Experimenting with your work day shouldn't end with pandemic, says psychologist
Lessons of working from home could reshape professional lives: Adam Grant
If you're figuring out how to work from home effectively during the pandemic, one expert argues you should apply that spirit of experimentation — and its results — when you eventually return to the office.
"I've seen so many people adjust their routines and I think that's all too rare," said Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, author and host of the podcast WorkLife.
"Just being willing to adapt and change is one of the best ways to learn," he told The Current's Matt Galloway.
Office blocks around the world sit empty as millions have taken their work home in recent months to comply with physical distancing efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19.
In Canada, some provinces have begun to revive their economies and reopen schools and businesses as the number of cases fall or even off, but there is no clear indication of when office workers could return to normal and experts have warned it will be slow and gradual.
Still, Grant says what we have learned from working at home should reshape our workplaces when we return.
He says he has already seen positive changes, including in the way we conduct meetings by video conferencing.
Both face-to-face and virtual meetings can be commandeered by the most assertive person in the room, which can "often crowd out dissenting voices," he told Galloway.
"It means that often women and minorities don't get heard as much. It also means that introverts have a harder time getting heard."
But in the virtual meetings we're rapidly becoming accustomed to, everyone has access to a chat window, he said.
"We've actually had richer discussions now virtually than we did face-to-face, because instead of calling on the person who's the most assertive, I actually get to see what the different viewpoints are," he said.
"And then I can invite a variety of voices into that conversation."
When people work from home, their productivity often goes up. They appreciate the autonomy and flexibility- Adam Grant
He thinks that's something we should hold on to once the pandemic has passed.
"Keep that mindset of saying: 'OK, what if we adjust when we meet? What if we rotate who's in charge of the meeting?'" he suggested.
"What if we try out, actually, this idea of having everyone write down their thoughts, even when we're face-to-face in the same room before we start talking."
Workers appreciate 'autonomy and flexibility'
Grant says he has spent years trying to convince companies to let workers stay home for even just one day a week.
"I got more pushback than you could possibly imagine, saying, 'There's no way we could ever expect people to be productive and focused and collaborative,'" he told Galloway.
"And now a lot of the world has shifted to being fully remote," he said.
The shift in work structure is working in some ways, but not in others, he added.
"When people work from home, their productivity often goes up. They appreciate the autonomy and flexibility that they have," he said.
Workers take it as a sign of trust from their employers, he added, and reciprocate with loyalty.
"But there is a cost when it comes to communication and coordination, and I think that's one of the big challenges we're all grappling with right now," he said.
Grant cited a 2007 review of multiple studies that suggested "no cost to performance or satisfaction as long as people are in the office half the week."
"So there is still a benefit of being face-to-face," he said. "It's hard to substitute for."
Grant says it's reasonable to expect that many employers will be more flexible when it comes to remote work than before.
But he also thinks a lot of people are missing their days in the office.
"I've even heard people say: 'I never thought I'd say this, but I really miss my boss,'" he told Galloway.
"I think there will be people coming back to the office excited to have a separate place to work, to be surrounded by a community of colleagues, and I don't think we should discount that possibility either."
This story is part of The Fix, The Current's series on the problems in our world today, and the people working to solve them. We're refocused the series to look at COVID-19, some of the long-standing problems the virus has forced us to acknowledge, and how we could go about fixing those issues. Read and listen to more from the series here.
Written by Padraig Moran. Produced by Ben Jamieson and Emily Rendell-Watson.
