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What's Up With Me
It can feel completely unintuitive that something like a safety campaign - meant to make people safer - can lead to the opposite outcome, as this week’s blog and podcast episode show. But such boomerang effects happen frequently.
Consider the required return to office initiatives by many organizational leaders this fall. These leaders generally have the best intentions of building culture and improving engagement in their organizations. What they fail to realize is that one of the most frustrating work experiences in this day and age is coming to the office, but doing the same thing you’d be doing from home. Many employees file the same reports, make the same calls, and write
the same code they would have done in the comfort and privacy of their home. Except they wasted an hour or more getting ready for work in the morning and driving to the office, and then driving back. And even many of the meetings are held on Zoom, because it’s rare that everyone can make it to a meeting in person.
The result? Disengagement and demoralization, noncompliance, and attrition.
The only reason you should come to the office is to do things you can’t do easily at home, such as small-group collaboration, social events, or in-depth training. It makes me wonder when old-school leaders will learn this lesson. And how much damage they will do to their careers and companies in the process.
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