Should You Invest in the Work From Home Office of Employees? (Wise Decision Maker Guide 100)

Greetings Decision maker,

A new study by Logitech of 3,000 employees and 1,000 IT hardware decision makers in large organizations found that 89% struggle with video and 85% with audio in their work from home office. Less than 40% received accessories other than mice and keyboards from their organizations.

While these results are concerning, I didn’t find them surprising. When working with client organizations to help them figure out the best hybrid work arrangements, I invariably get pushback when I bring up investing into hybrid worker home offices. CFOs don’t want to “waste” money on employee home offices after already paying for a set-up at the office; in turn, IT and facilities directors express reluctance to stretch their already-thin resources to support the tech and ergonomic needs of staff working from home.

After all, these leaders say, we already gave in to employee demands for flexibility and allowed them to work from home part of the time. They can pay for their own equipment and furniture.

To learn more, check out this blog.

“Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to present to our Consulting team last week. The content was spot-on and provided a unique perspective into building culture, driving innovation and brainstorming across hybrid teams (among other things). I appreciate your willingness to partner leading up to the presentation to ensure the content was tailored for the audience – it made the discussion that much more impactful. I have received positive feedback from a number of team members and look forward to collaborating more in the future!”

Dan Rooney, Senior Vice President and National Director, Consulting, Jones Lang LaSalle

I'm getting ready to be a caretaker for my wife for the next couple of weeks as she recovers from surgery. She’ll be having surgery on her nose, functional rhinoplasty to help improve breathing after struggling with allergies and rhinitis for many years. While it’s a low-risk surgery, the recovery will be rough, and I'll need to spend some time taking care of her. The last time I had to focus so much time on being a caretaker for her physical health issues was over 15 years ago, when she had severe flu - so bad that she fainted on her way to the bathroom once, and I was barely able to catch her before she fell. But I was much younger and less savvy about health issues back then: this time, we’re doing much more to prepare for her recovery.

I wish I knew back then what I know now about preparing for challenging life events. Still, it’s important to be humble and not overly confident, to avoid falling into the Dunning-Kruger effect: hopefully we prepared well for everything, but there are still the unknown unknowns to consider. That’s why I’m blocking off a bunch of time to address anything that may come up in the first few days after her surgery and taking it very easy with my schedule in the next several days after that, in case the need for my time and attention is greater than we both anticipate. Doing so helps avoid the planning fallacy, meaning the feeling that everything will go well and then not leaving enough slack to address problems.