It is the last day of summer holidays in Poland for our kids. During the last few days, we obviously talked a lot about returning to school. My two boys (14 and 12 years old) are excited - to a degree they can be 😉 - but more importantly, they hope that this year school, it will be a school without “study from home”. No doubt the virtual way of working we all experienced last year, it did not help our kids in all means i.e., educational as well as social. Why do my kids hope not to study from home? A key reason for it, is the way they operate (let’s call it the Operating Model) and interact with others. It is all well designed and built for face to face interactions. I am talking about the way the class / workshops are run by the teacher. I am talking about social interaction they have with their colleagues. I am talking about various other activities they experience.
Now let’s switch to our world, GBS / Shared Services / BPO world – please ask yourselves a question – has your operating model EVOLVED to make work from the office valuable, attractive and meaningful for your teams? I am not talking about lunches for free during first few weeks of being back in the office or newly painted walls ;( Is your team desperate to be back in the office as my kids are?
The general approach observed across all markets is that most of us, started introducing hybrid way of working i.e. 2-3 days a week from the office and 2-3 days a week from home. I love it as a concept – since I strongly believe that there is a great value in office presence. However, we must focus very much on:
a). the “how” we implement this change
b). most importantly how we adjust the way we operate going forward
Last week I talked to one of my Coaching clients – he is part of very big service operations in Poland – they are experiencing 50% + attrition ... all caused by a to a top-down push for return to the office. Unbelievable.
Back to our new way of working, I will skip the “how” we implement the change. To make it happend, you must simply follow the fundamentals of change management and I'll focus more on operating model. If after you implement your new way of working:
your days in the office will be the same as the days at home – you are failing,
the number of zoom calls during your days in the office will be the same as the days at home – you are failing,
the deliverables you produce during the days in the office will be the same as during the days at home – you are failing.
Think about it. We must change the way we operating leveraging the strenghts / advantages of being in the office. There is no return to the old way of working in the office. Our People will not buy it and they are right. Office is great for social interactions i.e. workshops, team meetings, collaboration, team building, brainstorming etc. and until you adjust and differentiate the way you work in the office vs. at home, you will be failing.
As a final thought, it is not easy to do especially if you run global operations but surely it is feasible as a concept to make the new – post covid – way of working meaningful to our great people. Plus, we as leaders we must also learn and embrace this new way of working. It is not easy and many of us resist as human beings tend to do but I have great faith that we'll get there. We managed the toughest period in a fully remote way with no major hiccups so I see no reason why we shall not succeed here too!
I am happy to connect offline to help you with the best approach for this change.
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