#WFH: There’s No and Then There’s Hell No!
When I interviewed Pete who is Vice President of Human Resources, in early April 2020, he said he thinks they have done the best they could have under the circumstances. He heads up a staff of four people, three in California and one in Ohio. His company had nothing on the cloud. No, we were not ready for this at all, he said. We are a family
owned, old-school printing company and have been around for almost 40 years. The business is printing, packaging, mail, and fulfillment. The company is kind of a one-stop shop for business communication solutions. They are considered an essential business and were allowed to remain open. They do a fair amount of business with pharmaceuticals and medical companies.
Pete sees working from home as a major adjustment. He likes working from home but thinks jobs in Human Resources and some individuals in particular really require a face-to-face environment. He thinks if working from home is to be a long-term solution, it will take some thought and reengineering for it to be as productive and effective as possible. It is not for everyone and it’s not for every position. He has experience in the remote workplace from a prior life where he was a consultant, but this business is a vastly different environment. About 58% of the workforce is production oriented. There are a lot of positions that just cannot be done remotely. They
have huge Heidelberg printing presses, and they require face-to-face operations. Mostly, Pete admits
it is a question of mindset. He sees marketing, sales, human resources, IT, accounting, and finance as all requiring some face-to-face contact. He does admit that the general and accounting side of the business has a better chance at success in the remote workplace than the actual production people. Production is a “Hell no!” They really cannot work from home.
They were not ready for this. They did not have the equipment. Not everyone had a laptop. Many people still had tower desktop computers. He finds employee relations incredibly challenging in the remote world. He finds that conversations are skewed when delivered via email. The tone, the expressions and the meaning can easily be distorted. He finds it difficult to have strategic conversations and brainstorming session online. Meetings are all right but insightful work, not so much. He is used to the whiteboard and storyboarding and everyone giving input. He finds the sense of comradery, a shared mindset, is different online. He misses the comradery of walking down the hall and having a conversation. According to Pete, picking up the phone is an extra step some people will not take. Walking down the hall is more natural, easier. Email has a delay in terms of send and receive, and because you need to wait, it is not as effective as a face-to-face conversation. This situation was thrust upon the company and there really was no plan for working remotely. If working remotely is a long-term proposition, Pete feels that a little more thought needs to go into to it to make it effective for everyone.
They were not ready for this. They did not have the equipment. Not everyone had a laptop. Many people still had tower desktop computers. He finds employee relations incredibly challenging in the remote world. He finds that conversations are skewed when delivered via email. The tone, the expressions and the meaning can easily be distorted. He finds it difficult to have strategic conversations and brainstorming session online. Meetings are all right but insightful work, not so much. He is used to the whiteboard and storyboarding and everyone giving input. He finds the sense of comradery, a shared mindset, is different online. He misses the comradery of walking down the hall and having a conversation. According to Pete, picking up the phone is an extra step some people will not take. Walking down the hall is more natural, easier. Email has a delay in terms of send and receive, and because you need to wait, it is not as effective as a face-to-face conversation. This situation was thrust upon the company and there really was no plan for working remotely. If working remotely is a long-term proposition, Pete feels that a little more thought needs to go into to it to make it effective for everyone.
Pete’s plan so far has been to be as preemptive as possible, but so far the company has been mostly reactive. He tries to initiate conversation and be proactive. Pete used the example of a triangle with the tactical part of the operations at the bottom, operations in the middle and strategic at the top. He tries to think strategically but feels that the company has been stuck in operations since moving to the remote workplace. His group in HR is in charge of relating information about the Coronavirus from the CDC and making sure that the information is distributed, posted, and in compliance with the California state regulations for essential businesses, since they have remained open. They have people who have been laid off, lots of unemployment claims, and modified work schedules. He feels like he is on a hamster wheel and is just trying to stay ahead of the situation. He is working hard to make sure he complies with employment law in California and Ohio. He consults legal counsel often but still feels like it is tough to stay ahead of the situation. There are people working from home, people who must come in and people who have been let go.
#AI@Work, #WFH, #RemoteWork, #WorkFromHome, #BobbeGB, #BobbeBaggio, #ThePajamaEffect, #Touchpoints, #Virtual Workplace, #Work From Home #PJEffect, #LinkedInNewsLive
