five every now on then that adds colour and meaning to our work.
Irrespective of whether we get back to our offices or continue to work from anywhere, depending upon where we stand in the debate, as leaders, it is our responsibility to ensure that we are still able to experience these little things with each other.
These are easier to do and happen automatically if we working together, synchronously and from the same office.
These are difficult and require intentional effort on the parts of the leaders to create them or similar experiences when we are working asynchronously from our homes or coffee shops or from wherever.
When we are working in a hybrid environment, it is even more difficult and requires more awareness and intention from the leaders to ensure there is no discrimination of people based on whether they are working from office or from home.
This is super critical because it is easy to recognise people, smile, give a high five or a pat on the back of someone we see in the office and so much more difficult to do the same with someone working from their homes.
As leaders, we need to learn and evolve a way to recognize and engage with people in a way that feels the same for everyone we lead.
