“Remote” work tribalism

Ha ha, the ” “” ” around Remote are to question remote from what? From the work? From other people? From the corporate office? The meaning is usually the latter and I laugh at the idea that the office is somehow so here that to be anywhere else is to be “remote”. It’s similar to the rueful embarrassment I felt when other UK colleagues referred to our Malaysia centre as “offshore”. Off which shore exactly? A long, long way off any UK shore – for sure!

I’ve advocated for remote work (OK) for over 30 years, inspired by the ‘telecommuting’ vision of Dame Steve Shirley. Knowledge work is seldom predominently defined by time and place. We’ve had the tools and technology to allow what we used to charmingly refer to as “cyber cottages” for a long, long time. But it took the Covid-19 pandemic and the necessity to work from home to really make it happen. I know, I was instrumental in moving the work of more than 100k colleagues to this model when it struck.

Sadly, we’ve been going through this ‘return to the office’ argument and it’s caused a bit of a divide. Some are all for ‘the return’, but many are quite happy to stay home. It’s become quite tribal with growing name-calling and disparaging comments from either side to and about the other. Those who want everyone to return are somehow reactionary, while those who don’t are infantalised as just wanting to stay in their pyjamas.

It’s time to finish the name-calling and start to work this out. Some work really has to be done in situ and for that work and for those people who do that work there’s no stay home option nor was there ever. But some feel they have all they need in their home office.

I’m someone who has advocated for this for a long time. It’s fundamental that knowledge work isn’t predominently time nor place bound and to realise that is a big step forwards. However. However.

There is no doubt that there are limitations and a downside if people never get together in person to work together and the reasons are simple and obvious.

One, you’re on a degraded bandwidth if you soley work ‘remote’. You’re not getting all the same cues and same experiences and that means your coordination and collaboration are all off. Just think of the differences in turn-taking when you’re in a room together, casually in an office corner together and then on a videoconference or ‘phone call or email. They’re all different which surely means at least some have some qualities the others don’t.

Two, you’re missing the full range of tacit knowledge exchange for the same reasons – you’re not all experiencing it the same and lacking some of the signal.

Three, the serendipitous connections, comments and exchanges are far less. You just don’t really bump into people on Zoom like you do in the corridor or the lift. Your purposeful work and focus may be more optimised, but this is at the expense of the more speculative contacts you might otherwise have made.

Four, I think we’re just made as an animal to spend some time together and we don’t work quite so well if we don’t.

I’m still mostly in favour of the focus, flexibility, release of time and energy and capital and so on that remote work allows. And the rest of me is in favour of getting together just enough for maybe one or two days a week.

I’m 100% through with the tribal wrangling about this.