Remote work isn’t the problem
If we’re not designing how we work, face time won’t fix it
The headlines started in 2022 and they just keep popping up as more and more companies (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon) push employees back into the office against their will.
More and more prominent tech and business leaders have started saying the “Remote First” experiment has failed as they rush to return their employees to the office.
“No more Mr. Nice Boss,” is how Time magazine describes the trend to return to office spaces and do away with pandemic-era perks. Flexible employers were a “blip,” the article says, referencing injunctions from CEOs like Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai who said people should work with “greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger.”
Then there was Mark Zuckerberg’s warning to Meta employees that their performances would be “graded” more intensely. And of course over at Twitter, Elon Musk has spent months bullying folks with the old “If you don’t like it, you can just quit,” adage — “it” in this case meaning ridiculously long hours at high intensity under unpredictable conditions.
For many managers in these situations, the dual demands to return to office and do more (and more) with less (and less) mean forcing their team to do something they themselves don’t believe in.
In our recent TBH (To Be Honest) discussion with Kristy Tillman (Director of Product Design at Netflix) and Kat Vellos (Author of “We Should Get Together”), we talked about the fallacy at the root of this return-to-office push.
Most companies justify their policy change by saying that remote work equals low performance and lack of connection. We call bullshit. Many of the problems blamed on remote work are systemic and endemic and existed long before 2020 lockdowns.
“There’s a false assumption,” Kat Vellos said, “that if we’re in person, we’re automatically connected. But the dynamics that we see in remote work were also happening in the office because they were already a part of the company culture.”
In times of economic turmoil where all kinds of extra pressure is bearing down on leaders and managers, there is the perception that a return to office means more control.
“People cling to what they know, and many companies don’t know how to facilitate remote,” Kristy Tillman said.
The reality that we’re seeing is that remote work is not going away. It’s here to stay, whether in full-time form or hybrid. In fact, 39% of new hires have jobs with a hybrid work arrangement and 18% of new jobs are fully remote, according to ZipRecruiter. Pre-pandemic, those percentages were 28% hybrid and 12% remote.
It’s not Where, it’s How and When and Why
The real question is not “Which is better: in person or remote?” The real question is: “Are we good at designing the spaces we work in?”
The answer starts with intention. Instead of assigning an arbitrary number of days for people to be in the office, ask how and when and why you should gather. And be realistic about it. Some things work better asynchronously, and some things really need to happen in-person.
“Certain things can only be accomplished together with collective effervescence,” Kat said. “There are discussions that need to be had with body language and facial expressions: creative problem solving, idea generation, quick iteration, and difficult feedback or decisions where nuance and tone really matter.”
At Netflix, which has a 25/75 mix of coming together and working apart, Kristy said they rely heavily on Design Ops to help program and facilitate times when the team comes together.
“When we do come together in person, we have very specific goals in mind,” she said.
Onboarding is one of those right times, Kristy said. Whenever you’re doing something new or figuring out the How of it all, it’s better to get together to figure it out or, in the case of onboarding, to get connected. The occasional in-person offsite can also be energizing for both new and longtime employees.
If we understand the positives and negatives of each method of meeting, we can consider the risk and value of upgrading to synchronous communication — like in those situations where we need to see each other face to face (or screen to screen), because we can’t afford to get it wrong.
In the midst of the asynch-to-screen back and forth, it’s important for leaders to remember that Zoom (or Google Meet or Microsoft Teams) fatigue is real–especially since many of the folks who have headed back to the office are still sitting at their desks on Zoom.
Kat suggests a few strategies to mitigate that video screen fatigue:
- Use phone calls to walk and talk
- Put Do Not Disturb days on your calendar
- Keep a buffer of 5–15 minutes between video calls for a breather or bio break
Ultimately, it’s about impact, not presence
It’s a widely held sentiment that leadership facetime and meeting attendance are the key to being seen and recognized. In reality, neither correlates with better, more impactful work.
This notion is also unfair and non-inclusive to folks in different time zones or with caretaker duties. For many, asynchronous collaboration offers a more human-first approach, also making it the more inclusive alternative.
Managers should commit to recognizing and celebrating impact through more objective measures (like success metrics and quality of work), regardless of however and whenever their designers contribute.
Good remote management is just good management
Whether you’re in-person, hybrid, or remote, the fundamentals of being a good manager are always the same. It just might look a little bit different based on where you’re working from.
In a remote or hybrid world, it’s imperative for managers to over communicate, Kristy said. At Netflix, where she leads Product Design, they are mostly remote.
“If you’re introverted like me, you might have to do some extra communication so people don’t think you’ve disappeared into the void,” she said. “Be super curious and ask lots of questions because you don’t get those second and third layers of intel in hallways anymore. Show up in Slack. Let people know you’re present. In fact, you should over-engineer showing up and being present.”
If you’re one of the managers being forced to push your team back to their cubicles (or open workspace tables), be honest with your team. Acknowledge that what’s happening isn’t ideal, and that it’s not happening for the right reasons.
From that point, the best you can do is try to figure out what’s right for your team. To design a way of working that works for them.
Here are two ways Design Dept. can help you design your team experience:
- Work one-on-one with leadership coach to tap into your creativity as a leader and transform the way you work with your team
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