Tag: #Coronavirus

A Return to the Office…Kind of

Brad

Exactly 18 months ago on March 16, 2020, I left the office around Noon with a 24” HP Monitor, a docking station, and a collection of cords in my car. The Friday before, word was beginning to circulate that we might be sent home for an undefined period of time and by halfway through Monday, we were instructed to collect whatever items we needed to complete our work and to head home.

Never did I anticipate that working from my living room would be anything but a dayslong adventure. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Fast forward to 2021, and there was still no return to the office in sight.

At the end of July, I took an opportunity at a new firm where employees were a couple of weeks into splitting time between being back in the office and working from home. Despite my new preference of no commute and midday exercise breaks, it seemed only right that I would want to meet folks and get a sense for the new culture. After all, I had seen how new hires in my previous role fared when it came to learning the job, meeting colleagues, and establishing themselves. Some started and quit in the span of less than a year!

What I’ve experienced in the last month and a half working every other day in the office is, well, not what I expected…

My new boss works out of Ohio, his boss works in the United Kingdom, her boss works in N.Y.C., and her boss works in Washington, D.C. Stated plainly, no one in my chain of command works in my location. My colleagues are also spread out which means that there aren’t many people to interact with!

Now, this is unsurprising given that it is one of the largest companies in the world. My point in stating all of this is not to complain (the company is great), but rather, to offer a lens into some of the potential issues and headwinds facing corporations.

Leadership Lessons

  1. A return-to-the-office plan is most effective when management and staff are centrally located (only really an issue for big multinationals).
  2. When teams do return, the cadence of any split time should be based on geography, not by business unit. For example, if one team reports to the office every other day while the rest of the teams in the location are one week on and one week off, there won’t be very many people to see in person.
  3. Build Zoom rooms (again, large company problems) where employees can go when they need to join a meeting with others from a different location. It’s highly distracting to be in a meeting on Zoom where you hear that person over the Zoom call and in the cube next to you in real life.

Coming out of corporate America’s COVID hibernation was never going to be easy, and it’s especially unique for the millions of Americans changing jobs right now. My advice to you all…continue to expect the unexpected!

Share some of your experiences by commenting below or on social media.

What to Expect for 2021

Brad

I’ll admit, the title is a bit misleading…I don’t know what will happen in 2021. In fact, if this year has offered anything it is that it has uniquely reinforced the mantra “expect the unexpected”. Even still, that should be worth something.

What I lack in clairvoyance I make up for in pragmatism. I don’t like unrealistic or whimsical predictions and I am immediately skeptical of viewpoints that have not been fully developed or explored from all angles. I promise not to contradict these personal pet peeves.

2020 has brought with it a global pandemic, an historic economic shutdown followed by an equally historic recovery, unprecedented central bank action, a booming housing market, social unrest, and a divisive election…and this is just the short list.

2021, when we reach the end of it, will have looked something like the following…

Government continued to implement measures to combat the coronavirus and a vaccine was widely distributed; the economy, and more specifically businesses, continued to adapt to the new normal and found unique ways to operate efficiently; new business creation continued, ultimately to satisfy new needs and wants in the marketplace; and life for you and me looked a like it always has…a fairly consistent set of routines and a new set of challenges – both work and personal in nature.

Groundbreaking, right? The only big, fundamental transformation that took place in 2020 was a change in the way we do what we already did. Let me say that again a different way…we still went to work, took care of our families, and went about our lives. Life in 2020 may have looked and felt different – and it was different — but it was more a change in venue (more remote work) and a change in disposition (wearing masks, social distancing).

Now, I don’t want to glaze over the fact that millions of people lost their jobs or that many, many people have become ill or died due to complications surrounding COVID-19. Setbacks and illnesses are not unique to 2020. And that’s sort of the point. Some things are out of our control. What we can do is focus on things that are firmly within our control.

Here’s what I suggest…

Take stock of where you and your family are on a personal and professional level.

  • Am I gainfully employed, or do I need to get creative to keep food on the table?
  • Is my family taken care of, and am I taking the proper precautions to ensure their safety?

If you feel comfortable with your situation, progress to the next level of self-introspection and evaluation.

  • Have I set clear goals for this year? Have I implemented a plan of action for achieving those goals?

Some questions you might ask yourself when developing goals:

  • Am I doing enough to ensure the financial security for my family?
  • Am I doing enough to give back to the community? This could be financially, with your time etc.
  • Am I pursuing a constant state of growth, which might involve reading, working out, taking classes, listening, asking questions, working harder, building a business and so on?

To finish where we began, what you can expect in 2021 is a combination of things both inside and outside of your control. Focus on what you can control, and the likelihood that you have a successful 2021 goes up immeasurably.  

The Coronavirus Experiment

Brad

Reflection is often thought of as a process that begins at the end of an event or series of events. It is, however, a useful mechanism to leverage during a moment of pause – whether that pause be naturally occurring or self-initiated. My reflection as of late, has been a mixture of both.

My new day consists of the following: I wake up, make some coffee, eat a little breakfast, and turn on my computer at the makeshift workspace I created in the living room – a space that prominently features an HP monitor that sits atop multiple textbooks to prevent my neck from craning all day. A half-full bottle of Purell is the primary fixture on my desk. For seating, I use a beach chair…the comfortable option in the house. Bloomberg is streaming on the TV, and it provides market information and background noise. At around 11 or 12, I take the bicycle for a 5-mile ride for exercise. The Coronavirus Task Force Briefing comes on around 5:30 or 6, which is followed up with a run and a workout later in the evening, and some reading interspersed throughout. That is about it. Nowhere I need to go…nowhere I need to be. My car sat so long that the tank hadn’t been filled in several weeks, and the engine barely started when it was my turn to drive for groceries.  

With limited mobility and a simplified lifestyle, my propensity to ponder and reflect has taken the driver seat. Here are some of the observations that surfaced:

Power of choice has increased – while not a profound discovery, it’s the abundantly obvious one. Routines are typically occupied by work or school – the obligations — with the remaining hours punctuated by the distraction du jour…watching TV, virtual argumentation (hello Twitter), or video games. In the coronavirus era, the places we always needed to be have been removed from the equation, leaving us with greater power of choice. For those performing work or school functions online, you must still perform, but there is new optionality as to when and how you will do so. This leads to my next observation, which is…

People are taking two routes with their time– one in which time is allocated in greater quantity to virtual distraction; and the more productive route, where high achievers focus their time efficiently, and are likely to accomplish personal and professional goals at a comparatively higher rate. Now, for those with children at home or who happen to be members of essential services performing their duty during this crisis (thank you), the circumstances are different; however, the general attitude and subsequent actions that they choose to take, will fall into one of the two buckets.

The coronavirus schools of thought – two opposing, vocal camps of people have emerged during the shutdown: one group that is inclined to feel we moved too quickly or too broadly to halt activity and economic production, thereby impacting the livelihoods of citizens in a significant, yet different way than the virus itself; and the other that believes the science community knows how we should respond during the crisis, and whose recommendations are delivered with a high degree of problem-mitigating accuracy.

Only in time will certain answers be revealed. Each camp is likely to discover that any response to the crisis would not be without costly trade-offs and missteps, and that there is not one right way of handling the situation.

Patriotism Remains – despite the differences, we have largely come together as a people. Politicians have thus far managed to move swiftly and definitively in the public’s interest with a high level of collective buy-in from the populace, and American industry has reengineered itself for the greater good, producing materials of need in hospitals and healthcare facilities.

The public health and economic experiment unfolding before us will be slow to yield final results. The impact to the economy, to livelihood, and to the health of many, has been and will continue to be substantial.