COVID has changed how and where we work over the last two years. Most everything you read and hear involves Zoom (or similar remote collaboration tool) meetings. The Zoom technology, participants, and companies have accepted this way of communicating. Zoom meetings allow workers to work from home, no more commuting which is a big plus. Companies can hire talent from around the world. Workers can do their job in the comfort of their home.

The other trend that is popular today is a hybrid and flexible work arrangements. This approach is not new. During the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, the hybrid work approach was in place. For example, many larger companies allowed employees to work remotely 2 days a week and in the office 3 days a week. My company was one of them.

In the late 1990s the Y2K bug was identified as a computer problem with formatting and storage of data, a computer flaw that may have caused problems when dealing with dates beyond December 31, 1999. It was a global problem because Microsoft application software was used by the vast computers in the world. Due to the demand for experience software engineers, companies found it very difficult hire and retain these resources. To accomplish this goal, companies gave in to the wants of the software engineers. For example, in my company, they did not want to wear ties. They wanted to wear shorts and sandals on Friday’s. They wanted a 7-Eleven type store in each building. They wanted flex hours. They got everything they asked for. As a result, my company managed to hire sufficient software engineers to fix Y2K. Finding and retaining talent today is very similar but much more extensive due to COVID. Predictions indicate that COVID will be under control this year or next. It will co-exist with us like the flu.

It is time to bring workers back into the office. This paper explains the benefits and a low-risk approach to achieve this goal.

Benefits

There are several benefits to getting workers back in the office. Some keys ones are:

• Team building
• Better collaboration
• Improved efficiency
• Talent retention

Team Building

It is generally accepted that a team that works well together performs better. A favorite question I liked to ask my team is are we a group or a team? The job of a project manager is to take a group and turn them into a team. Prior to COVID during the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, many companies would go so far as to require each employee to take the Myers Briggs personality test to define their basic personality. They would then wear a color-coded badge for all to see. A lot of red indicated someone who wanted to be in charge. Why would a company want to do this? When you are putting a project team together, ideally you want a project team to be made up of a variety of personalities. For example, the team needs a leader, thinkers, and followers. If the team has a personality where he/she (lots of red on their badges) want it done their way and cannot keep an open mind, then they become destructive to a team. A good example of this type of personality was General MacArthur. President Truman did not want his army to advance into China in the Korean war, but MacArthur wanted to. Truman fired him

It would be a real challenge for a remote group of workers to come together as a high performing team using Zoom meetings and e-mails.

Better Collaboration

As I understand it, many remote workers today use electronic messaging applications as their main collaboration tool outside of the Zoom meetings. Face-face collaboration is almost non-exitance. Remote teams sometimes meet off site so all team members that want to meet can do it This does not happen often. The question becomes can effective collaboration be done remotely? If you are a remote team believer, I think you would say yes. Based on my experience, I would say no.

My company had a hybrid work arrangement as discussed earlier.  I found remote collaboration where you share documents resulted in less efficient collaboration because about 30% of the remote call involved the mechanics of sharing documents and 70% content collaboration. Zoom technology is much better today my point still stands but to a lesser degree. In spite of the reduced content discussion time, the hybrid system worked well for me. Most collaboration happened in the office and some remotely in my home. If there was an important meeting internally or with a customer and it occurred on a remote working day, I would travel to the office because it was easier to look at any documents and collaborate directly with the team.

If I had a problem I wanted to discuss with an expert, I would simply go to his/her office to discuss the problem. I remember one talented engineer in particular you would come into my office and use my white board for a tutorial on the technical issues surrounding my problem and helping me define the solution. If a team member had an issue to discuss, they knew they were welcomed to come to my office for advice. I did not have to wait for an email response from one of my team members.

Remote collaboration is much less effective than in the office collaboration.

Improved Efficiency

Typically, zoom calls take an hour or more. They are held most every day if not every day of the week.  The remote team participants are sitting in the comfort of their home which means they could Zoom call for as many hours as required. While they are on Zoom, they are not doing work on their tasks. The more frequent and longer Zoom calls go on, the more action items are defined, most of which are unnecessary but still take someone to do the work to respond to them. This is very inefficient.

If you are in the office, it is easier to setup less frequent and shorter meetings. For example, meeting attendees can stand up during the meeting which tends to keep the meeting short. Meetings can be setup quicky and planned for 30-45 minutes long. Longer and frequent meetings create unnecessary work and keeps attendees away from their tasks.

Talent Retention

Prior to COVID, companies typically would pay moving expenses for a new hire. It was not uncommon for the company to put in writing that if the employee stays less than a year, they had to reimburse the company for the moving expenses. This was motivation for the new hire to stay for at least a year. During this time frame, they got settled into a new neighborhood, met new friends, maybe even bought a new house. The likelihood they would stay beyond 1 year was high.

Today with remote working, it is easy to change companies and start working with them within a week from the comfort of your living room. Aside from a promotion, higher salary and team friendships acquired, it seems there is very little if any motivation to stay with a company.

I believe remote workers like this situation. But it is a dilemma for companies retaining workers especially after they invested a lot of money and time to train them. It is time to bring workers back to the office with a hybrid and flexible hours arrangement.

Low Risk Approach

I think co-location is the best and lowest risk approach to bring workers back to the office. I have been co-located with my team several times. This is how it works.

Set aside a co-location space in the facility. The space will have Plexiglas shields between cubicles. Only the project manager will have an office with a door for privacy so he/she can talk to team members as required.  The entrance door to the facility will have a cyber lock. It has a numerical key board where you input your code to gain access to the space. The lock allows only authorized workers into the space. Near the center of the space would be a large conference room with all the latest Zoom and other communication electronics in place.  If the company does not install a new ventilation system to fight COVID, then portable units can be installed in the co-location space. Copiers and printers will be installed in the space. All cubicles will include computers, or workstations for the work that has to be done. For food, large upright refrigerators will be installed in which sandwiches, fruit, drinks and snacks are placed.

These features will provide low risk protection against COVID. It will also enhance team building, collaboration, efficiency and worker retention.

Summary

It is time to bring workers back to the office in a low risk, safe co-location space. The trend of new COVID cases today is trending down significantly. Soon it will be treated like the flu. Hybrid and flexible hours work arrangements as well as co-location will keep workers safe and improve the performance of the team.

There is no need for a company to spend enormous amount of money to redesign their existing office spaces. Just make changes to the existing spaces like restaurants do to provide as much protection from COVID as possible. This paper focuses on project teams specifically but a similar approach could be realized for the other workers in the company.

I would expect remote workers to dis-like this approach. I also would expect companies to like it because it will result in higher profits over time.

Bio:

Currently John Ayers is an author, writer, and consultant. He authored a book entitled Project Risk Management. It went on sale on Amazon in August 2019. He authored a second book entitled How to Get a Project Management Job: Future of Work.  It is on sale on Amazon. The first is a text book that includes all of the technical information you will need to become a Project Manager (PM). The second book shows you how to get a PM job. Between the two, you have the secret sauce to succeed. There are links to both books on his website. https://projectriskmanagement.info/He has presented numerous Webinars on project risk management to PMI. He writes columns on project risk management for CERM (certified enterprise risk management). John also writes blogs for Association for Project Management (APM) in the UK. He has conducted a podcast on project risk management.  John has published numerous papers on project risk management and project management on LinkedIn. John also hosts the Project Manager Coach club on clubhouse.com.

John earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering and MS in Engineering Management from Northeastern University. He has extensive experience with commercial and U.S. DOD companies. He is a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI. John has managed numerous large high technical development programs worth in excessive of $100M. He has extensive subcontract management experience domestically and foreign.  John has held a number of positions over his career including: Director of Programs; Director of Operations; Program Manager; Project Engineer; Engineering Manager; and Design Engineer.  He has experience with: design; manufacturing; test; integration; subcontract management; contracts; project management; risk management; and quality control.  John is a certified six sigma specialist, and certified to level 2 Earned Value Management (EVM).

Go to his website above to find links to his books on Amazon and dozens of articles he has written on project and project risk management.