This is the final of a five-part series, Working with COVID: A Five-Part Guide to Work-Life Integration during the Pandemic.
One thing I have learned over the course of the pandemic is that I don’t like working alone. I always knew I was assessed as an extrovert, but I didn’t realize how hard it would be to work alone for the year of full shutdown and then through the slow reopening we have had over this second year of pandemic life. I was able to go to a private workspace, but I was still alone most days. This lack of human interaction really took its toll on me. Over time, I started to adjust and find new ways to work. Now, I am starting to think, about what will happen if I head back to a bustling office again. Am I ready for it?
Individuals, groups, and organizations can all experience a sense of loss as they go through change. It’s part of the natural human reaction to resist change — which is often not a conscious choice, but a biological response to the loss of something very important to someone.
As we continue to return from our pandemic world to a normal work-life, it’s important to consider this human resistance to change. Companies will certainly take different approaches to their return-to-office programs, but all will likely be a change from the pandemic work-life arrangement we’ve gotten used to.
As we return to the next phase of work, here are three lessons for individuals, teams, and organizations to consider:
Lessons For Individuals
We create strong connections with people, places, and things based on the memories, emotions, and learned behaviors we have shared with those people — in those places, or using those things.
Over the last two years, we have created new memories, emotions, and learnings that will serve us differently. Some of us may find going back to the former way of doing things a little difficult.
Consider your reaction to a return-to-work scenario. Whatever it is, it’s likely going to make you feel a sense of loss for what you currently have. Try to think about what elements in your current daily life can be carried over with you into your new environment.
- What processes can be continued?
- What objects that have been useful during the pandemic (for either comfort or functionality) can simply come to the office with you?
Over the last two years, you may not have had a commute or many in-person meetings. During this time you may have transitioned fluidly between life and work (like from your bed to your desk). There may now be some time in a commute now, but there can be a positive in this. This transitional space can help you let go of the day and be ready to reconnect with family and loved ones. It can help create boundaries between work and life that may have been blurred.
Lessons For Teams
- No two people will react exactly the same way to new policies and programs. We all have our own unique Attachment Styles in terms of how we connect with people, places, and things — formed by our personal memories, emotions, and learnings. As such, we all need to be aware of the rest of our team members and how they may be responding to the change.
- During times of change, all the emotions associated with certain memories (mostly negative) become intensified. The trick to successful team participation and leadership is not to avoid emotion, but to regulate emotion in a way that remains professional and focused toward team objectives. To tell anyone to leave emotions at home is to tell someone to be less human. Better to help them focus their emotions in a professional way that is truly supportive.
- There may have been some learning gaps in the last two years that also need to be corrected. Certain professions require an apprenticeship model. While Zoom/Teams/WebEx formats have been good for many people, they will not have helped all. Some people simply need to be co-located with others to support their learning and development.
Lessons For Organizations
- Acknowledge the newness in your organization. As the organization returns to the office, acknowledge what has changed, celebrate what you can, mourn what you must, and help people with extra support who need it. Just like many needed a little extra IT help when they left the office, many more will need some extra emotional help when they come back.
- Consider your culture. Organizational cultures have necessarily changed over the last two years. Even if behaviors have stayed constant, it is likely that the artifacts and symbols of that culture have shifted in some way to adapt to a distributed or distant pandemic life. Take this as an opportunity to reconnect with employees and find out what matters. What did the organization start doing that should continue? What did the organization stop doing that will never be missed?
- Finally, assess how your leaders performed during the pandemic. Did leaders demonstrate the right attention to the memory, emotion, and learning of your people, even from distance? Did they provide the appropriate empathy and support for team members? How are they handling the return-to-work plans? While nothing about COVID was planned, it did create an opportunity to understand who could participate as leaders aligned with your organizational intent.
At each of these levels, we as individuals, team members, or organizational leaders have an opportunity to support ourselves and our colleagues with return to the office programs. We can impact the experience of our return by acknowledging our shared memories, discussing our emotions, and thoughtfully leveraging the learnings of the last two years. When we do this well, we can emerge from the pandemic in a better place with a workplace that is more mindful and more supportive. I am looking forward to this workplace, and to being around some colleagues again.
