This is the age of awful, awkward workplace operations conversations! Topping the list of language we will all one day cringe at are these lovelies:
- Hybrid working
- Flexible working
- Agile workplace
- Remote versus virtual
- Hoteling and hot-desking
- Monday/Friday in-office
- “How many days are right in the office?”
- Personas
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these as they are all part of the shifting workplace landscape we are trying to solve for. It’s just that they are coming up in the normal course of conversation in often weird and incorrect ways. Let’s get through 2021 using them and then maybe we can all agree to search for better words when we have the time.
What all of these words and phrases are attempting to do is describe the non-binary ways of working we all experience. Very few people in this world are either fully office or remote workers. Most people have some degree of freedom at least occasionally. But the workplace language we’ve all collectively adopted over the past 50 years does not lend itself to the nuance of how we work.
For the past many decades, it’s been fine to separate the workplace from how people actually worked. There was a clear relationship between the two concepts but there was no driving need to actually make them interdependent. The thought was simply, “I’m going to give you a desk and expect you to use it at least occasionally, don’t stress the office.” This led to the world we were in pre-pandemic (through most of the world) where traditional offices were often noticeably vacant. With the pandemic, “noticeably vacant” is now becoming either: 1) “get your ass back in more often than before because now I’m watching” or 2) “I’m not paying for that desk to be empty any more.” Neither 1 nor 2 reads positively to the average office occupant.
Now, everyone is trying to apply workplace language to how we work giving rise to the trendy Hybrid Work terminology. No one works “hybrid” as we are either working or not working. The hybrid is about where the work happens as if that is the most important consideration for the concept of work. The reality is that productivity is what we are all seeking but it’s the great unmeasurable inside of all organizations. It’s easier to assume people are more productive either in “the office” or “at home” when in reality it’s a sliding scale with no day ever being optimized. The office comes with a commute and small talk while home comes with no one else being around. It’s all about the trade-offs and the only people really positioned to determine that are the people being paid to do work.
I don’t blame anyone who is struggling with these concepts. Before 2021, there was never any real reason to have this conversation so the entire world is trying to both create a dictionary, thesaurus and operational strategy all at the same time. It’s going to be messy as we work out new shorthand for the words we are using and try to simplify these complex and nuanced descriptions of the intersection of work and workplace.