People worked from home prior to the 1800s.
Everyone was a solo entrepreneur. The concept of a working place arose in the Industrial Revolution. To reduce transaction costs and build trust, people went to a workplace.
This was the factory which eventually became the office.
COVID-19 induced shutdowns sent many employees home, mostly with a laptop, few peripherals and a prayer.
While many of us imagined being back to work in a month or two, few believed that this might be the beginning of the end of the conventional workplace.
Work from home (WFH) went from being a privilege to necessity.
Working in pyjamas and meeting colleagues virtually became mainstream. The lines between work and life began to blur.
The initial euphoria of working from home was gradually diluted by employee loneliness, disengagement, burnout and eventually turnover. While Zoom enabled people to connect, it did not solve for engagement.
While I was fortunate not to be part of a hostile work environment and be surrounded by generally understanding colleagues, working lunches and post-dinner analysis became common.
There was almost a hedonic adaptation to the home work environment that caused an itch when I did not check or reply to a work message or email late at night. Surely, I wasn’t going to move mountains by the morning.
I realized that I wasn’t the only one. Many people carried on a bungled work-life that wasn’t sustainable and was going to implode under its own stress.
Over the coming months, many white-collar folks not only moved on from their jobs, but also switched professions. The Great resignation was characterized by inflexible policies and long-lasting job dissatisfaction.
In almost a radical re-assessment of their careers, people around me started to reset their idea and conceptualization of work.
Many trends have changed over the decades – from conglomerates to the rise of financial institutions to the tech bubble and now startups. What we work on and how we work has undergone tectonic shifts.
Moreover, the modern office that is based on a military model (post the world wars) – hierarchical, male-driven and rule-based – has gotten more fluid with time. Inspired by the tech firms, workplaces have grown to facilitate faster and flatter organizations.
However, the more things change the more the fundamental truths remain the same.
Humans are social creatures. We seek to be accepted and recognized by our colleagues. We also strive to derive meaning from work that leads to self-realization.
When the environment makes this difficult, they tend to move away or change the status-quo. When employees are treated as variables in an optimization function with constraints, they will revolt.
Instead, when they are treated as humans and allowed liberty, rewards and meaning, they tend to flourish. When the changing environments take some of these away, they need to be brought back to keep the workplace alive.
Traditional work robbed people of flexibility. Employees were bound by constraints – location, timing – and interference from other people in the form of close visual monitoring.
Work from home took away real-time connections with colleagues, cammerardie and induced a fear of being forgotten. With longer hours and lesser downtime, the ability to choose opportunities and find meaning was distant.
Eventually, it is no surprise that those who can’t move on will ‘silently quit’ their work or find opportunities outside their prescribed hours. Adding more constraints and slapping rules will only worsen the problem.
While managing humans, the solution is not prescriptive. It is merely a thoughtful understanding of needs and core motivations and applying them to different contexts.
Providing the freedom to choose at least a few variables out of location, timing, teams and topics can allow people to suit their context and lifestyle. Such flexibility can often be a reward or can come with certain commitments that help to establish trust.
Unblocking information flow – through communication tools, hybrid work or open doors – can allow employees to connect freely through the organization and not feel alienated when physically distant.
Irrespective of location, conversations around ‘work significance’ and whether it is worth doing allows for people to think about meaning. This not only allows employees room for self- expression, but also brings to light dissonance between various levels of the organization.
Work-from-home allowances, a few free days off, a delivery of goodies or shopping vouchers might help to create some blips of happiness, but do nothing to resolve the broader issues around work.
Taking a hard look back at Maslow’s pyramid might throw some answers, or a simple realization that we manage people, not robots.