Last night (4 March 2021) we hosted a roundtable in conjunction with Robert Walters for those GCs with teams of 15+.
It was Chatham House rules so I won’t be naming names, but there were some pretty universal themes that emerged.
I have to say that I loved the tone. Compared to even a couple of weeks ago people seemed far more positive around the pandemic. We are coming out of this thing. People know people who have gotten the jab. It’s going to take time but we have sight of getting back to some semblance of normal.
That optimism inevitably led to the question – what’s next?
The GCs on the call have significant teams ranging from 15 – 200.
So, what does August / September / October 2021 hold when we’re not forced apart?
(Aren’t you proud of me carefully avoiding the phrase the ‘New Normal’? 😉 )
- Work hours aren’t what they used to be – People have changed how they think about their relationship to the clock. Can you imagine asking your boss in 2019 not to schedule meetings that conflicted with your 10am pilates class? We’ve moved to a model of understanding that if you’re getting your work done then they’re a lot less worried about when you do it. (Incidentally at Alacrity we’ve always believed that time spent on a matter does not necessarily equate to value – our clients are more interested in driving better outcomes. Perhaps the pandemic will ultimately have sparked a move towards that mindset into our daily working lives.) It’s time to accept that the work day now runs from 5am until 10pm. Not everyone is going to be online at the same time if they don’t have to be. Different hours are here to stay.
- Flexibility means different things for different people – Some members of their teams needed different schedules, some needed to be shifted to different kinds of work when separated from colleagues, others needed more professional support. One GC commented that they took on a PhD in HR in the last year in trying to support their team and it highlighted a shift to a more individualized approach to looking after people. One bit that I thought was particularly interesting was the move to being more explicit about asking after people’s needs. In an office environment someone might open up if you casually asked them how they were next to the water cooler. Over Zoom not so much. Regardless of the physical venue we could benefit from being a little more pointed in finding out what’s going on to see how to best move employee relationships forward.
- Personality is important – It goes without saying that people are different, and the pandemic has affected everyone differently. Coming back to an office is going to be the same. A few of the GCs felt far more effective at home than they did at the office, whilst others felt the complete opposite. It’s a spectrum. We should expect that employees are going to feel differently about coming back and should think about accommodating personal preferences and productivity when putting together back to work plans. Matching people’s personality to jobs is going to be more important than ever.
- In-person is important but maybe not as important as it used to be – Few thought we would be going back to the office 5 days a week but no one was comfortable being remote forever. The bigger topic was about managing teams who are a mix of in-person and remote, and ensuring equality. Doing so is going to involve little things, like having meetings in the office via Zoom where everyone is individually on video and bigger things, like making sure everyone has a more structured development and promotion plan. Most important was the heightened awareness of the difference to ensure it doesn’t affect employees differently.
- Sprints vs. tasks – One GC had a lot of success in taking their objectives to a new level of abstraction. Rather than assigning specific tasks to staff they directed higher level objectives to small teams which they could accomplish however they chose within the allotted time frame. What they ended up finding was that these teams worked together to accommodate each other’s needs, whilst being more productive. Giving everyone the option to creatively problem solve ended up being far more productive than being directive.
- People like a bit of personality – Many people said that they felt like they knew their colleagues better, if for no other reason than knowing what their dogs and bookshelves look like. There was the sense that we should encourage this to continue and try and bring a bit of our personalities to our work.
We’ve gone from having a lot of structure around work (pre-pandemic) to very little structure (pandemic). Finding our way to a hybrid that combines the best of the two is going to throw up plenty of challenges, but I think everyone is optimistic that we’ll come out better on the other side.
Getting back better,
Christopher Thurn
Founder – Alacrity Law
