Alexandra Samuel
speaker
163 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2021
last heard Sep 2023
Alexandra Samuel’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Well, it's certainly going to depend on each organization.
And I think in the smartest and most adaptive organizations, the ones with strong organizational cultures where even before the pandemic, they delegated a lot of responsibility and autonomy to their workers.
It's going to be very much kind of a reunion and check-in that I suspect will be as much as anything about that personal reconnection, you know, that so many of us missed in the time out of the office.
In organizations where the shift to remote work was more challenging and really flew in the face of a command and control culture, I suspect that there are going to be some managers who are tempted to essentially reassert their authority.
I picture my dog growling at another dog as perhaps a model.
And that is really the moment I would encourage managers to avoid because it's just not going to go over with somebody who's been working successfully on their own for 16 or 18 months.
What seems to work very well for employees who are remote is to think of yourself less as an employee and more like somebody who is an entrepreneur running your own business with a greater degree of independence.
And so if you think about that mindset as it applies to hybrid work, when you show up at the office, you show up like a really terrific vendor who is there
to support and delight your client, you're not there to kind of grovel on your knees and say, you know, please, sir, what's my next assignment?
And just that energy you bring to the office on day one, if you can kind of bring that boss energy yourself and show up like somebody who is in charge of their own work, is in charge of their own deliverables, knows how to get things done, that is going to send a cue to your boss that the
they may need to approach in a different way.
Absolutely.
And I think that you need to treat each of these returning employees more like you would treat a new, let's say, senior hire.
So yes, there's sort of a probationary period, not where you're evaluating them with an eye to firing people, but more towards assessing what they're capable of.
And just because somebody maybe had some limitations in the pre-COVID world doesn't mean they still have those same limitations now.
Somebody who perhaps was reticent may have learned to speak up more.
Somebody who was disorganized may have learned how to take charge of their own work.
And if you assume that they're the same person and manage them like they're the same person, you're going to miss the opportunity to recognize and build upon that growth.
Honestly, that shifting of hours is both the best and the worst thing about remote work, and it's unfolded somewhat pathologically during the pandemic because so many organizations transition so many people overnight with little oversight.
Those of us who've worked remotely for a long time can say, you know, when you don't have back-to-back video calls all day, you can actually get a lot more done in a day of remote work than you can get done in a day at the office because you're less distracted, because you can
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