Work Is Where the Wi-Fi Is

There is one inescapable conclusion when it comes to the past seven months:

Work is where the Wi-Fi is.

Since March 11, 2020, millions of us have found ways to work from home/to live at work – mostly successfully.

We’ve also had time to think – and rethink – about how things were configured before our work-from-home exile; to ask why concepts like school and work largely looked the way they had looked since the Industrial Revolution. We pondered if there was another configuration better suited for the modern world, one that inures to the benefit of all groups of actors in it.

The pandemic, of course, has been – and remains – an outsized tragedy. It’s as if we’ve been handed the Spanish Influenza, the beginnings of the Great Depression and, given the deep, violent social and political divisions in this country, a cold Civil War, all wrapped into one trying, unprecedented and – for more than 210,000 Americans and counting, fatal – experience.

But what could actually compound the great tragedy of COVID-19 is if we emerge none the wiser – if our only response to life in the age of the novel coronavirus is to shrug our shoulders and send the kids back to school while we trudge off to work, just like we did in the good old days before COVID-19 hit.

If it is not evident by now, this inaugural Immediate Frontier effort was designed and executed because we refused to accept “Go back to work!” as the only answer to the challenges of COVID-19. Indeed, we hoped the pause necessitated by the pandemic might give corporate America time to rethink how things could change, and improve, going forward.

[When] to Office or Not to Office?

If we’ve learned nothing else – through this initiative and, collectively, as a nation – we know that work and school are experiences, not places that demand our physical presence. There are financial reasons to get people up and out of their homes – as our economy is designed for a world in which people are going and getting and spending.

There are also important social reasons why we, as pack animals, must come together to reap the benefits of feeling less alone. And meeting face to face hardly seems obsolete, particularly in the case of schooling, where an at-home format not only detracts from the aforementioned socialization benefits but also places a heavy burden on both students and their caregivers to conquer an array of logistical and technological challenges.

But in the age of COVID-19, something that is considered as essential and fruitful as in-person collaboration could be a job hazard.

“The way those meetings happened before the pandemic meant people sitting around the same table and breathing the same air,” Willie Hoag, co-founder of Tether Advisors, told us in Chapter 3. “So, the most important thing and one of the crucial functions of the office – collaboration – might be dangerous to pull off.” 

Given that – and the success over our screens since March – the next logical step is to think hard about and research when and where it is beneficial to come together and for how often and how long. And when it is neither beneficial nor necessary.

“The office is not dead, but how we use it, manage it and derive value from it is fundamentally changing,” said Elizabeth Nelson, Ph.D. candidate and author of The Healthy Office Revolution and co-founder of the Smart Building Certification. “We need to measure what matters, action the insights and help people to navigate a new normal around the office. We need to build smarter offices.”

Abhorring a Vacuum

Those insights will help us better understand the ratio of together time versus alone time, based on industry, age group and other considerations and needs. This could mean, among other upshots, that management companies will seek other ways – and other customers – to keep office buildings at capacity when they’re not being used in the traditional sense by traditional actors.

Some physical structures might never see their former tenants darken the doorways again, creating a void. And the market, like nature, abhors a vacuum. This will be particularly notable for brick-and-mortar retail, which was already wobbly before the pandemic.

“If a place is no longer a restaurant or a shoe store, it has to be something else,” said Ari Klein, executive vice chairman of Cushman and Wakefield, in Chapter 6.

Experts see healthcare filling some voids – and in many ways, the timing could not be better. As healthcare shifts toward value-based care, providers will be incentivized for results while emphasizing the importance of healthy living and overall wellness. The pandemic placed that issue front and center, and with it the realization that medical services must become more of the “one-stop-shop variety,” and that proximity and access will be increasingly important.

Beyond Physical Wellness

When we return to work – and, indeed, as we likely face a hybrid combination of working from home and going to the office, organizational focus on wellness must go beyond physical health. Even in a deep recession, resources must go toward mental and emotional health.

“We’re kind of in this terrifying space that could either paralyze us or it could be seen as an opportunity,” said M. Todd Puckett, founder of Skycrest, which provides performance and life enhancement services to executives and other high-performing businesspeople. “I truly think it’s about having a team of people. It’s not just going to the doctor. Maybe you go to the doctor, your massage therapist, your yoga person, your regular therapist or a strategist – and you go to all of these different people in one space.” 

That space, Puckett said optimistically, can be the workplace.

As detailed in Chapter 3 and Chapter 5, the workplace is beginning to look quite different in other ways: The norms of office culture will be very different, too. Showing up sick will no longer signal Cal Ripken-like dedication, but rather a sign of careless indifference toward one’s own health and the health of one’s coworkers.

“Now, you will work from home the moment you are sick – and that will be looked at as a good thing,” said Bobby Benson, design principal at CannonDesign. 

That mindset goes further as business leaders commit to limiting threats of ailments. To be clear, a failure to address health preventatively isn’t new – the CDC reported that 90 percent of the $3.5 trillion of annual U.S. healthcare expenditures go to chronic and mental health conditions. But the dangers of COVID-19 have emboldened advocates of what Eden Health CEO Matt McCambridge calls a “health-forward” approach.

Considering the severity and complexity of the problems we face, experts say preventative approaches must be adopted broadly: by the healthcare system, by companies across the economy, by employees and by innovators in the space. But that works best if all those actors are serious about optimizing publicly shared spaces for productivity and profitability.

Managing Virtual Space

Learning how to manage a more intentional division of home/office life is a big part of the equation, but it isn’t exactly intuitive, and there is no precedent. As uncovered in Chapter 4 from insights shared by Dr. Michael Horowitz, president of TCS Education System, anyone who didn’t think there were too many meetings before the pandemic probably thinks so now.

“Video meetings are tough and fatiguing,” he told us. “For maximum impact and productivity, we are learning the right cadence and quantity for our remote environment. When is it important to have the whole leadership group together? What could be better addressed in a quick, one-on-one conversation? We need to be purposeful with our time and virtual interactions right now.”

Work-from-home scenarios can affect workers differently. Introverts, for example, might be suited for remote work. But that’s only true up to a point, said Monica Hakimi, the James V. Campbell professor of law and the associate dean for faculty research at the University of Michigan. “In some ways, introverts are well set up for it. But the fact that this is their M.O. could lead to more isolation,” she said.

Managers must relearn how to effectively engage with workforces given the nuances of remote working – not to mention the bevy of other crises. Check-ins are essential for all employees amid growing feelings of isolation and uncertainty, said Nicholas White, managing director of Learn Adapt Build (LAB)/Amsterdam. “Without clear direction, coaching or guidance, people are often left to navigate this difficult journey on their own,” White said.

As is our practice with Work, Wellness & Space, we identify social conflicts to close each chapter:

A Workforce of One: Workers not only deserve but will require more autonomy to make decisions for themselves and their health, including when they feel safe about commuting to an office, especially one that may not yet provide ample protection against COVID-19 and other viruses. As desirable as a “choose your own work experience” model is for individual employees, it will create new burdens and challenges for CHROs and other executives charged with developing and enforcing universal office guidelines, as well as designing and maintaining a unified office culture. How can the C-suite maintain a sense of cohesion – and that much-needed team spirit – among employees with vastly different schedules and supremely individualistic modes of interacting?

The Healthy Commute: Even if business leaders are able to introduce the latest safety measures into physical office spaces – air purifiers, plexiglass shields, floor plans that allow for social distancing, etc. – there is still the challenge of the daily commute, especially for workers who rely on public transportation. Yet most, if not all, of these transportation systems will not be safer – or smarter – when they are again running at capacity. What can business and city leaders do to ensure that the trip to the office is as safe for commuters as the office itself?

A “Real World” for Everyone?: The present generation of executive and senior leadership is still ruled by old office norms related to management – specifically, the expectation that an employee must be seen to be managed effectively. In the most extreme cases, managers have demanded that video cameras keep visual tabs. But that is neither practical nor reasonable given that remote working is occurring in what once was the privacy of one’s own home. How can remote working management be optimized at no further expense to an employee’s right to privacy?