It's not about the physical.....
...oh, yes. It is. Can you flow your own way? Can place be listed on a performance review?
You read lots of discussions about the digital-first people-centric workplace. They talk about collaboration, inclusivity, trust and engagement. They want to include mobile workers, remote workers and partners. We re moving away from fixed locations and WFH is morphing into working from anywhere within the company resource. Both human resources, leadership gurus and middle management are focusing on performance and metrics in the digital sphere, including the metaverse.
Here is the reality.
We work at places. Whether it is your home office, your kitchen table, your shared office, your conference room or the coffee shop down the street, you do work in a physical space. The comfort of that space allows you to create a flow for the kind of work you do. That flow is also impacted by disruptions, time of day, tools needed, and the environment you need to have around you for inspiration.
I just did an experiment and took myself out of my normal spaces to a different one for two work days. Different country, just across the border. I created a different environment for myself. Different stimuli around me and different options for food and stimulation. I was more productive for the kind of work I had to do this week than if I had stayed in one of my normal locations. I felt less restricted as I had new choices. This environmental “juice”, as it was, created stimuli for my flow.
Can I always do that? No, part of what I do for a living requires physically being with other people as an educator or online as an analyst.
But it did “change up” things for me and gave me a different perspective which was needed.
Why am I bringing this up? Because if space and place are performance related, how can you stimulate a worker to up their game? Will the next set of recommendations be based on allowing them to choose a location that will help them do it? Should place be on your next performance review in terms of performance stimuli?
This goes for the mobile worker as well. I have friends and relations that use vehicles (trucks and airplanes) for daily work places. My stepson is a repair worker based out of a mobile vehicle and it is set up the way he needs it to be for quick repairs. He purposefully declined a new vehicle because of the set-up time needed to make it functional for his purpose. My friend the pilot talked about the pandemic and the fact his workplace changed procedure, but not place, which had some level of comfort for them.
We are conscious of place, which is one of the reasons we choose where we live and in what environment we choose to spend time. What the pandemic woke up in a number of us is that conscious acknowledgement that place matters to how we engage. The discomfort of WFH without the necessary tools, the inconvenience of the commute, the necessary peace and quiet for heads-down concentrated work — all elements related to where we do what we do for work.
Ordering us back to a corporate office is not going to take that awareness away from us, it will rather enhance the lack of choice available. Unless, of course, the kinds of spaces we need in the workplace are created and available upon demand. So then our employer better understands what we do and where we need to do it. Even for the mobile workers and digital nomads.