Who's the Boss? New Priorities for the Post-Pandemic Workplace; Watch This Space Podcast, July 2021

11:21PM Jul 4, 2021

Speakers:

Jon Arnold

Chris Fine

Keywords:

people

office

workplace

talking

jon

pandemic

environment

technology

home

podcast

thought

takeaway

long

work

chris

real

job

companies

mitel

future

Welcome to Watch This Space, the podcast about future of work. Every month, we bring you insider perspectives on how digital transformation, emerging technologies and generational change are shaping the future of work. We are two analog guys finding the groove for all of this in today's digital world. i'm Jon Arnold. And these trends are my focus as an independent technology analyst in my company, J Arnold and Associates.

And I'm Chris Fine. I'm an independent consultant, and advisor focusing on enterprise technology, IoT security and the future of work. My company is Integrative Technologies. Hi, Jon. Good to be here another month.

Yes, same here, Chris. Same here. And I say that with with gusto. Because I have had my second shot. And I don't quite feel invincible, but I should feel a lot better than I did last time we did a podcast. And I think certainly in the US, you know that, that feeling of getting back to normal is a lot more real, don't you think?

It certainly seems to be accelerating as the vaccine count goes up. So yeah, things are gradually getting back to normal, you know, barring any other thing that comes along? But you're right. Absolutely.

And a lot of it is, you know, work related, right? I mean, you know, they're dropping mask wearing and a lot of public spaces, right, that people are more comfortable getting out and about sporting events are being attended now, that kind of thing. And now we're hearing a lot of talk about music events happening, you know, tours and concerts and stuff and all very positive. But boy, it is very relevant to where we're going here on our podcast about the workplace, right?

Yes, I think I think that this is going to be one of the most impactful things on the future of work, or the pandemic and the outcomes of the pandemic. It's as much of a shake up as anything I've seen in a long time. Right?

Yeah. And, you know, what do people really want? And I'm not so sure they know. Because it's kind of new territory in a lot of ways. And, you know, we've been talking about this off and on for various segments. But there's definitely signs of life now that, you know, we, it's not just one of these gradual changes, it's gaining some critical mass about where things are going. And certainly in my analyst work I've seen over the past few weeks, some presentations from some of the vendors, focusing on all of this, you know, new environment, we're going into, where the workplace has to be positioned as a safe place, as a welcoming place.

Not so much the way it was before, but in a way that acknowledges that this hybrid model that we've been talking about is real. So, you know, vendors are every single one of them. And I've attended quite a few events over the past few weeks, they're all talking similar things about having to support this hybrid model, where the workplace is now going to be part of the way forward. And this balance between what they want and what workers want. I think it's going to be a very fluid thing for for a while yet, because we're not, we don't know how it's going to turn out. Right?

That's right. And I think I think also, when you say people, there's a lot of disparity between the way people think and when you say management people versus working people, I shouldn't say that employed people who are sort of the big bosses and then sort of the workforce. I don't think everybody thinks the same way. Everybody thinks the same way, perhaps in terms of business objectives, but I'm not sure everybody thinks the same way about the purpose of the office. Does that make sense?

Oh, totally. Totally. Um, one of the briefings I was on today, actually was talking about how large meeting rooms, you know, need to accommodate bigger groups now. Because they want people to be together. And and also the idea of, well, if you're going to have bigger meeting rooms, does or should the conventional, you know, setup of a meeting room, like with a long boardroom table. It's for example, that kind of horizontal space, should that be the model or should we have a different model? So, all the collaboration vendors are coming up with new, you know, virtual presentation mode, to experience group interactions, you know, they have these different views and and kind of mixes of the the tiles on the screen, the way, you know, make the presenter more involved in what they're doing, rather than just being a static talking head. You know, they they're really trying to make it more like it's, it's almost like a more entertaining experience that you want to be there.

So, the office environment has to counter by making the meeting space inside the office more engaging and more inviting. So, you know, you have to start thinking about well, is that the setup we want? Or do we have to have comfy chairs? Do we have to have it, you know, in the round kind of stuff. And, you know, I think that the immersion we've had with video over the last year and a half Chris, it's added a, I think, a performative element to work. One of the things I have read recently, we're seeing in my research about the contact center space, for example, isn't there's a lot of discussion about how much role should video play in providing customer service. The reality is that with so many agents working from home, they're just in their sweatpants or whatever, they don't look professional most of the day long, because they don't have to, they don't want video. Because even though it might be better for the customer, they're not kind of dressed for it. Like this, you have to reconsider so many things when you're going to be on camera, that is kind of another layer, beyond what you're doing in your job to actually do your work. And I just find it's an interesting new element to what work means now, especially with you know, so technology driven, right.

Yeah, yeah. And I also think that being on camera, is actually kind of a different experience than pre pandemic, what most people did most of the time. And I'll tell you what I mean, by that I was thinking about this the other day, the video technology, such as it was, it's been around for quite some time. But you had a lot of meetings where you had a certain number of people in the room, and then you had people on the phone. So if you weren't looking at somebody directly in the same space, chances were that you didn't have a whole bunch of people on video, there were a few environments where you might like, for example, if you were in a real telepresence room, not the brand name, but the concept so much.

Right, where if you could build something, you could either buy it, or you could build it super expensive, both to build and run or to buy. But short of some immersive video like that, until the until the pandemic, you either were in the room, or you were probably on the phone, because a lot of people were coming in from office floors. And yet most companies, a lot of companies didn't even have cameras out there on the floor. And for a long time, the LAN couldn't even really support that all that well, all that video bandwidth, even in the office. And so it's a very different thing to be on camera. It's more like getting up in front and presenting to everybody. You know what I mean, Jon? Unless you're in a large group, they're in a really large group, and there's 50, kind of wiggling small icons. On the zoom screen, that's a little different. But if you're actually talking to a group, every time you you talk, you suddenly seize focus. And a lot of these systems, your giant face fills up everybody's monitor. And you know why that feels pretty different from what meetings really were before that.

Yeah. And you know, you also said one of the magic words, which is separate from the concept of being on camera, but network, right? I mean, we are so much in this economics of abundance. Right now, with broadband. You know, it wasn't that long ago, that we didn't use video for, you know, very practical reasons, right? Network constraints and costs. But boy, those things have gone out the window, people don't really have to think twice about it any more.

Well, actually, if you thought about the network and network design, even even to put real time PC-based telephony, without separate cables and segments for phones, even audio. It was a long time before the the capabilities of the switches and the local network with that kind of density of people got to be enough that you could support that without sort of separate connections and all this kind of stuff. And when you got to video, if there were a lot of offices that just simply weren't provisioned for it. Whereas if you because of the nature of how people consume broadband, and by the way, we always have to say that this is not the entire populace, because there's a lot of broadband deserts. out there, and people will have to suffer with far less than this.

But if you have your average cable modem, or greater version of broadband, a lot of what you're doing is video. So if there's one thing it's actually provisioned to do, it's video. But believe it or not, that was actually more the case for some years, then you'd see in the office and a lot of companies are upgrading office facilities right now to really support that. And there's also kind of a certain level of silly, sometimes like when you're like on the same floor, and you're not getting together in a room, but you've got to turn on the video, to talk to a person versus just call them, there's a lot that's not that natural about, it really takes getting used to, it's a different presentation of yourself.

For sure, there's, yeah, we could go on that track for a while, I want to kind of broaden our focus a little bit to this, again, the return to office, just so many things that we're seeing in the news lately, are really showing that this is not as easy to do as it looks. And this is a bit of a preview, although it's going to be after the fact by the time this podcast is published. But this week, meaning the week of June 21, I'm going to be Chairing the Future of Work event in Miami. And just to show you how we're eating our own dog food, I'm doing my sessions virtually. But that's more to do with COVID restrictions. But the technology makes it possible - I couldn't have considered doing this really, two or three years ago, but we're gonna have a lot of good companies talking about these kinds of issues. I've got Mitel and Vonage and Fuze, got Zoom; a lot of these companies that are kind of leading the way where these technologies are going. Eight by Eight is another good example, Mitel.

And it's really interesting to hear kind of how they're seeing it. And but as good as the technology is, and we know it's good, right, Chris, you know, this stuff works. But you know, we're still talking about people in the workplace, and we want to get them coming out of their homes coming back to an office environment. And there's a lot of tension there, you know, the technology, it, you know, in absolute terms makes it easy. You know, there's great tools and toys to in the workplace that brings you back, but there's also the same at home. So people get comfortable with that. So there's a real struggle there for the office environment to say, for people who want to come back, it's got to be a good experience, right? It's got to be, as I've been saying, for a while, it's got to be better, more people have at home.

Yes, and then good enough that they can't just, you know, kind of get out of get out of their house and go over to Starbucks or the library or any other place or a bench versus come into the office, you know, right there, there, there actually has to be a reason to be there. And I think I think some of the reasons that were just kind of taken for granted for like a century really, in different forms have started to get thin. You know, they're there. It's it's a different type of work. It's a different type of job content. I think there were probably a good number of places where the back and forth at the office wasn't that wonderful anyway, so people kind of think, well, what am I really gaining by doing the doing the travel or whatever, you know, to get to the office every day, people have discovered that they can have more balance, you know, again, disclaimer, right? This is not everybody, if you have a job where you have to go into the office as people do.

That's you're not so much what we're talking about, but it's this kind of discretionary workforce, right, Jon? It's like, what are you, what's compelling, about going in? What are you really doing there? That's so special. And I think that a lot of if you have a company or you have an organization, where people really do feel great about people who they work with, and the mission, and the understand their, their role in their their goals and their trajectory, and they have a they have a really positive structure. First of all, such an organization is probably going to be pretty flexible about people and where they work, depending on the job if they can, but number two, it's gonna it's not going to be a problem to get the one back in the hybrid mode. But I think there may be a lot of places that are less certain to have to change the types of incentives to get people to come back in. Does that add up I mean, it's it's like a different reason to come in.

I yeah, I totally agree. Right, I think, you know, it's anecdotal. But I think we would all feel this way that people have done a big reset over the last year and a half now that it looks like we're coming out of pandemic, we now we have options. Now we have choices. We don't have to be at home. We don't have to be at the office either. And yes, as a sidebar, you know, not everyone falls into that bucket. At the Future of Work event I'm talking about my colleague, Phil Edholm, is going to be running a session on frontline work. And that's a whole other environment, which you know, has not changed at all since the pandemic, but it's been a more hazardous form of work, obviously. So they have different considerations. But I mean, a lot of us; doesn't matter what age group you're in, right, we've had a chance to really rethink our priorities. How much do I really want to be spending time working? And why would I go back to a long commute just to go into an office to be with people, I don't really need to be with a lot of questioning. And so there's this real fluid balance between what employees are happy doing and what employers want.

And we're also getting into this environment now, where, certainly from the stresses of working from home in isolation, have led to a big rise in concerns about you know, wellness, right, and fitness, and, you know, the stresses of work and being on screens all day long. And layering on top of that, of course, the need to have a more inclusive and equitable workplace. There's a lot of social, you know, social justice, social consciousness, in the work environment. Now, that's kind of driving a lot of well, what does the workplace have to look like? And you talk about flexibility for workers, these organizations have to be a lot more flexible now to to kind of, you know, address all of these. It's just not a question of, you know, who's got the best skills for the job? There's so many other factors. Now, you've got to be technically literate, obviously, above all of that, too.

That's right, Jon. And, you know, along with other trends, we've talked about automation of certain jobs, and maybe less and less need for manual operations at every step. Not so much, I'm not really talking about the need for fewer people. I'm not saying that I'm saying that. There's a lot I can do remotely. Right, right. I mean, even in terms of process, I'm not printing stuff out all the time. I'm not faxing stuff, although I could when I was at home, but I don't even have to have a printer to do a large portion of sort of office jobs. And so all I really needs a laptop, and, you know, some air pods are the equivalent to do a lot. And so then then there really needs to be, you know, what, what's about productivity and culture, and all of the other things that you know, that, that people want, that are going to bring me back end, as opposed to sort of the company saying, by fiat, you've got to come back in, which I think is a dubious approach. I could be wrong, because this could just all blow over any year. But I'm not convinced on more about that, you know?

Yeah, I agree. So, so, you know, to kind of wrap this up into a takeaway for our listeners, particularly, decision makers, right, and business leaders who are wondering, what do I have to do? Now let's kind of consider what we want to leave people with as food for thought, you know, strategies, actions that could be considering taking here?

Well, I have a couple of suggestions, and then want to hear what you think. One is, I think you, you kind of need to hold your cards a little bit if you're leadership and and see, you know, you can establish sort of a baseline flexible, you know, you don't necessarily have to say nobody needs to come in ever, but you need to be very open to what people tell you about flexibility, and what helps and what doesn't help. And then I think on the other hand, you need to be very clear about what you're trying to accomplish with people together and how you think you're going to do it and what you're going to change.

And why that makes sense. And, you know, just a lot of give and take, I think Jon is my number one takeaway, and don't try to predict it all in advance. I think this is going to unroll for the next while. And it's going to depend on obviously on the economy, it depends on the jobs. It depends on the type of organization, obviously in a factory, so they have to come up and you have to come and work. But our frontline workers as you say. But I think trying to make predictions in advance; I don't know if the word is risky, but a tough thing to do. Right?

Yeah. And I'll go with what you were saying about holding your cards close. If you're the business owner, operator manager, etc. In the sense that what you don't want to do is lead from fear and make decisions based on insecurity. And what I mean by that is, we talked about this before we went on podcast here, Chris, a good example would be a recent study that Microsoft put out about a hybrid work showing that something like, almost 50% of workers are going to or are considering changing jobs. Right? There's a lot of that, again, that fluid workplace that we're in right now, I think, again, this reset that people have done is giving people cause to say, you know, how badly do I really want to be in this job for this kind of work, etc?

And the last thing management wants to do right now is to show that they're running scared, that they're saying, oh, boy, I'm gonna lose all my good people, if I'm not smart. I think you have to kind of take that as a given. You know, as we're doing a takeaway here for the podcast, I think that cadre of audience we're talking about, has to be thinking no, go on the assumption that people are willing and considering better alternatives, because there are plenty of them out there. And then, you know, turning that back say, what kind of environment do I have to create that is going to accommodate, attract the right kind of people who are going to work well as a unit?

And I think that comes back to what you were saying, Chris, that, you know, you've got to have a flexible model here, you've got to be really, I think, what first and foremost, listen to what your important want, because you cannot do a top down anymore. That's just that model cannot work in this environment. Maybe in a more regulated more traditional mature marketplace, it doesn't change much, but it's hard to find those anymore, right?

Really is, 100, 100%? Jon. Absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, every I can't imagine a segment that doesn't have these pressures now.

I think it's going to be interesting to see just as a parting thought or takeaway as to add to what you said. It's going to be interesting to see what, coming out of this transformative type of experience, most workers think is, is what they what they do want. You know, it because I think that there are so many examples where if your leadership, and you try to just give them what you thought would have been great. In the pre pandemic era, whether it be a little bit more money, or whether it be, you know, more food around the office or something, some sort of perk, you got to watch, because they may or may not, that may not be that appealing, especially to some of the ones you want to retain the most, it may be different incentives going forward. And that's my sort of thought on the topic.

Am with you on that one. Yeah, we don't have, we don't know what those incentives are going to look like. And, you know, doesn't, it's not gong to pay to try to predict that I think, again, listening to what your workers want, what your team leaders want, and think and rethink, you know, how you balance those priorities. Because if the inputs are different now, clearly, you know, those things people are talking about or more in the intangibles, maybe you might consider them the softer elements as opposed to hard skills. But this is the workplace, you know, we're in a service economy, people have to get along, people have to work well in teams. That's just the reality of the workplace today, and that that top down hierarchical infrastructure model that's worked for so long, you know, is just, it just isn't going to fit in this environment.

Agreed. And I think that there are a lot of technologies, smart buildings, and all smart building, you see all the stuff we talked about, that properly deployed, do improve the experience of people. And that is a good thing, and sometimes very helpful, to get to help people get motivated and be productive, etc, etc. But only if it's in harmony with sort of the greater goals and your particular organization, the culture, the business, the market, it has to all be of a holistic thing, so on that somewhat new agey, not as technical as we ordinarily are topical. I'll let it rest.

Yeah, I agree. And to close out on that note, Chris, yeah, let the technology do its thing, but also get out of the way. You know, like, like I've been saying about AI. Don't talk about it as AI; just talk about what it does and the outcomes it enables. Because if you frame everything around technology, it's just, you know, you're a step closer to automating everything, and not having a place for people anymore. And we have to be, and we hear this a lot now, you know, be more human-centric, be more people-centric. And then you know, the technology will find its level of value. But, you know, it's just too easy to let the technology do everything for you. That's not going to be the way.

Agreed. And on that note, are we are we saying goodbye at this point?

It is time. Yes. Because just like they did on Dick van Dyke back in the 60s. It's five o'clock. It's time to go home to our families.

Okay, even if it's just downstairs, right?

Yeah, exactly. All right, two steps away. So that's it for now, folks. So thank you for listening. We hope you enjoy the podcast and you'll continue with us as we explore the future of work here on Watch This Space. We'll just close out by saying you can access all of our episodes at triple w watch this space dot tech, or wherever you subscribe to your podcasts. And if you like what you hear, please leave a review or a rating. You can also pick up on real time, actually, they are real time; text transcripts of our audio here so you can find those on my site J Arnold associates.com. And that is my piece for today. So I'm Jon Arnold.

And I'm Chris fine. Thanks, everyone, and we'll see you next month.