ALM #046: The Return to Office
Unfortunately this isn't a Tolkien saga
Hey there 👋🏼
In today’s email:
Return to Office: Mandated return to the office
Fridays at the office: A weekly habit
Post of the week: 5-star on social media.
RETURN TO OFFICE
Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.
The Return of the King
J.R.R. Tolkien
As the adventures of the Fellowship of the Ring come to an end, it appears that the time of remote work is also seeing its last rays of sunshine.
When COVID-19 hit us in March 2020, most companies worked in traditional offices or campuses. Me, you and probably most of the people you know were sent home, and we all learnt how to work from home.
We faced many challenges, from washing cans of conserves, quarantining supermarket bags, installing, uninstalling and then re-installing Zoom as it faced security issues. We learnt how to deal with waving hello and goodbye at every meeting and how to be productive without having everyone together in the same room. Heck! Zoom is more than a brand. It’s an everyday expression!
(Did I mention how good we all became at making bread?)
We have a saying in Portugal, “Primeiro estranha-se, depois entranha-se”, that roughly means, at first, you find it strange, but then it becomes your second nature.
I think that remote work was precisely this for most people in the tech industry. At first, everything was quite complicated. We had to re-learn how to do dailies, 1:1s, how to capture and give feedback, how to read people, etc. But quickly, we saw the benefits of being able to focus without interruptions, of not having to commute, and above all, of improving our quality of life.
Throughout these months, some companies re-called their workforce back to the office, most of them in hybrid mode, being the most recurrent a 3-2 mode with a portion in the office and the remaining at home. Apple and Google were examples of this back in the summer of 2022.
On February 17th, Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, published a message where he calls back Amazon workers to the office in the 3-2 format. Contrary to what happened with Google and Apple (at least as public as this one), it received massive backlash from employees as they were mandated to the office with only a couple of months in advance.
It’s critical to add that Amazon hired employees remotely, primarily focused in the country and not on their location. This meant someone could be allocated to an office a mere six hours away. Suddenly, everything changed, and people had to either relocate or eventually move on to their next adventure.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg also published the same intentions in March to get back to the office in 2023.
After all the layoffs, are we seeing the end of the remote work saga?
I’m sure that companies like Gitlab and Todoist will remain remote-first companies because they were already remote companies before COVID.
Maybe the consequence of this is the introduction of hybrid work. Offices will regain their life, and businesses that depend on these offices being full will resume activities at what were previously normal levels (catering, cleaning, renting, hardware, etc).
FRIDAYS AT THE OFFICE
A while ago, I mentioned that I would make my visit to the office a habit, and after nearly nine months, I wanted to bring you feedback on this change quickly.
You can read all about it here Redefining my Working Mode.
At first, it was incredibly bizarre to go back to the office. This happened as COVID-19 dissipated, but we were still using masks and following restrictive measures.
However, getting back together with colleagues from work and going for coffee and lunch with them was an incredible upside! How quickly we could sort issues that otherwise would take several zoom calls, and sometimes how we rallied together towards the goal of completing a project.
Oh, and the whiteboards! To this day, I’m yet to find a good substitute for getting everyone around a whiteboard wall and brainstorming.
I’ve mentioned several times that I’m a fan of hybrid work. But above everything, I’m a fan of getting the most out of everyone. Sometimes that means that people go once a week to the office, others go every day, and others just once a month.
It’s all about balance, but it’s been nine months, and honestly, I think this was one of my best decisions!
Primeiro estranha-se, depois entranha-se.
Fernando Pessoa
POST OF THE WEEK
How often do we, as managers, feel like innovation isn’t part of our job?
I want to raise a flag and say stop 🛑
There are several ways that we can and should innovate.
Think outside the box!
