Future of Work Roundup: June 14th

This week’s Future of Work Roundup looks at how hybrid work is changing, from how it’s affecting where we live & work to the new ways we can make it better for everyone.

Hybrid work is influencing where (and how) we live.

The charm of living in a dense, large city – and being close to your office – wears off pretty quickly when you realize you’re just going to be in your tiny apartment all day.

So what’s a person to do?

• Folks in cities like New York and San Francisco are choosing to keep a smaller city dwelling (for those precious in-office meetings) along with buying property outside of the city so they have more room to breathe – likely with a partner and kids who are doing more at home, too.

The bottom line: Those who can are starting to heavily invest (while they can) in having an ideal WFH set-up, further driving the need for orgs to set-up sustainable hybrid work solutions.

Source: Bloomberg

Embracing inclusivity in a hybrid work set-up.

Okay, maybe you don’t have a second house in the Catskills – but hopefully by now you have the right tech and tools to work effectively from home. So what’s the next step in the hybrid work evolution? Ensuring inclusivity.

That would be nice!

• Simply put: leaders need to get better at keeping their distributed teams top of mind when managing them alongside their in-person people. 
• How? Things like building a culture around trust and avoiding playing favorites are just two ways to ensure your entire team feels supported. 

The bottom line: Studies show that 90% of employees that are able to work from anywhere are happier, and we know that happier employees – including your remote ones – are more likely to work hard and stick around.

Source: Forbes

Meetings are not the connection solution you think they are.

If you think the answer to “ensuring inclusivity” at work is more meetings, think again.

Record scratch.

• To reduce the chance of proximity bias, it’d make sense to focus on communicating more – but the solution to doing that isn’t more meetings. Why? It dilutes the value of truly necessary meetings (ala the age-old “boy who cried wolf” fable).
• So how can you create better connections? Set proper expectations. Example: if an exec says it’s cool to WFH but they show up 5-days a week, it may erode trust.
• Also, consider the value of a meeting and really ask yourself: could this have been an email, Slack message, or async video? 

The bottom line: It’s not only unfair to favor in-person employees over remote employees, it encourages bad behavior like coming in sick – which, if we’ve learned anything over the past 2+ years, it’s to not do that.

Source: Reworked