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March 18, 2021 - Epoch Times
22:18
How Working From Home Can Impact Your Career | Tom Turk
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A lot of businesses are considering letting people work from home indefinitely.
So the belief is long-term about 20% of people will still be working from home.
So half the people that are working from home now, that poses a lot of challenges both for the employee and for the business and for somebody who's managing people.
Did the style of working change?
You've got to keep in mind your boss is no longer going to cater to the fact that you're not in the office.
They're not going to go out of their way to make sure you're in the loop on information on what's happening in the company.
What about those CEOs of companies that have a big office?
Dragging a thousand people into downtown of San Francisco or LA has never made sense.
So as employees, it's important to really want to go back.
Absolutely.
If you're an employee who's trying to get ahead, you need to be proactive about demonstrating your value.
And the easiest way to do it is being in the office, interacting as regularly as possible with people that have the power to promote you.
And you can't get coached through Zoom very easily.
You can't learn the culture of the organization.
You can't show that you have skills beyond what the particular role is at this time remotely.
So you definitely want to be in the office because if you're getting a new role and the company says, nah, you can work from home, well, you're going to be the first one laid off because they don't know you.
So it's a lot easier to do that than somebody who's in the office.
40% of California residents are working from home after the state mandated a stay-at-home order in 2020.
My guest today is Tom Turk.
He's the Dean of the School of Business and Economics at Chapman University.
Today he discusses how working from home may not last and why face-to-face interactions may help your career.
Welcome to California Insider.
Tom, it's great to have you.
Welcome on board.
Well, thank you for having me.
And we want to talk to you about working from home.
After the pandemic, California shut down, and a lot of companies shifted to working from home.
And some companies reported higher productivity working from home.
Is that true?
Generally, no.
If you think about it, about 5% of the people work from home traditionally, you know, before the pandemic.
During the pandemic, it was estimated that over 40% are working from home.
And a lot of businesses are considering letting people work from home indefinitely.
So the belief is long-term about 20% of people will still be working from home.
So half the people that are working from home now will.
That poses a lot of challenges, both for the employee and for the business and for somebody who's managing people.
That are working from home.
Because when you think about it, traditionally the people that work from home are entrepreneurs, you know, where that is their office, salespeople, you know, where they need to collaborate with customers, not as much for other employees, and then a few people that work independently.
But the thing that entrepreneurs and salespeople have in common is it's easy to measure their productivity and they're heavily incentivized.
So if you're the entrepreneur, you keep all the profits you make.
If you're a salesman, you're usually getting some commission or bonus based on what you sell.
What's different now is you have a lot of people working from home That aren't heavily incentivized.
They aren't getting commission or bonuses or that sort of thing.
And they don't have an easy to measure output.
Like in sales, you know how much you sold and how much that's worth.
If you're a director of accounts receivable, it's pretty hard to know what's the difference between somebody who's really good at that and pretty good at that.
So, I think it's going to really change the way people manage, and it's going to really change for people who are working remotely what they need to do to be successful and grow in a company.
So, these companies that are going to work from home, do you think they have thought about a way of measuring productivity?
Do you think they are going to have Because there's a lot of different roles in these companies, right?
And do you think they will have to create new ways of measuring productivity for all of these roles?
Yeah, absolutely.
Right now, you know, again, when it's temporary, it's a whole different situation than when it's permanent.
When it's temporary, you can be working on your kitchen table.
When it's permanent, you have to have a separate home office, for example.
For businesses, too, if it's temporary, like many of the roles that were like we thought it was with the pandemic, it's not turning out that way, then you don't really invest heavily in changing the way you operate and manage and that sort of thing.
But if you're going to have people working remotely indefinitely, then, yeah, you're going to have to have measures of their performance that are more elaborate than what you normally do.
Because when they're around the office, you're evaluating people's performance through direct observation.
You see the people that work for you all the day.
All day, you have a chance to chat with them.
They have spontaneous conversations.
They can give you some ideas beyond whatever their basic role is that you might consider.
If they're working remotely, all that's gone.
So you have no idea what those people are doing, and you're going to have to have measures of their performance and their productivity.
And most businesses don't have those right now and haven't put a lot of thought into it.
And so you mentioned when people started working, when the pandemic happened and everybody went from home, did the style of working change?
Is it different in this scenario than other scenarios where people are working from home and other people are in the office?
Yes, that's a great point.
If everybody's working from home, then you as the manager, your communication style, the meetings, how you structure them, how you share information, how you monitor people's performance, all of that's your problem because nobody's in the office.
But if we're thinking longer term or maybe 20% of the office is working remotely and everybody else is in the office, well now it's not your problem as the leader, it's the problem of the person working remotely.
I think it's going to change quite a bit.
When you think about working from home, it's convenient.
You don't have to commute.
It's flexible in terms of your time.
You can work when you feel like it and take time off and weigh the levels of flexibility you don't have when you're in the office.
And you can focus more because you're not distracted by all the stuff, potentially, by all the stuff going on in the office.
So that part of it's nice.
And so for people that think, I'd like to keep working that way, you've got to keep in mind your boss is no longer going to cater to the fact that you're not in the office.
They're not going to go out of their way to make sure you're in the loop on information on what's happening in the company.
You're going to be hard to get a raise, a significant raise or a promotion.
Usually you're trying to be as close to the boss as possible so you can showcase how much value you're creating.
If you're at home, they have no idea what you're doing.
And the fact that you're maybe some of the 20% that is home, they're not going to go out of their way to find out what you're doing.
So some people have really liked this, you know, and they don't want to go back.
What do you recommend to them?
Well, there's a few things.
One is you have to understand that if you're working, generally working from home, maybe coming one day a week or whatever, it's much harder to get ahead in the organization.
So if you're ambitious, if you're trying to get promoted, if you're trying to get significant increases in salaries, it's a lot harder to do it from home.
So a couple things you have to do.
One is you have to showcase how you are creating value.
We talked about earlier that for roles where there's not a number that's like sales or something like that, that's an obvious way to measure your value.
The company needs to come up with something to get a sense of who are the productive people who aren't.
Well, if you're working from home, if your company doesn't do it, you better.
I wouldn't wait for your boss to come up with some number that measures how much value you're creating.
I would be looking for tangible...
Objective indicators of how much value I'm creating.
So I try to make that as much as possible.
The second thing is, if you're not communicating in person, you know, most business communication is extemporaneous speaking.
You know, I'm in a meeting, I talk off the top of my head.
Now you're doing a lot more in writing.
And so if the only way I get to know you is through your emails or texts or whatever, well, you better, you got to be a lot better writer.
than you would be normally.
So you've got to be more concise, you've got to be more clear, you have to do it in a way that doesn't sound like you're mad, which it tends to when you do it in writing.
So if I'm only getting to know you through your writing, that's going to have to be a lot better than it is.
And most people don't spend a whole lot of time on that.
I guess in your field you guys do, but most businesses they don't do that.
So one is you're going to have to become an expert on using written communication effectively.
Secondly, you're going to have to come up with measures of how much value you're creating to make it as easy as possible for you to differentiate yourself from the other people you're competing with for roles.
Now what about distractions?
So when we're at home TV could be on, you could look at the news, you could look at the stock market.
How would you manage through these distractions and how much of it is healthy, how much of it is not healthy?
Yeah, another great point.
You're mentioning the set of distractions in your house, the kids, the dog, the TV, that kind of stuff.
And taking frequent breaks is probably relatively efficient.
If you're in the office, you'd be talking to other people in the office across the cubicle or whatever.
In fact, a lot of these businesses that are now saying people are just as productive working from home were the same businesses that wanted collaborative workspaces where you could interact with But yeah, you've got to have some self-discipline, starting from get up on time, dress professionally, make sure the setting that you're operating in is professional, and as you take breaks, do them at defined times rather than just spontaneously.
But the other distraction is you're going to be in a lot more meetings.
As you know and everybody does, you're in a lot more Zoom meetings than you were before because what I used to be able to yell across the cubicle to or through the wall or just pop into your office, now we have to have a meeting.
And so the amount of time people spend on Zoom meetings is a lot more than they spent in meetings when they were in the office face-to-face.
So you've got the distractions around the house, which you're probably not used to managing, and you're going to be dragged into a lot more meetings that are going to chew up A large part of your day.
So it's important if you're working from home to not be working in your pajamas or whatever, but to get up, get dressed professionally, and stay focused.
And if you're taking breaks, do it purposefully at particular points in time rather than just kind of spontaneously so that you can stay focused and be productive.
What about those CEOs of companies that have a big office in downtown San Francisco or downtown LA, and they're looking at this, there's a big expense, and their employees tell them, hey, you know, it's better for us to operate remotely.
They're tempted to cancel these contracts, and they're also looking at it, hey, traffic, we're going to save so much time on traffic.
Our people are going to be happier.
What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I think that two things that businesses have done, and I think this really highlights it now, that haven't really made sense, is dragging 1,000 people into downtown San Francisco or L.A. has never made sense.
If you're the executive, if your customers are there, it's a different story.
But...
You're spending an hour, hour and a half in some of these places, commuting one way.
That's work that could have been time that you could have been doing something productive with.
And the other part that hasn't really made a lot of sense is the total lack of flexibility.
A lot of businesses' schedule.
So one of the reasons you like working at home is you don't have to commute, and the other is because I have flexibility over my time.
So I can work a little later, start a little earlier, take off for a couple hours and watch a kid's game in the afternoon or something.
If I want to.
So that flexibility is worth a lot to the employee and is not that expensive for the company.
So companies, I think, should have been much more flexible with hours for employees and have more remote locations.
And I think you're starting to see that, that some businesses are going to operate more as a Hub and spoke, you know, have the main office in downtown, wherever, but then have smaller satellite offices that people can go into that they don't have to commute as much.
But really, this is, I think, highlighted.
People really value The flexibility.
That's why most people, if you ask, most people would like to either work from home primarily or exclusively now.
And it's because I don't have to be there at 8.30 and sit here at 5.30.
If I need to drop off my kids somewhere, I can start at 9.
Or if I need to run them to a dentist appointment, I can get out at 4 and then pick it up a little later in the evening.
And so providing that flexibility is a lot of value to employees.
And that's hopefully something that Businesses will keep going forward.
And what about, I just thought about the hybrid model.
How about if the employees were allowed to come in a couple of times a week and then they work the rest of it from home.
Do you think a model like that could work?
I think a lot of businesses are thinking about that.
So maybe you come in three days a week, and then two days a week you work from home.
And I think their attraction to that is you don't need as much office space then, as a result, since all of them aren't here at the same time, presumably.
So yes, I think there's a wider set of roles for which that would work for than roles where you're primarily working from home.
You're mentioning that this may not work out, the working from home concept.
How are these big companies deciding to do this?
Well, you know, there are different perspectives in the company.
If you're thinking about the CFO, they're about saving money, generally speaking.
And so they're looking at all this office space and saying, you know, maybe we can get rid of some of it.
We don't have to spend as much money on rent if we have people working from home or at least half the time working from home.
We don't need all of these private offices and that sort of thing.
So there you're looking at it as a money-saving idea.
HR people that have to administer some of this are really looking at this more as...
There are some HR executives that are great and are about how they can build human capital in their organization, but there are a lot that follow trends, from collaborative open office spaces to now working from home.
So I think a lot of that will switch.
The CEO, of course, is worried about maximizing the value of the firm.
Usually his or her incentives are tied to that.
And so they're the ones that are worried about growth.
So I can see that you're going to initially have, as companies are trying to reduce costs, you'll see some of the people that are working remotely to be essentially laid off.
Or not replaced as those positions become open.
They're going to be encouraging people to work remotely.
And then the pendulum I suspect will swing back as operating managers that have to hit their numbers and actually make money for the company are saying we can't get the same productivity out of people that we barely know working from home as we can if they were here.
And even some companies are really worried about more of the product development.
If we're not collaborating, that usually is going to slow down product development.
And if my competitor has everybody in the office and my company has half of them still at home, that's going to create a competitive disadvantage for us in terms of product development as well.
So I know a lot of managers are worried about they want to be the first to bring everybody back.
And so as employees, in the middle of this dynamic, so it's important to really want to go back?
Is that what you recommend?
Absolutely.
I think if you're an employee who's trying to get ahead, now there may be people who are making, you know, $70,000 a year.
I'm doing something.
I might as well just do it from home.
I don't care five years from now if I'm doing something else.
It's a different story.
But if I'm trying to get ahead...
Like our graduates that are, you know, taking their initial job after their MBA or their undergraduate program, they're hoping that that job is not what they're going to be doing three years from now.
It's got to be something else.
They need to be proactive, and that's probably the biggest message I would have.
You need to be proactive about demonstrating your value, and the easiest way to do it is being in front of, in the office, interacting as regularly as possible with people that have the power to promote you.
And now you teach at a university and you see the young people that are graduating and you know how the employers are looking.
What do you recommend to these young people that are graduating now?
Well, if you're graduating right now, you need to be thinking about adding value to the people that are going to hire you.
And that person is typically 40 years old or so, and they're not going to be a millennial or they might be on the edge of that.
So their values are going to be productivity, focus on the success of the organization, demonstrating how you can create value.
So they're going to expect more of that from you.
So you need to be more articulate than you're used to being.
You need to go beyond the roles and responsibilities you're given.
You need to be thinking about how am I making this company more profitable?
And those are things that a lot of students that are, especially undergraduates that are graduating, aren't used to thinking about.
Now, would you, if you're applying for a job now, would you try to be as flexible as possible?
Would you say, okay, you know, I will go to the office, I'll work from home either way, or would you recommend them to go into the office if they're starting fresh?
Oh, absolutely.
You want to be as much face time in the office as you can possibly get.
You know, it's one thing I mean, I have some people who have worked with me for years.
They already know the vision of the organization.
They know the style, the values, all of that kind of stuff.
I don't really need to interact with them all that much.
But somebody new doesn't know any of that.
And you can't get coached through Zoom very easily.
You can't learn the culture of the organization.
You can't show that you have skills beyond what the particular role is at this time remotely.
So you definitely want to be in the office because if you're getting a new role and the company says, no, you can work from home, well, you're going to be the first one laid off because they don't know you.
So it's a lot easier to do that than somebody who's in the office.
And it's really just a transactional role.
You give me 50 of those and I'll give you whatever it is that you need to get paid.
And it's pretty hard to get ahead.
That's what you do with vendors or independent contractors.
And you're essentially, if you're working from home, you're not really an employee.
You're more of an independent contractor affiliated with the company.
So definitely when you're new to an organization, whether it's launching your career or you just switch companies, you really want to be in the office as much as possible, as much as they'll let you.
And maybe once you get to know everybody and the culture and you've been able to establish a reputation, you know, then taking more flexibility might be okay.
Do you have any other thoughts?
Well, what's going to be interesting is for people in leadership roles, everything they've been taught in a business school assumes that everybody's in the office.
I mean, yes, you collaborate with people in your European office and that sort of thing, but they're in an office there, too.
It's a little different than they're working at home.
So management by walking around, popping in, having informal conversations, not really reading anything, but relying on verbal communication, that sort of thing.
All that's a little bit different when key employees are not in the office.
So you need to figure out how to have efficient meetings with remote technology how to check in with people without doing it informally and I think the hard part is how do you convey not just communicate your vision but get somebody excited about the success of the company if they're working from home and I am producing these reports for you and I'm not going to get excited about The value we're creating for customers,
the opportunity we might be creating for other employees in the organization.
So that's going to be the big challenge is how do you get people excited about the success of the organization and the value you're creating for other people through the organization when they're operating remotely?
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