Reinventing the Return to the Office
The Great Resignation has been stealing the spotlight, but there’s a similar quiet revolution in those negotiating the terms of their return
It’s healthy for every writer to check their bias, no matter what you’re writing about. For months I’ve been offering the point-of-view of someone happily released from the golden handcuffs of network TV, now happily building a business from home.
Of course, not everyone is looking for a career change right now. But that doesn’t mean they’re not interested in change.
Take, for example, the law clerk I met at the dog park the other day. In between exchanging small talk about our pandemic puppy experiences (sharing tips on separation anxiety, the lack of in-person puppy classes, the lack of suitable off-leash areas downtown) we also talked about work.
Dilly’s mom (sidebar, at the dog park, you never learn the name of the human. Just the dog) was feeling no pressure to go back to work at her law firm. The company wasn’t even entertaining return-to-the-office procedures. Instead they were introducing shared desks. If you need to be in the office for a client meeting, it was available to you. But the rest of the time, keep doing what you’re doing from home.
The business savings are obvious. The firm has condensed three-floors of office space into one floor, saving millions in real estate costs. But the biggest saving, she told me, was in paper. A law office still relies on more printouts than the average business, so even a modest cutback is huge. She also said the biggest saving was in Post-It notes.
Post-It Notes. Those stacks of sticky paper small enough to fit in the palm of your hand no longer have any purpose when you’re corresponding electronically.
It’s the opposite of that season in Mad Men when the fledgling company Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce signalled their growing success by purchasing the office space above. One floor means you’re a young startup. Two floors means you’ve made it. Now, businesses are going to be judged by their adaptability. Hybrid work means you respect your team enough to be productive and efficient anywhere. To know the ins and outs of digital business and have the skills to guide clients into the future with you.
The workplace benefits for Dilly’s mom are a familiar refrain. She and her husband are looking to buy a place outside the city, so they can have space and land for their growing family.
Everyone wins!
But I think there’s also a mental health benefit to gradually bringing staff back to an office. Another dog park trip netted a different interesting conversation with Jet’s mom (aka Jen, who is also a neighbour). Jen works in corporate communications for an oil and gas company. She’s paid well, enjoys her job enough to keep it during the pandemic. She has no interest in leaving the city. Like me, she’s a single dog mom who is doing just fine raising her fur baby on sidewalks and park visits.
Last week the office opened up three optional days to go in and put in a day’s work. In Jen’s words “I just couldn’t get it together to go in, so I kept working from home.”
Now, she is not one of the masses thinking of leaving for something better. And she’s not super thrilled with working from home all the time. But after 19 months now, she’s figured out how to do it. So why is she not in a rush to return to office life?
Could it be the sense of control?
She’s got a routine down now. She has Jet’s routine figured out. She was thrust into this position by her employer, as many of us were. Returning to the office, after settling into working from home for almost two years is a bit like returning to the gym when you still have a Peleton. The new routine is working for you, so now I have to come up with a new routine just because it’s the way we’ve always done business? I don’t think so.
I often wonder how I would feel if office life became an option for me. I have one gig that could potentially bring me back into a newsroom. But I think, if pressed to go back in, I would just look for a different part-time gig. Or put my sole focus on building my business so I can continue working for myself from my home.
I’ve settled in, creating a professional video meeting setup that gives me the confidence to level up my business. SCDP used their physical office to demonstrate the success of their fledgling ad agency. I’m using my living room to show my adaptability to the “new way” of doing business.
We have countless tools at our disposal right now to reinvent business spaces of the future. It’s not so much a Great Resignation as it is a Great Reinvention. One where individuals get to carve out where they do business, instead of clawing their way to older measures of success.
