Everything in moderation

The Ancient Greek philosophers have played a pivotal role in shaping western philosophical tradition. In modern Greek culture, one of the most commonly uttered phrases from our ancient philosophers and my personal favorite, is “Παν μέτρον άριστον” / “Pan Metron Ariston”, which literally means “Everything in moderation”, and is attributed to Kleovoulos o Lindios (6th century BC). This phrase is so often quoted, because of its countless applications in so many aspects of our daily lives. As this famous and time-tested quote indicates, Ancient Greeks strongly believed that one should include a bit of everything in one’s life while avoiding the temptation of overdoing any aspect, to the extent possible. It is therefore only natural that this approach would apply in our work life too.

I have always been a fan of the idea that employers are responsible both morally and professionally for ensuring that employees have a good work-life balance and are healthy. After all, stressed-out employees are less productive and more likely to make errors, so it’s in everyone’s best interest. As Sir Richard Branson puts it: “Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients”.

In today’s professional landscape, I am sure that many of us have the following questions in mind: How should we treat the hybrid working scheme? How much is productivity being harmed? What about work-life balance? Which directions should we take? What is better for employees?

It was 18 months ago that the pandemic hit. The circumstances forced companies to shift gears quickly, legitimizing remote work, accelerating the digitalization of business, and making the health and welfare of employees their overarching priority. Companies began to talk of managing “three years of transformation in three months”.  A year and a half in, the pandemic has indeed had a massive impact on how business is done. There now seems to be no going back. Workers all around the world have accustomed themselves in their new work conditions and some may come to regard them as permanent.

But as companies seek to transform themselves for the post-Covid world (which will hopefully come soon, despite the onrush of the Delta variant), they still confront significant challenges.

One of the biggest challenges comes in the form of remote working. It might seem trivial in the beginning, but it truly is not. At the onset of the pandemic, most companies relocated their employers from their offices, introducing a “work-from-home” (“WFH”) policy as a precautionary measure to avoid spreading the virus. Now, nearing two years later, with a considerable amount of time spent working remotely, and with the vaccine rollout regularized and highly encouraged, companies have started planning the return of their workers to their offices. A challenge therefore lies within their current WFH initiative and how, or even if, it should be a part of their post-COVID company policy. CEOs and scholars from around the world have weighed in on the matter with their opinions landing on both ends of the spectrum.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings calls remote working a “pure negative”. He wanted his workforce to return to the office “12 hours after a (COVID-19) vaccine is approved” and currently Netflix expects most of the employees to be vaccinated in order to return to the office. He stated that debating ideas is harder in the remote-working world adding that: “I don’t see any positives”. Not being able to get together in person, particularly internationally, is a pure negative. He also highlighted that a company’s culture can be defined and maintained with the in-person interactions.

On the other hand, TCS (a global IT services company) has announced a plan to be 75% remote by 2025). Also, companies including Twitter, Facebook, Shopify, Siemens, have announced that they will make remote work permanent even after a vaccine is available. And it is not hard to see why! Working exclusively from home means that there is no longer commute to and from work, resulting in saving a great deal of time and money. It can even reduce daily stress levels. Also, WFH allows people to work during their most productive times, requires no dress code, and provides fertile ground for a personalized workflow. Since people are in their personalized work bubble, they have power over occurring distractions. I am not saying that there are no distractions at home, almost everyone knows at this point how it is to work while having to tend to kids for example, but all these are distractions you have power over and may regulate at your convenience as opposed to in-office distractions which come from coworkers, employees, and other office-based noise, for which social and professional etiquette dictate that some of your time must and will be wasted dealing with such interruptions. Perhaps the most obvious example of this, is that the famous meeting which could have been an email, is now an email. However, working from home poses its own challenges, be it the tendency to overwork, the difficulty to replicate the exact office environment and the limited human contact with one’s coworkers.

At the moment, companies are managing in varied ways. Some have given employees permission to continue working remotely until at least 2021 and CFOs are renegotiating terms of rent for less office space. Others have recalled staff to the workplace on different schedules and in staggered groups. Still others are leaving it entirely up to individual workers to decide where to base themselves. Some other are reasonably following the rules that their government dictates. One thing is however certain: thanks to the not entirely negative lessons learnt from the WFH schemes that were initially forced upon us, most businesses around the world are now starting to think about the longer term, including alternative ways to structure work communication and physical presence.

So, what’s the ideal approach? Well, as with most things in life, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. “Everything in moderation “, as for many companies the future is a hybrid model that combines remote and office work. I strongly believe that the shift to remote work because of the COVID-19 pandemic set the foundation for a new workplace that embraces flexibility and employee empowerment. I believe organizations need to have enough flexibility to allow for team members to work from home when they choose to do so and in the office when required (team-building activities, project workshops, brainstorming sessions, design thinking sessions, etc…).

A year ago, Nicholas Bloom, professor of economics at Stanford University, claimed that remote work comes with a series of challenges, including slumps in productivity and innovation, and even mental health concerns. My belief is that remote work is productive, but we are missing so many of the elements of human engagement and connection that we have in the physical workplace, there is no substitute for the human experience. So, I think that this reinforces the idea that when we’re going to go back, we should return to a more flexible model than we ever had before where employees will have unprecedented power over their work schedule.

Is there a magic number of the days to be working remotely? I would dare to say 50%-50%, but it certainly depends on the nature of the business, on the level of the employee, on how recently someone has joined the company and a series of other parameters that HR teams should take into consideration, before adjusting a strategy accordingly. This way there will be ample time and opportunity for collaboration and brainstorming sessions while reaping the benefits of an organized office and physical human contact and at the same time leaving sufficient time for focused quiet work at home, cut back on the commute hours and in the end a less stressed work life.

Still, we need to be careful. Hybrid work models will not work on their own and us employers need to plan them with care for fear that bigger problems arise. Legitimate questions have and will continue to arise, such as the increasing general costs of housing in contrast to the shrinking costs of office operating expenses, the inability to truly monitor or closely manage employees, and many more which have a profound impact on the employee-employer relationship. In order to properly support a productive hybrid model, there is a need for trust and transparent communication on every level. It is time for employers and employees to become more mature, more accountable and recognize the benefits of this new work schedule approach. Companies must draft and whenever needed adapt their company policies without waiting, they must give employees the tools and rewards they need in order to thrive and in a post-COVID world, they must be willing to continuously adapt out of choice, not just necessity.

Last but not least, I have to admit the COVID crisis personally inspired me to rethink practices that were conventional but not efficient (like taking a flight for a 1-hour meeting, like debating with our Head of Products about whether his daily presence in the office is required…). It takes a little creativity and comfort, getting used to a new way of doing things. We need to have “Everything in moderation” in order to recognize achieve and reap the benefits of a flexible, respectful and respected hybrid working model. For people’s wellbeing, for work-life balance, for productivity, for efficiency, for money that moves the world around.

George Pakos