Returning to the Office: Balancing the Needs of the Business and Employees - Part 2

Listen to part two of a two-part discussion led by Thorpe Benefits President, Roger Thorpe with panelists Mette Johansen Keating, Founder and Creative Director at mettespace, and Lisa Taylor,  President at the Challenge Factory, Inc. focused on what's needed for a successful return-to-office policy

Questions in Part 2 Include:

• Lisa, you suggest that trust is at the core of a successful return-to-office policy. Beyond a trustworthy brand, how much more does a potential employer need to offer to distinguish themselves as an employer of choice when competing with firms offering WFH alternatives?
• Mette - In order to truly practice safety-first employment policies, employers should – to the best of their abilities – ensure employees feel safe and comfortable while working from home and at the office. Why do you believe that the ‘Great Resignation’ means employers simply can’t mess up the safety-first message? Beyond the health and safety aspects, what else can employers do to prove they care about employees and candidates in new and deeper ways? 
• How will human interaction work differently, perhaps, in the “future of work”?
• What statistics or trends can you point to that would suggest that, whenever possible, employees should have ‘face time’ to ensure we all work to peak performance and maximize the chances of sharing learnings with colleagues for the betterment of the company’s bottom line?

About Our Guests

Mette Johansen Keating, Founder & Creative Director

Mette has carved out a leadership role in the Toronto office-space design community over the past 15 years upon arriving from her native Denmark. She founded Mettespace on human-centered and Scandinavian design principles when they were basically unheard of in North America and has since grown a dynamic and impressive tribe of clients and followers.

Fast-forward to 2021 and her soon-to-be-released book “Take Your Space” will share her insights into what she describes as “Scenography for life and work”, disintegrating borders between work and personal life accelerated by the pandemic and the critical contribution physical space can provide as we look to the future and a once-in-a-generation opportunity for people to find more balance

Lisa Taylor, President, Challenge Factory and the Centre for Career Innovation

Lisa Taylor is a sought-after expert, speaker, and columnist on today’s changing world of work. 

As President of Challenge Factory and the Centre for Career Innovation, Lisa offers invaluable leadership and insights about the Future of Work—with a focus on how talent equity, demographics, the freelance economy, and new market dynamics present opportunities to gain strategic workforce and career advantage.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the benefits and wellness superhero podcast. This podcast is designed to help professionals develop the skills needed to get complete leadership. Buy-in on group benefits and shine, a light on what's changing in the wellness space. Listen to tips and strategies. That'll help you become a super hero in the eyes of employees and management.

Speaker 2: 0:28

Hey everybody. Welcome. Uh, it's Roger Thorpe here from Thorpe benefits. I'm joined with my friends colleagues, Lisa Taylor, and meadow Johanson Keating. Uh, we're here to have a really thoughtful, very insightful discussion about the transition of going back into a trusted, safe, and productive workspace. Uh, I'm really excited about the points of view that Lisa and Metta bring to this conversation because it's also from Lisa's point of view, a lot of research, a lot of discussions with companies about what they have done and how they feel about this and Metta looking at it truly from what it's going to look like inside the workspace and how people interact in that environment. We've had a previous conversation where we talked a lot about trust and that the trust needs to be there from the employee to the employer, uh, for them to follow along and embrace, um, the changes and the new setup, um, as employers are really trying to be that employer of choice, especially during a time where they're still trying to recruit talent, what is it that employers can do to enhance that trust, uh, level across the board? Both of you might want to take a stab at this.

Speaker 3: 1:45

I think trust goes both ways. I think that actually goes both ways. Uh, both like, um, you need to trust each other. You need to trust that, um, that if, if someone is working from home, they're actually, it's more like about the delivery of what they are actually doing rather than like, how long did that take or, and just feeling that it's not something you don't need to sit at the office and actually have somebody going by and looking at you actually productive. And, um, then there's something else wrong if you don't have that trust. Um, there's something else, like what Lisa was saying, there's something else wrong in the relationship? Um, why do you have the job? Like, it goes both ways and it has to do more than just trust, I guess, respect for, uh, for each other. I think so, um, it goes both ways to say, yeah,

Speaker 4: 2:42

You mentioned that, you know, in general Canadians have a pretty good level of trust with their employers. So each spring there's a, a trust barometer report that's done by Edelman by a third-party organization. And they ask Canadians, who do they trust? Um, and they include politicians and media and their employer and their family and all different categories of people. And historically employers do really well when everything else seems to be, you know, uh, difficult to understand what's the truth and who can I trust? Typically employers do pretty well in those scores. What's really interesting about that right at this moment in time is there's all this discussion about, um, the great resignation. And I know that, uh, you want to get to that in a couple of, uh, in a couple of minutes, but I just want to set up that conversation, anchoring it in this concept of trust. So there's a lot of discussion about who's coming back to certain jobs and who is not returning to certain jobs and who's quitting, right? Who's who's saying thanks and no things. One of the early reports that have started to come out that says, and what makes the difference is that it's actually not by sector or by job or by economic Stratus or by profession. The thing that's making a difference on whether people are returning or staying with their employer or not is how they were treated over the last 12 to 18 months. So it really isn't a matter of, you know, this sector versus that sector. Although there certainly are dynamics and we can talk about industry dynamics and what's happening with jobs if you'd like, but specifically to the question of who's coming back and where is there more fleeting, freedom and flexibility to experiment a bit and to use some of the trust capital that you may have in this moment in time when things are uncertain, you kind of can't manufacture that right at this moment. You've got to look back on, you know, based on the last 12 to 18 months, have you fostered trust within your employee base? And if you haven't, then what does your leadership team need to do to recognize where that's been a failing and to make sure that they understand that that needs to be fixed going forward, or any plan that you put in place is doomed to see high turnover, doesn't matter what decision you make.

Speaker 2: 5:03

So there's still time to fix or patch some of those mistakes, perhaps in fact, maybe going forward with being proactive with signs or, you know, uh, uh, demonstrations that show that you trust that employee and that you're, you want to, you want to enhance the interaction relationship. If you didn't have that during the pandemic, now's your chance, right? Maybe your last chance, uh, to, yeah.

Speaker 4: 5:29

Yeah. I mean, it takes trust and courage from leadership team and it's not performing, right. It's, it's not something that you throw up on the website or a title, employer of choice that you use. Your employees know like your culture is, uh, one of our vice presidents says it this way all the time. Your culture is how people describe what it's like to work for your company. When they're at the dining room table with their friends and family, that's your culture. And if that's not a conversation that is the way that your executive team would hope that your employees are talking about it. That's a culture issue. That's not a real estate issue and that's not a crisis emergency issue. That's a deeper issue that you need the leadership team to have the skills, the capability and the courage to be able to look directly at and do something about,

Speaker 2: 6:15

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 6:16

Okay. What, what I've actually sort of, um, realized, um, is, um, like we've talked HR, HR, and it's human resource. I think that's been a lot of focus for decades on the R the resource and less on the H for the human. Um, and I think this has shown us that we need to see who are the people, um, trust when they say it, they have fear, there's fear in it. And if they say it's not working for them at home, or if they're sitting in their bed at like, or did you show up that you help them in this process while they were working at home? So I think it's like, there's going to be more focus on the AR like, so the age, the human being behind the resource.

Speaker 2: 7:05

Yeah. I'm excited when you talk about that, about when people physically are in this meadow, you can speak to them in a safe office environment where people are seeing the body language, not just the eyeballs, but the body language of, and starting to have some of those difficult conversations. And we know that organizations are all talking about diversity inclusion and, and things, uh, conversations beyond that, that aren't easy to have and they're putting themselves out there and they want to have these conversations regularly. So hopefully having people around a safe space is going to allow people to have, continue to build on that human factor. Right. Uh, I know from the mental health standpoint, we've been noticing that companies that talk openly and honestly about the nature of mental health, mental health illness, they're the ones who create a safer environment for people that can, can exist and thrive in a workplace, even if they are managing a mental illness along the way. So, um, so that's going to be important

Speaker 4: 8:07

At the same time, you know, the blend of in-person and technology has given an amazing glimpse into new and better inclusive practices. So the ability for, um, workers and professionals and individuals who have a disability to be able to engage using different technologies in real time, that might not be the best for them sitting in a busy or crowded conference room where everybody needs to, you know, speak up for their moment to be able to interject into the conversation, um, or for, uh, newcomers or employees where English may not be the very first language or the level of education. Isn't the same. We have seen that there, there is a role for us to be better and how we blend in person in technology. But again, that comes down to what's the work and who are the people and how do we bring out the best work with the people that we have, and that we want to be attracting and using our real estate spaces and our technology as tools to do that. They're not the headline. The headline is the people and the work that needs to be done for the company to be successful.

Speaker 2: 9:13

Right. And you're sort of jumping on a question I wanted to ask us is how does that interactive relationship changing? I've hope we've learned things like you said, from, um, from a virtual environment that we can maybe take into the live environment. Um, Metta, do you have anything more from a, like a, like the physical space side of things that would encourage that different type of interaction? Yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:39

Yeah. I mean, so not that I used to talk about my book, but I called this at, uh, we have a book coming, but I call it synography and it's creating a platform like a stage where people want to be able to perform. And that is like at home or it's at work, or it's like a hub, wherever people are going to be performing. So you need to decide, what do we want that to be like, what do we want them to be able to be able to perform on that stage, on that platform and take it seriously? So when they're in doing that and work on that platform, does it work like what re what have you put into it? Uh, and that also goes for at home, if you're going to be working at home, you need to create an employer needs to create that platform, uh, for the employer or employee, sorry. Um, to be able to perform at home. And that means like setting up a healthy work environment, like a height adjustable desk or proper chair, and the it infrastructure, what this means for this person, that they can actually do the work that is needed for them at home, or go to work. So you need to just kind of take it serious, the platform that you have, that you can make that better. So people can perform the best that they can.

Speaker 2: 11:05

There's so many meetings to that word. Cause I'm going to hear you say that it's performance for my own ability to be able to, you know, show everyone my strengths, demonstrate those strengths, uh, have an opportunity to be in the spotlight once in awhile. Um, and how do we give people that, um, but the word performance on sometimes gets blended in with productivity. Doesn't it? You know, so maybe that's a good place to end on is, you know, that we've been debating a bit. Are we more productive at home versus the office? How would you guys respond to that debate or that question? And don't have to take one side, you can speak to either side and Mehta. Why don't you start with that? And we'll finish round rounded up with Lisa.

Speaker 3: 11:49

I think productivity is such a funny thing because it's like, some people can do the, the work in two hours, another person needs six hours for, so you can't really say, okay, I was at the office for eight hours and, and then I put in my time, I guess, more about the, what you do and with the time that you have. Um, and I think people have been working from home. They felt like they needed to be on all the time, which is totally impossible because the sort of little breaks that you would have doing a day at the office, you don't have necessarily at home. So I think people have been working way too much what we're hearing, uh, burning out and they don't have that, um, change of scenery like they would normally have in a day. And that's unhealthy for all of us to, to do that so much. But I believe, um, that we, um, we can get way more done in shorter time if we actually sort of have more quality versus quantity of time. And it's been shown, I know people in Europe, they actually have way more vacation and they take their vacation where here people have like two or three or four weeks maybe. And a lot of them are actually working that time. I'm like, so I think if we just do more quality versus quantity, we can actually get as much done, but we need to be able to, um, respect our time, respect our employers time and employee's time. Okay. Well,

Speaker 4: 13:26

I really liked that answer. And, uh, I don't think I'll add anything to, to that. I think maybe what I'll do is just take it into a slightly different direction. And, and that is to remind everybody that we are emerging from a crisis and crises have their own rhythm and the way that you manage them, the way that you make decisions, including its resolution. So we are not finished with the crisis yet. Uh, and even before we were in the crisis, we were already seeing radical shifts in how work was being done and in the dynamics of the workforce. So the way that challenge factory likes to think about that and talk about it is that we were already in a talent revolution and then we added a crisis on top of it. But as we resolve the crisis and look to hopefully the resolution phase and coming out of it, it's really important to recognize that we're exiting a crisis into the middle of a revolution that has continued while we haven't been paying attention. So all of the dynamics around demographic shifts around career ownership and the relationship between employers and employees around the role of the freelance or gig economy and the dynamics of precarious work around platforms that transform how work gets done and around AI and technology, all of those things have continued on while we've been distracted and strictly focused on COVID issues of social justice that have emerged. There's been a number of really big crises that have impacted us. And I think what needs to happen given that we are exiting a crisis into a revolution is that we give ourselves a bit of a break that we stop with the declarative statements that the decision we make today is the decision that we're going to carry forward with forever. I think employees and employers want confidence that they understand what the other one is thinking for now and with some level of stability going forward, but we don't need to have the answer forever right at this moment. And we can build on what Metso was just sharing to be able to experiment a little bit together, to think through what some of these things mean for each department or division or manage your team or manager or employee, and to craft, you know, what would meet the needs of the organization writ large, right at this moment in time. And when's the next time we're going to review this to see if it's still working. If we take a experimental approach instead of a policy approach, we'll end up with bill fostering, better trust and making better decisions. Um, and so that's what I would encourage.

Speaker 2: 16:09

Nice. That's great. That was a perfect sum-up to the sort of the whole situation scene that we've been dealing with a good reminder of what we are still in as well. So, um, well I think this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for your time and your, uh, experience and insights on this. I think our audience will really appreciate what they're hearing today. So, um, both of you might want to just take a second to re uh, state sort of what your business is all about and also how people might be able to reach out to you for more information Metta, would you like to start?

Speaker 3: 16:43

Yeah, so, um, uh, my company is called Metta space create spaces, and I'm now calling it synography for working life, because I think it's about creating that stage. Um, you can reach out to us at, uh, Metta space.com, uh, happy to have a conversation with your organization to see how we can create the space for your staff, um, at home and at work. And, uh, yeah, and I have my upcoming book take your space. It's called. Um, so I hope that's ready out in the fall. I've had time to do that. So silver lining to, uh, to a pandemic. Nice.

Speaker 2: 17:19

We'll look forward to seeing that.

Speaker 4: 17:21

Great. So I'm Lisa Taylor and the company is called challenge factory. The website's challenge, factory.ca, where a research and insights consulting firm that's focused on the future of work. And our specific expertise is helping organizations shape the future of work that they want instead of preparing for a future of work that someone else has defined, right. And on the website challenge, factory.ca you'll find, um, all kinds of free resources, publications, books, videos, um, metal to already gave us right to our resources that is@challengefactory.ca slash back, which are the specific resources for how you help both managers and employees get back to the office comfortably.

Speaker 2: 18:07

Great, well then awesome. To finish it off to say that people have even more to learn or, or more that they can access is wonderful. So I know my client community, my, uh, the rest of my network will really appreciate learning more about you, what you guys have to offer. So thank you again for your time and effort. Really appreciate it. All right. Be well, everybody

Speaker 5: 18:49

[inaudible].