Back to the office (maybe)
As a marketing manager for Ford Motor Company, Jovina Young has her own take on "Zooming" for work. But when the pandemic hit, working from home meant really "shifting gears."
"I had a five-year-old who was in kindergarten and a one-year-old," Young said. "And my husband is a nurse. So often, he's gone at the hospital while I'm home alone with the children."
"You're also trying to work full-time?" asked correspondent Susan Spencer.
"There's just such a lot of pressure on us at that time."
After a few months, though, that pressure seemed to lift. Young said, "I found a rhythm at home that I really, really enjoy. And I never really thought I would do this, but I have found that I do prefer working at home."
Gone are the harried mornings and the once-expected rituals of makeup, hair and work clothes: "Pretty much it's, like, yoga pants, a T-shirt, and a hoodie," she said.
"One thing you gained, I gather, is you don't have to commute?" said Spencer.
"That's been a great blessing in all of this. I actually love not having to commute. And I hate to say that 'cause I work for an automotive company!" she laughed.
Conveniences like that may help explain why, in a recent CBS News poll, 60% of working Americans said ideally they want to work from home or remotely at least part of the time.
Spencer asked Ford Motor Company executive Kiersten Robinson, "Once the cat's out of the bag, and people discover that they can work at home, and they can do the laundry over lunch breaks, it's gonna be very difficult for companies to just say, 'Well, no, you have to be here at 9:00 o'clock, period.' Do you think this is the wave of the future?"
"Yeah, I do think we're evolving and setting new boundaries around what the nature of work is," she replied.
Robinson's titled at Ford is chief people officer. "The chief people officer is responsible for all of the people in an organization," she said.
And many of them are in for a radical change this fall, when Ford goes to a "hybrid model" for 30,000 workers. Managers will have input, but none of those employees will work 9-to-5 at the office every day, unless they feel like it.
Spencer asked, "Are you leaving it to the employees to decide what the ratio is between working at home and working in the office?"
"Yeah, we've surveyed them, and the number of days they anticipate being in the office will vary, depending on the nature of the project, or the work that they're doing," Robinson replied.
Young said she anticipates she will work from home about 70% of the time.
Spencer asked Robinson, "You're working with tens of thousands of people who've basically been in their pajamas for over a year. Do you expect that there will be any changes in what people wear to work?"
"Well, I'm not sure if we'll see pajamas. But I certainly do expect a much more relaxed dress code, absolutely!" she laughed.
No matter what we wear, we need to go back, said Harvard Business School professor Arthur Brooks: "It's actually pretty amazing how much more productive people are when they meet in person. When you're meeting with somebody on Zoom, my hypothesis is, 95% chance they're actually not paying attention to you. They're actually playing Solitaire on their computer during your Zoom meeting."
Plus, he said, don't underestimate the benefit of normal human contact: "Your likelihood of saying you're a lonely person goes up 60, 70 percentage points if you're working at home as opposed to working in the office. Now, it's good, there's no traffic, there's no commute. I mean, commuting is bad. But, loneliness is worse."
"Some people's concerns, though, with going back are just sort of practical things – like, what is the etiquette in the office when you return to work? How do you greet somebody?" asked Spencer.
"We will find that out," said Brooks. "So, there are some basics that we know: Wear pants, for example. That's a good one! You know, I can probably live without shaking hands. But I can't live without direct eye contact."
Psychologist Ellen Hendriksen believes we are feeling a bit rusty as we enter whatever this "new normal' will be. In fact, a good number of us, she said, are anxious, and dread going back to the office: "Social anxiety is driven by avoidance, and we have all been avoiding our normal social lives," she said.
"Well, you could argue that, given what was at stake, what is at stake still, that being socially anxious is the normal response, right?" asked Spencer.
"Absolutely. So, the 1% of people who just, you know, cannot identify with social anxiety at all are actually psychopaths!" Hendriksen said.
"So, the best way to have come through the pandemic would have been as a psychopath? Oh, great."
Spencer asked Brooks, "If you ruled the world, you would have everybody be back in at work Monday morning?"
"I can't imagine anybody who wants a Harvard professor to rule the world," he laughed. "That's just so far from my conception of reality."
Harvard or not, everyone seems to agree that work never will look the same again.
Hendrickson said, "I think a hybrid model, with the flexibility of working from home, saving people that commute, while retaining that ability to interact face-to-face, and to just have that community, is gonna be really important."
Brooks said, "It wouldn't surprise me at all if we actually start experimenting with a norm within companies of work from home Fridays, for example, or work from home Wednesdays and Fridays, or Thursdays and Fridays, or something along those lines. We're gonna adapt to a new model that is more independent than it was in the past."
And for Jovina Young, that's the road to take.
Spencer asked, "So, you're not gonna be putting on that uniform and makeup and getting in the car for that commute any more than you absolutely have to?"
"Yeah, yeah," she replied. "If I'm able to be as productive and work from home, I'm gonna do it. And then the times I need to be there and I wanna connect with others, we'll go, yeah."
For more info:
- Ford
- "How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety" by Ellen Hendriksen, Ph.D. (St. Martin's Press), in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon and Indiebound
- ellenhendriksen.com
- "The Art of Happiness" with Arthur Brooks
- Arthur Brooks: "How to Build a Life" (Column in The Atlantic)
- "In Pursuit of Happiness": Virtual event at The Atlantic, May 20, 2021 | Free Registration
Story produced by Amiel Weisfogel. Editor: Steven Tyler.
See also:
- How to live AND work at home without going stir crazy ("Sunday Morning")
- Working from home is here to say, latest job listings show