A slight return

Me heading in. Too much?

As if we needed to be told this, widespread home working has apparently prompted many businesses to re-evaluate their working needs.

Documenting the shift to remote work during the pandemic, the Office for National Statistics said the number of people who did some work at home in 2020 rose by 9.4 percentage points from a year earlier to 35.9% of the workforce – representing more than 11 million employees.

Bloomberg reports that companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa are doing away with properties to preserve capital, as commercial property sales in Europe fell by 27% last year.

Meanwhile Axa, one of the world’s largest asset managers, is betting big on office returns. The French firm plans to invest €799m in sustainable offices and flexible workspaces in France, Germany and the UK.

All of which will mean something to the business I work for, but at the moment it feels like all bets are off. There has been talk for years now of us moving into new premises somewhere in Warrington. Our current building is an enormous monument to 80s excess, an astonishing architectural monstrosity perched on the edge of the town.

Most people don’t even know it is there, as it is hidden, like most of its neighbours, behind thick foliage that doesn’t seem to thin much even in the toughest of winters.

But there it is, and there I was, this week… returning for the first time this year to a place I’d previously not spent more than a fortnight away from for the past seven years.

As a communications manager, I’ve found that working from home has not radically affected my day job - in many ways, it has actually improved things. I can attend the right meetings, wherever in the country (or the world) they may be happening. I can have daily chats with my team, who are based 150 miles up the motorway in West Cumbria. I have better access to all the tools I need to do my job properly - no longer are there restrictions on social media, or access to the kind of file sharing people like me need to watch and edit video.

But I’ve always known that at some point I’d need to get back into the office. We’re still working towards the government’s deadline of 21 June for some kind of wholesale return (the level of which remains to be sorted), but there remains the opportunity for individuals to come in if they need to.

Today was a classic example of the kind of thing that can only really be done in person - one of our executive team had been called on to take part in a video interview and I said I’d be happy to draft a basic script with some key messages, and then be the of-screen interviewer. Pretty standard internal comms stuff, the bread and butter of what we do. It feels important to get a handle on what our people are saying, help them be at their best and find out a little about what makes them tick (in other words, it’s the kind of thing I really enjoy doing).

So I saw it as a great opportunity to cart myself back into the workplace - if only for a couple of hours, this time. Here’s some learning, and a few thoughts…

Firstly, going back into the office after basically a year away is weird. I started the day pulling clothes out of the wardrobe I knew I hadn’t worn for over a year. It was tricky pulling my posh boots on after so long in trainers or sandals.

Then, I had to find my pass - and remember the pass code I need to enter the building with it.

There’s an enterprise risk assessment to familiarise yourself with - and an accompanying local one for us in Warrington. Vital if you don’t want to walk in through the wrong door.

Motorways seem faster these days, roads seem emptier.

And people still exist, beyond close family and neighbours.

But enough of the reasonably obvious stuff. What struck me most was the scale of the challenge we’ll have as an internal communications function, moving forward.

For the past year, we’ve been in full-on reactive mode - the pandemic was coming, the pandemic was here, everyone went home, volunteering exploded, we re-started some construction work, our offices reopened, we tentatively began to bring people back in, we shut down again, we accomplished some targets against all the odds… it has been a rollercoaster time. And we’ve documented it all. It has been mad, and busy, and complicated, and confusing. Our small team of eight has proved its worth again and again, keeping 10,000-plus people informed and engaged throughout these incredible times.

But it feels like those times are coming to an end, and now the hard work starts. Looking around at the cavernous empty offices today, with all the feelings I was having about being there and perhaps not exactly fully wanting to be there, I began to realise that I won’t be alone in thinking the following things.

Agile, blended working is definitely the way forward - it would be criminal to do a complete 180 and force everyone back in. Where people have shown they can work effectively away from the workplace, they should be allowed to continue that. But it’s going to be tough - managers are going to have to manage. Everyone at work is easy. Everyone at home is harder, but most people would probably agree that the “we’re all in this together” aspect has helped. But half your team in the office, and half at home, in different mixes every day? How’s that going to work? How are you going to react if a colleague tells you they’ve done all their face-to-face meetings and are off home at 2.30pm to carry on the day’s work on MS Teams? To say people are going to need clarity of messaging and an understandable vision from the top, and that managers are going to need some help, is an understatement.

Office use needs to change - our business has made great strides in this respect, but I noticed today that several of the “agile” desks had already ben staked out as “someone’s”, with coats on the chairs and detritus scattered around. Even if that’s just today’s stuff, a pared down, agile office won’t work once people start marking their territory like that.

The way we think about meetings needs to evolve. We went from “thou shalt travel to another building and sit in a room with 20 people for two hours” to using MS Teams as the default almost seamlessly, and this brought a huge amount of benefits in time and money saved. But creating a blended approach to meetings is another thing entirely. Today, for example, I knew I was going to be in the interview for at least two hours between 12 and 2, and for the rest of the time I hoped I could spend my time productively around the office, doing things that I could only achieve by being there. But hey-presto, before my very eyes up popped a Teams meeting in the hour before the interview session. And then, lo and behold, two more Teams meetings in the hours directly after it. I don’t want to sit in the office and do something I can do better at home. And if I have to, I want the office to be set up to achieve a seamless link between in-person and on-line. We don’t have that, yet. My only option is to find a quiet spot and use my phone to attend the Teams meeting. And if that meeting needs to be attended by a colleague who also happens to be in the office, we’ll be sitting near to each other, both on our phones. That doesn’t sound like a good use of time in the office, especially when we’re effectively taking someone else’s place. I’m not sure how comms can fix this, other than offering solutions and case studies from people who’ve made it work… but it’ll need to happen.

And finally… you know that the big “positive” for returning to work is that you’ll get that interaction you’ve been missing, those happy accidents that spark a conversation and create new ideas? Well, it’s true. I’d not been in the office for five minutes before I bumped into the projects director, and we sorted something. The video interview was great and I got far more information to help me continue my work than I would have done if I’d just emailed the script and asked them to get on with it. I was able to take a quick inventory of what posters were on the walls of the toilets, what was currently being screened on our TVs, and whether we had any pull-ups available featuring our manifesto (we do, hoorah). So I’d agree - yes, there are many benefits to getting back into the workplace, in a blended way.

But making it work? Blimey, that’s a tough one.