The Only Expert You Need to Listen to When Going “Back to Work”
How I learned to speak up and get what I need from a new work environment
For most of the pandemic, my mental resilience came from going with the flow instead of fighting all of the change around me.
Working from home, typing on a laptop at the kitchen counter?
Ok, we’re doing this now.
Wiping down my groceries with anti-bacterial wipes?
Ok, we’re doing this now.
Banging pots at 7?
Ok, we’re doing this now (but not for long, it seems).
It was easier to blindly follow advice from public health and infectious disease experts because I’ve never lived through a global health crisis like this before.
But now we’re creeping to a conclusion and the focus is on a “return to work”. Like everything in the pandemic so far, there’s not much precedent for how to do this well. But unlike the pandemic, I am somewhat of an expert in this situation.
I’m an expert in knowing how I work and what I need to be happy and productive.
No one knows what works for you better than you
As workplaces reopen and experiment with flexible work formats, this is not the time to sit back and let others decide how you can be productive. We’re all figuring this out as we go, so we need open communication between managers and direct reports.
Case in point, recently I started working for a major network. After about a week of “shadowing” remotely I started getting assignments.
It was a disaster.
The shadowing consisted of writers texting me when they got assignments and walking me through their approach. I would get an update when it was all done. I knew how an assignment started and what it looked like when it was ready, but all of the nuanced steps in between were literally hidden from view.
I could not think my way through even simple work and made a lot of mistakes. In frustration I messaged a friend who also works at this network:
“Your training system is f*cked”.
Not my most professional moment, but I was so angry at being cut off from effective training, I didn’t care if they wanted to keep me. Luckily my professional reputation is stronger than my occasional vulgarity.
What followed was a discussion about what I need to get up to speed. The answer was simple — for me, training needs to happen over video. Specifically Google Hangouts where you can share screens and talk someone through an assignment in real time.
They scheduled me for two more training shifts this way and it made all the difference in the world.
Now, I’m still learning the tone and language of this network (and it’s been more than a decade since I was in a newsroom) but in discussing the short-comings of the first round of training, we also discussed expectations. How soon am I expected to be perfect? Are they even striving for perfection or is thoughtful contribution more valued?
It proved how important it is to speak up when a changing or different work flow isn’t working for you. Here are some things I learned:
- Don’t put up with frustrating or ineffective situations for too long. If you come in hot, at the point where only cuss words will do, it’s hard to pivot to a more productive conversation. I’m lucky the person I reached out to could see through the language to the frustration behind it, but not every manager will.
- Keep the focus on the shared goal between you and your employer. Once the conversation turned to what I needed, it was on me to keep the focus on my own productivity. It wasn’t the time for hurt feelings or rants on unfeeling corporations. My employer and I have the same goal: get familiar with the system, workflow and style so I can work quickly and efficiently. I needed to go from a place of knowing to understanding, which means I need to know my learning style and how to reach our shared goal. Some of my my training did include live sessions with screen sharing, so I knew it would work. But this isn’t something my employer should be expected to know. I need to communicate this.
- Be quick with gratitude and feedback. If the changes make all the difference, make sure your manager knows this. A colleague may be in a similar situation, but is too scared to speak up. Knowing a slight change has a big impact will keep things going in the right direction.
Working from home doesn’t work for everyone, but neither does working at an office full-time. Workers are not monolithic beings. Our need to be in an office changes over time.
15 years ago I thrived being in an open newsroom or production office. The constant stimulation was electric and helped me hone my skills. But now my skills are pretty solid. I value uninterrupted time and actually dread having to write news copy in a room full of people.
For a year-and-a-half we re-wrote the rules of daily life in the name of public health. So why can’t we take as much time reworking work?
