by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

 “54% of Gen Z workers and 41% of our global workforce were considering handing in their resignation,” according to a Microsoft survey reported in a World Economic Forum ‘Job Reset Summit,’ June 2021 

Do these indicators surprise you? Our newspapers have also been trumpeting that many people appear reluctant to return to work in our post-pandemic world. There’s also a tremendous debate going on regarding whether people prefer to remain at home, wish to return to the office, or seek a hybrid solution. What do you think? 

As usual with social issues, there’s no one answer that meets all situations. It depends. Some people may have come to enjoy working at home; others cannot wait to remove themselves from a disruptive home situation, while others seek a more flexible hybrid mode. Beyond that, we can safely say that some people found the pre-pandemic atmosphere at their office was pretty conducive, while others found things rather toxic in their workplace. In all instances, it requires some executive objectivity and sensitivity to fully comprehend their most likely workplace-people options.

One card “return-to-the-office” executives’ play is that without casual office interaction it impacts innovation. While that can be a valid argument in a number of instances, it’s tempered by the fact that many organizations don’t encourage innovation anyway. They would far rather their people keep their heads down and churn out what’s on their existing corporate menu, so that they can keep counting the numbers with little or no disruption. This is particularly true with many larger ventures. A more probable irony is that those entities which bemoan loss of innovation are the ones least likely to encourage fresh ideas in the first place.

At the end of the day, it comes down to whether the venture has an enlightened leadership or conven-tional management culture. If it’s the latter, its executives are inevitably going to lobby for a full return to the office as soon as possible; no matter whether that makes sense or not. Only when they have full control over their staff will they feel comfortable. Another irony is that, even when their staff is around them, there won’t be that much interaction with their people anyhow.  Both sides will retreat to their particular station or office, where interaction will only occur by chance or by appointment. So who are these executives kidding?

In our post-pandemic world, where so many staff teams have now gained a real taste of working from home, many organizations have been forced to entertain the issue as a permanent shift. The genie has been let out of the bottle. Any reluctance by people to return to their offices may be a strong signal that they probably consider their office environment toxic. That’s a signal many executives will find difficult to explain or hard to swallow. With many current production workers; without changes, they have little choice.

With enlightened leaders, on the other hand, they will most likely pursue two scenarios: 1) consult with and arrive at a consensus on their team’s wishes. 2) Accept hybrid working where that makes optimum sense. It’s possible for conventional managers (CMs) to grow into allowing such possibilities, if they permit any leadership instincts they possess come to the fore.

In the case of 1): This requires CMs to shutdown their preconceived notions and really “listen” to their team members’ wishes and arguments – both for and against – for either in-office, at home, or hybrid arrangements. Once they have “listened,” a CM’s team members will be that much more inclined to return the favor with their CM’s arguments. From there, the CM-executive can sponsor a confidential ballot – where people can vote for A, B or C on a scrap of folded paper. Where an even split of the overall vote occurs, it’s clearly a vote for a hybrid. (NOTE: Any ideas to be acted upon should be assigned to participant pairs or threesomes to pursue and provide progress reports during the interim or at the next idea session.)

In the case of 2): Where hybrid working is voted-on or makes optimum sense, conventional managers should openly declare their acceptance of it. However, they will also be wise to gain their team’s acceptance for future meetings, either in-person or virtually, to discuss fresh ideas on a regular basis. Such idea sessions should be totally separate from any other meeting types; that is, routine matters or general briefings.

In fact, when executives hold genuine idea-meetings, participants are well served by agreeing on topics to be discussed at their next innovation session before this one ends. That way participating members – prefer-ably no more than seven, including team leader – will be encouraged to think about fresh possibilities before their next idea session arrives. Through such sessions, whether they decide to return to the office, remain at home, or resort to a hybrid, innovation then becomes important.  Innovation breeds “effectiveness” thinking, which is the antidote to “efficiency;” where the latter will likely kill an organization over time.

And so, by demonstrating enlightened leadership, the optimum workplace scenario will emerge to your venture’s great advantage. If you end up reverting to command-and-control, conventional management, you will probably just kill the golden goose – that is, your people’s ability to contribute out-of-the-box ideas.

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