{"id":6254,"date":"2021-07-01T15:10:52","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T15:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1359021"},"modified":"2021-07-01T15:10:52","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T15:10:52","slug":"the-five-whys-will-make-returning-to-the-office-less-awful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=6254","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018five whys\u2019 will make returning to the office less awful"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Boris is the wise ol\u2019 CEO of TNW who writes a weekly column on everything about being an entrepreneur in tech \u2014 from managing stress to embracing awkwardness. You can get his musings straight to your inbox by signing up for his newsletter!<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I was talking to a woman the other day about how much she liked the company she worked for. It\u2019s fun and modern in most ways, but there was one big catch \u2014 the management team is still stuck in the past when it comes to this year\u2019s biggest challenge for employees and companies\u2026 returning to the office.<\/p>\n

Their CEO had recently announced that they expect employees to work from the office again five<\/em> days a week as soon as things return to normal.<\/p>\n

She was dismayed and annoyed and told me most employees don\u2019t want to return to the office five days a week. Some are fine with three days. Others would prefer two days, and a few are happy with just one day a week at the office.<\/p>\n

[Read: The secret to personal growth? Be scared and show up<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

Now faced with a forced five-day week back at the office, the employee told me she and her coworkers are ready to revolt. They thought about going to the office and spending less time working and more time drinking coffee and chatting. Performance would drop, and management would be forced to allow work from home again.<\/p>\n

The response? Management took the position of look, you\u2019re being paid to work from the office, so if you don\u2019t like that, you can quit and find a different company to work at.<\/p>\n

Both responses are incredibly human and understandable knee-jerk reactions \u2014 but they won\u2019t lead to a solution. And I truly believe that in the end, both employees and the company will be worse off.<\/p>\n

So how do you solve it\u2026?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I don\u2019t have the perfect solution to this problem (I never do), but I think it\u2019s important to realize that frustrations with decisions like these are usually just the tip of the iceberg, while there\u2019s so much more going on below the surface.<\/p>\n

In this situation, I think it would\u2019ve made more sense for the management to ask themselves, \u201cWhy exactly do we want people to work from the office? Why really?\u201d And the answer can\u2019t be \u201cjust because.\u201d<\/p>\n

To me, the answer would most likely be \u201cbecause I want people to perform\u201d and the logical follow-up would be \u201cand I can\u2019t ever be sure if they work from home because I can\u2019t check up on them as easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s a trust issue \u2014 and it\u2019s an indictment on management and its approach. But trust is also something you need to earn, so both management and employees need to think hard about how to build that trust.<\/p>\n

The logical next step is to look at performance. If you\u2019re an employee and can show you\u2019re more efficient and reach your goals faster while working at home, then surely that should be a persuasive reason to allow you to work from home.<\/p>\n

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