By GREGORY L. MOORE
I can’t believe I’m writing this because for the past few years, I have been a proponent of remote work.
But if I worked in a big organization, I would want to work on site, distractions and office politics notwithstanding.
I don’t work in a big shop. In fact, my partner and I run a boutique operation, but we really value our once-a-week in person meetings that can sometimes last three hours. We don’t miss them.
The meetings are food for my soul. I like eye contact and reading the body language as we discuss thorny issues or when we drone on a bit too long making a point. Those visual cues tell you a lot about how you’re coming across and you learn much about an individual’s idiosyncrasies. More importantly you learn how to effectively communicate with one another.
You don’t get that when you are on Zoom. To be honest, I am tired of multitasking participants, turning their camera on and off, or gazing off into the distance or driving in their car when I’m talking.
But more than anything else, I can’t imagine running a large organization without really getting to know the people I work with. I miss the stories about their adventures and the formative stages of their lives.
When we work in a collaborative environment, people explain why they do what they do and think the way they think. We get to understand why they come to work every day and what they want to achieve through the narratives they share in everyday interactions. That’s missing in the remote world.
I was a defender of remote work mostly because of the lack of trust and appreciation I was seeing from people in leadership. I was annoyed by the suspicion that came with not being observed in the workplace setting when I knew I was sitting in my chair sometimes for 10 hours a day, my wife and kids shoveling me meals while having to sneak into rooms to avoid being seen on the camera. I knew I was more productive than I had ever been, yet people questioned whether I was working hard. I dug in on the remote work bandwagon in protest.
But I now realize I miss learning from and about colleagues, connecting with them around their life stories. I miss the individual time I had to exchange ideas and the collaboration around new ones. That’s hard to do when 20 people are in a Zoom. Even before a meeting starts, you often get the vibe: “I don’t want to be bothered.”
I think back to my days of running a newsroom and the pep I got from a reporter asking me a question or sharing a quick anecdote about a source as I glided by their desk. Or the jolt of excitement when a reporter would enthusiastically share what they were working on. I loved the combustion in the room when we had a big story, watching people dashing about, or with phones glued between their ear and shoulder while typing notes. I miss those visual cues that demonstrate engagement in the work we do.
I’ve concluded that I would be terrible running a big organization in the remote world. Walking the floor, having fly-by conversations and participating in meetings where you are able to connect with people face to face is my superpower. Now when I’m in a big Zoom, I feel invisible and shoehorned into passivity like so many others on the call. That’s not me. I fear remote work has created a growing mass of passive participants in the work most of us do.
Not to mention the decelerated learning curve. Writing out instructions about how to do things is a different kind of teaching and learning than showing and watching.
Of course, not all of us work in a large organization, and I have to concede that smaller operations probably benefit from not having the overhead. I also recognize the benefit of enabling workers to live where they want to, to have some control over their own work-life balance, and the time and resource savings of not having to make a required daily commute.
But there is growing evidence that workers miss the interpersonal connection with colleagues while still valuing the freedom that comes with remote work. And some have even embraced being back in the office. Coming into the office a few times a week has helped to ease some of the isolation and lack of personal interaction with co-workers, but hybrid models do not fully solve the problem.
I was talking with a friend recently who started a new job. Despite reporting to the office a couple of times a week and working hard, her supervisor told her the big boss had asked what she had been doing. Her contact with the big boss was limited to very focused Zoom meetings and infrequent encounters even when she was in the office. Her response was to write a three-page memo outlining everything she was working on, and in her meeting with the big boss, he immediately backed down, indicating that he was impressed by all she was juggling. But even so, she continues to feel incredibly misunderstood and is constantly fighting the urge to go into a defensive crouch. It’s really a shame.
As much as some of us hate to admit it, the freedom of remote work comes with a huge price. I’m hearing more stories like that, about strained relationships with colleagues and disengaged leadership. And that is not good for anyone.
Maybe the tension between remote and in-person will work itself out. But right now, I’m not incredibly optimistic. We may be just as productive as before, but we are not better.