9. Time to Go Back to the Office

For some people, working Out of Office is a temporary situation. Perhaps they are between jobs, or between locations. For others there simply comes a point in their life where they want to return to the office. Perhaps it is a work opportunity that is too good to say no to; perhaps it is something more mercenary like the need for health insurance. Whatever the reason, it is important to recognize when that point is reached—if for no other reason than continuing to work in an environment that you no longer enjoy will negatively impact you on many fronts, including personal, professional, mental, and physical health.

The transition back to the in-office work style is not easy, nor is it usually straightforward. Just as the transition to the Out of Office work style needs careful thought and planning, so too does the transition in the opposite direction.

From commuting routes and culture changes, to simple things such as deciding whether you are going to take a lunch or find somewhere near the office to eat. All these things need to be given some level of consideration. Perhaps more important is the impact it will have on others. How will those at home make the transition? Children, pets, and partners all need to make the transition with you.

If you have been working from home, for example, perhaps one of the tasks you completed was to collect the children from school. Will they now ride the school bus? Will your partner collect them or will you have to make some other arrangement? Pets are particular sensitive to change. When I am at home for long periods, our cats get into a very set routine of where they sleep and when they want attention from me. If I am gone during the day on consecutive days, it disturbs them greatly and their routine changes dramatically when I return. I can only imagine the disruption it would cause if I were to transition back to working in an office away from home on a full-time basis.

Of course, all of these things can be overcome, worked around, and compensated for; however, it would be foolish to simply pretend that they don’t exist and to not factor them into your planning. The more thought you give these and other considerations, the easier the transition becomes on those around you, which of course makes the transition easier on you.

How can you tell it is time for you to return to the office? A lot of the reasons are simply the same as the ones I discussed in Chapter 1, “Why You Shouldn’t Try an Out of Office Experience.” You miss being around co-workers and having the social exchanges. You want more space or your work has evolved to a point where you need more professional surroundings for clients. Perhaps the nature of the work you do has changed and it has become impractical for you to continue working remotely.

For some people, the transition back to the in-office work style comes as part of a promotion. For others, it is the decision to join a larger organization and to discontinue operating their own business that prompts the transition. Some organizations, while seemingly embracing the Out of Office work style, are not yet comfortable with senior positions being filled by remote workers. I’m not quite sure what message this sends to employees—whether these organizations feel that senior managers need to have a presence in the main community to enable them to exert an influence on the employees they manage or if they feel that having a senior manager working Out of Office will make them somehow less accessible.

I have known some organizations that have enabled senior managers to work Out of Office and have not suffered for it, but the majority of businesses are still in a period of conversion. Many organizations are still wary of this type of work style and are not convinced of the benefits it holds. Other organizations have removed this type of working from their environment, as Yahoo! did in 2013, for operational reasons. This is a different type of transition, one where the employee is not making the decision but rather is being told that they must work from an office under the control of the organization. I can see many issues with this type of transition, even if it is handled in an empathetic manner.

All the issues I discussed earlier in this chapter exist in this situation, but they may be compounded by resentment, feelings of distrust toward managers, a sense that control has been lost or revoked, and an impression that they as an individual employee are not trusted. Although none of these may in fact be the reason for the transition, the fact that they may enter the psyche of the workers affected must be addressed to ensure a successful transition from one work style to another.

Many organizations have experience with this type of transition in other forms—for example, assisting women who are returning to the workplace after an absence while caring for children. Other organizations have experience in employing military veterans who have been working in a different type of Out of Office work style. There may well be a lot of similarities in handling these transitions that an organization can leverage in helping those returning from the Out of Office work style. The important thing for organizations to recognize is that those returning to an in-office environment bring with them a different perspective on achieving goals than those who have maintained an in-office work style consistently. That is not to say one is better than the other, but certainly there will be a difference in the way solutions are arrived at.

When working Out of Office, an employee will have had a greater sense of freedom, and there may well have been fewer adherences to a strict workday. If a person was self-employed previously, they may well have a strong sense of solving problems in isolation rather than within a team framework. These are all considerations that have to be examined when an organization decides to bring employees back to the in-office work style.

Likewise, these are also considerations for the individual. Yes, perhaps you have become isolated, and you miss the easy banter that having a team around you brings. You miss brainstorming solutions with other smart people, or you miss the support systems that tend to come with larger organizations. But are you ready to give up control to others? If you have been running your own business and making all the decisions, do you consider yourself ready to have some if not all of those decisions made for you?

Whereas you may have had budgetary control over your business, you may not within an organization. If you decided who was hired and who was fired in your own business, that may not be your responsibility in your new role. Of course, these are all things you are going to consider before accepting an offer, but in the excitement of examining the benefits of returning to a larger organization, it can be easy to overlook the things that drew you to the Out of Office work style in the first place.

The Out of Office work style may have lost some of its appeal for you, but is it just one aspect of the work style that is prompting you to make a change or the whole experience? The lure of something different, something that seems to require less effort, perhaps, can be all too attractive. Making the transition back to an in-office environment is not quite as easily undone as making the transition to the Out of Office work style.

Remember that first day at a new school? How everything seemed so large, how everyone else seemed to know the rules, where to be, and how and when to get there? That has always struck me as the same experience when joining a new organization. It can take weeks, sometimes longer to learn the structure, politics, and the rhythm of an organization.

Of course, these are not reasons not to make the transition; they are simply concepts that need to be considered carefully before making the transition.

For many, the transition is relatively painless, and there comes with it a whole host of associated benefits: the reconnection with co-workers in a shared physical space, the making of new acquaintances in a new workplace, the opportunity to learn new skills or extend existing ones, the regularity of in-office hours, and the chance to have a clearer demarcation of the start and end of the workday.

All these elements can contribute to both the desire for the return to an in-office work style and the sense of relief for some people when they return to this style of working. I have considered the return myself many times over the years; for all of the aforementioned reasons as well as the opportunity to work with smart people, to have a space that is dedicated to my work, and so on. However, I have always realized in the end that I am better suited to working Out of Office, and if I were indeed to return to the in-office work style, I wouldn’t enjoy the transition or the routine.

The other reason is that like many solopreneurs, I enjoy a multiple income stream lifestyle. That is to say, I work more than one job! I am a writer, a photographer, and a speaker as well as being a consultant. In any one day I might be working all or several of these jobs. The variety in my day is something that keeps me energized. That is a luxury that most in-office workers do not get to enjoy; rather, they are mission focused on one set of outcomes. Even if they achieve this through multiple projects, the work itself is, at its core, the same.

However, this sense of focus and purpose is yet another reason why many return to the fold of a more formal organizational setting and enjoy the transition back to the in-office work style. The sense that they are able to dedicate eight or nine hours a day to one aim and do so without the pulls and distractions that home life can often provide is something that they enjoy. In addition, the impromptu meetings, the hallway conversations, and the casual comments that accompany interacting with a team of co-workers only add to the enjoyment of the in-office environment.

As Steven MacDonald shared with me:

I was working from home for more than a year and recently got back into an office environment. One of the main reasons why I preferred an office environment to working from home is the fact I can be around real people and not just spend my day talking through Skype or IM. Information shared during coffee breaks or standing by the water cooler is priceless.

Working from home in short doses is great—one day per week or a few days per month, but the “glamour” of working from home wears off quickly.

Steven makes an interesting point about the “glamour” of working from home wearing off. At its core, this statement sums up how a lot of people I spoke to felt about why they would transition back to the in-office work style. Steven also identifies the feeling of dislocation that technology can produce. Yes, it’s amazing that we can have “face-to-face” meetings with people who may be thousands of miles away through technology such as Skype, but the sense of being around people is missing. Think about any meetings you have attended in an office environment. There are usually three parts to a meeting. First is the arrival, which is where people catch up, ask how your weekend was or how your recent business trip went, and maybe ask about another project you are working on together. Then there is the meeting itself, and finally there is the departure, when you perhaps walk with someone to their cube or grab a coffee on the way back to your respective desks. During this time, further conversation ensues, perhaps about the meeting or perhaps about other topics. With a videoconference, the arrival portion is usually kept fairly brief; the bulk of the time is focused on the topic of the meeting, and of course there is no departure section other than hanging up the call.

So although technology allows you to get the job done, it doesn’t allow for all those nuanced interactions we as human beings enjoy so much. Email has a tendency to be even more focused, lacking the nonverbal cues that allow us to take a conversation in different directions or to assess someone’s real reaction to information. Although instant messaging is a little more conversational, and the use of emoticons can help put a message into some type of context, it is still no real replacement for in-person communication.

Face-to-face communication is also a lot faster. Emails can be ignored, lost, or lead to endless chains. Phone or video calls are the next best thing, but as human beings, we are wired to communicate in the presence of each other, so we are able to convey a lot more information when we are with the other people we are trying to communicate with. I have had brainstorming sessions via telephone and videoconference, and although they are successful I often wonder what the outcome might have been if we had the opportunity to put that same group of people in a room together and allow the cross-conversations that often occur in a face-to-face setting that are often missing from phone and video calls. My instinct tells me that although the ultimate solution might look similar, the path that was taken to reach it might well have been quite different and produced some other interesting ideas that the phone and video calls did not.

For some, the transition back to an in-office work style is prompted by a change of life style at home. Lidia Varesco Racoma shared her story with me about the way the birth of her son changed how she worked, forcing a transition from a home-based office to renting a formal office space:

I made the switch to an office last year, after 11 years of working from home. Or should I say, I got kicked out: After my son was born, I had to relocate my home office to make space for the baby nursery.

It was quite a change, having worked from home for so long. But what I enjoy most is being able to fully focus on work, without home-based distractions (laundry, dishes, etc.). I like also like having the space to store reference and art materials required for my job as a graphic designer, as well as inventory (I launched a baby and kids apparel business earlier this year). Having an office has also provided opportunity to network with fellow small business owners (a fellow business in my office building even hired me for a project). It’s nice to be able to “unplug” when I’m at home. Though I have a laptop, there is less inclination to work when I’m at home. Of course, having a toddler running around makes that impossible anyway!

Even though Lidia continued to work for herself, she felt that the lack of room and the ability to clearly differentiate between home and work spaces helped her business. As she mentioned, having proximity to other small businesses helped her generate new business. For Lidia, the move was not only about making room for her business outside the home but also about seeing her business differently. What I found most interesting about Lidia’s story was that fact that having moved into an office she felt less tempted to work when at home and therefore her focus is on her child and home life rather than seeking to integrate the two.

Being able to turn off from work can be a very cathartic process for many people and allows them to return to their work more refreshed than when work is a constant. In much the same way as a vacation can allow you to feel re-energized, for some people, simply being able to shut the door on an office at the end of each day can lead to the same feelings, albeit on a smaller scale. This ability to leave work at “work” and switch off, or as Lidia phrased it “unplug,” is one of the advantages that recurred often in my conversations with people about why they returned to an in-office environment.

If you remember back to Chapter 1, you’ll start to see a familiar pattern forming here with the reasons why a person might want to return to an in-office environment. In fact, many of the reasons people gave for not embracing the Out of Office work style are in fact the same reasons why they returned to the in-office work style—perhaps rather unsurprisingly so.

What this really tells me is that the reasons I explored in Chapter 1 are valid as both reasons not to commit to the Out of Office work style in the first place and reasons why some people eventually transition back to the in-office work style. It also highlights that although certain people are better suited to the Out of Office work style than others, there are some who can make it work for short periods of time before they need to return to the in-office environment.

This poses an interesting option for employers. Can they devise a work style that takes advantage of both methods of working? Would it be possible from an organizational perspective to have employees who work part of the year Out of Office and part of the year in-office? For example, would parents enjoy the opportunity to work Out of Office during the summer vacation, returning to the in-office work style when school commences? Could an organization adapt to that type of flexible work force?

Could a blended work style replace the more formal vacation days? Would employees be willing to trade vacation days as they currently understand them for longer periods where they are free to work Out of Office? If vacation days were traded for the Out of Office work style, would it invite employees to view the time away from a formal office setting as their own time? The Out of Office work style poses many questions for employer and employee alike, and much depends on the willingness of both to make changes to how they perceive employment. When I think about the employment contracts I have both written and signed over my career working for organizations, a lot of the clauses reference time spent on company tasks. Certain clauses reference copyright and ownership of intellectual property; they refer to ideas and concepts that are created while on company time and engaged in company work. How relevant are these clauses to individuals who are integrating their work and home life? How does an organization clearly delineate a time when “thinking” was classified as work time if the person was working Out of Office and had the idea while walking their dog?

I’m not going to try and solve those puzzles in these pages; they are for much bigger conversations among much smarter people than me. What these questions tell me is that before we see a broader adoption of the Out of Office work style, we are going to have to see a much broader change in the way we classify, think about, and relate to work—at least certain categories of work.

For some Out of Office workers, the transition to in-office working doesn’t necessarily mean joining an organization or even renting their own office space. For some, it is the transition from working alone, perhaps at home, to working in a more communal environment. The impacts on how someone works when they transition from working alone to working in a communal space are often similar to those seen among the Out of Office worker transitioning to a formal in-office setting.

Adrienne Capollupo shared her story of moving from working at home to joining a co-working space and the impact it had on her and her business. The intriguing nature of co-working spaces is that they are neither completely Out of Office nor completely in-office, offering as they do, some of the benefits and downsides of both:

I previously worked from home, and while the benefits were great, I missed having co-workers, plus I was distracted by my children. After looking at many options for office space, I decided to join a co-working space. The concept was brand new in our town and is starting to catch on. When I joined the space, I was employed in a telecommuting role for sales and marketing at a software company. After joining the co-working space, Roanoke Business Lounge, I met small business owners and found a niche that my skill set could fill. So, I resigned from my employer and started a successful company. Making the move from working from home to co-working gave me the opportunity to launch a business while filling my need for interaction with others on a professional level.

I found Adrienne’s story interesting on a couple levels. As we have heard from several others who shared their stories about Out of Office working from home, domestic situations can become very distracting. Children can impact the effectiveness and productivity of those working from home quite suddenly. I doubt I know any parent who would rather perform work tasks over providing care and attention to their sick child. Obviously and quite rightly (in my opinion) children come first. However, the employee has to make up that workload at some point, and that can be very stressful.

What really struck me was that Adrienne initially sought an office space where she could be more effective in her role for the company that she worked for, but in solving her issues of missing the interaction with co-workers and removing the distractions of children, she discovered an opportunity to work for herself. We’ve seen how the Out of Office work style can lead to people exploring their entrepreneurial abilities in previous chapters—whether they are working from a co-working space traveling for business as a lone woman or finding it hard to locate food that fits their dietary requirements while on the road.

This ability to turn a situation of working Out of Office into a business opportunity is one example of what I am referring to when I talk about the different way in which the employees best suited to this work style think. The challenge for an organization with these types of employees is retaining them by giving them both the opportunity to utilize their creative type of thinking in their role and providing them enough challenges that they maintain an interest in continuing to work for the organization. Quite obviously in the situations I’ve already shown, that wasn’t the case, and the organizations lost out to the opportunity that the individual discovered on their own. That is not to say that these individuals would not have gone on to build their own companies anyway, but an organization that truly values these individuals makes it a much harder choice to leave.

The issue of employee retention is certainly a consideration for any organization that provides an Out of Office environment for certain employees. As I mentioned in Chapter 1, it takes a particular set of skills for an employee to be considered for this work style, and those skills are also what makes those employees both attractive to other organizations and increases the likelihood that they will have entrepreneurial thoughts and desires of their own.

With this in mind, I can understand why some organizations are reticent to introduce the Out of Office work style. Hiring, training, and equipping employees are major cost centers in any organization. Losing employees, like losing customers, involves a cost to any organization. Better to retain an employee than to have to replace them. However, with the Out of Office work style, retention has a different set of challenges. These types of employees are trusted to be able to work without constant supervision; they are relied upon to be able to produce effectively and to meet and in many cases exceed expectations. At the same time, these traits are all ones that make the employee attractive to competitors. It is much easier for an Out of Office worker to meet with a recruiter or potential new employer than it is for their in-office counterpart. It is much easier for them to hide the fact that they might in fact be looking for a new role outside the organization.

This means that anyone managing this type of worker needs to be more than just a regular manager; they need to be able to pick up on the small nuances in conversations via phone or video, to read between the lines in emails, and to assess changes that are communicated in abstract ways by Out of Office workers. The implication of this is that not only does an organization need particular skills in the employees it selects as suitable to work Out of Office, but it needs a particular skill set in the employees it selects to manage those working Out of Office.

For smaller organizations, this is a lot to ask. If your company only employs 50 people, what are the chances that you have both a group of individuals who have the skill set to work Out of Office and a second group that have the skill set to manage them?

Even in large organizations, this type of selection process will not be easy. From the examples I have seen, many organizations don’t consider this second layer and ignore the implications that they are sending some of their most skilled people out into an environment where they not only have more freedom but are being actively encouraged to explore that freedom.

The essential message here is that any organization that wants to have a successful set of Out of Office workers needs to provide a support structure that goes with that work style. In addition, the organization also needs to provide a method of successfully transitioning those workers back into the in-office work style when the time is right.

With the right leaders, it should be possible to identify the moment when an Out of Office worker is ready for that transition and work with them to create both an atmosphere where the worker feels comfortable in making the transition and an environment where that conversation can be held effectively.

The attractions of working Out of Office, which I have covered at length in previous chapters, are also listed as reasons why someone would want to return to the in-office environment. Two sides of the same coin perhaps? Where one person finds a benefit and another finds a detriment, is what we are seeing really just the personality types found in any organization? Or are we seeing a change in the way people view how they work?

I tend to think that we are seeing the latter. In other words, as we as a society evolve, these new work styles appear and are embraced as alternatives, only to be rejected by some because they don’t provide the opportunity that those early adopters thought they would. This doesn’t invalidate the work style, nor does it mean that those individuals were unsuited to the work style. Rather, I believe it indicates that the work style has not yet reached a maturation point where it is suited to as broad a range of individuals as it eventually will be.

We heard from Kim Miller in Chapter 3, “The Challenges,” when we discussed the way some organizations and individuals don’t yet regard Out of Office working as a serious option. Kim went on to share that she was moving back to an in-office environment as her business grew. Remember from Kim’s story in Chapter 3 the job applicant who brought a neighbor with them for “protection”? I’m sure that part of her experience of moving to a formal office space will be to find that applicants no longer show up with neighbors to interview with her!

...fast forward 15 months and I have just signed a lease on an office space. As wonderful as it is to wear flip flops to my desk, I have found the barking dogs and the cleaning lady’s vacuum to be too much for me to handle. Soon I will be back in more business-appropriate attire and absorbing an office expense of several thousand dollars a month. But I will have an office without an overprotective barking dog, the cleaning crew will mop when no one is working, and I will be able to walk across the street for a cup of coffee instead of reaching for my keys for a drive down the road.

As Kim shows, it isn’t just the distractions at home that can prompt people to move to an in-office environment; the success of their business and the need to hire additional workers, workers who themselves are not willing or ready to take on the Out of Office work style, can be a factor in why someone might move to an in-office environment. For some, like Kim, this was an acceptable trade; for others it can be seen as part of the cost of success.

I think it is important to note here that transitioning back to in-office is not a sign that you have failed at working Out of Office. There are a number of reasons why someone might choose to make that transition. It is equally important to note that the transition to an in-office environment doesn’t necessarily mean someone is giving up their own business to work for someone else. As we have seen from Kim’s story, her transition was part of growing her business.

Sheila Kale shared an interesting set of thoughts about the separation of work and home life. For her, the enjoyment of working in an office comes from the fact that she feels empowered to enjoy her time away from the office. For Sheila, there were definite advantages to working in a more formal in-office environment:

An office separates work time from family and leisure time. I found gardening, cooking, and cleaning easily distracted me. Having an office helped me set boundaries. An office helps define work time for friends and family. When you work from home, people tend to think you are always available. An office is a statement that I am serious about my new career. I enjoy unshared space designed just to create and to connect with my clients. I love the freedom of knowing I have given my time to work I love, now I have time for fun, family, community, and hobbies.

For two years I worked at home as I developed a coaching business. Something always grabbed my attention away from the work I was doing. Since I had so many distractions, I tried to make up the time by using my evenings. There were no boundaries. Having a dedicated space to work gave me freedom to enjoy time away from work.

This theme of separating work and home continues to return to the conversations I have with individuals and organizations about how the Out of Office work style might or might not be implemented for them. As I discussed in Chapter 8, “Work/Life Integration,” I believe that integration is the key—rather than trying to balance the two. I think that for as long as people try to achieve a balance between the two elements of their lives, they will struggle and eventually find ways in which to build clear boundaries between them.

I find this disheartening, especially for those who work for themselves. If any group of individuals should display an enjoyment and passion for what they do to generate income, it should be those who work for themselves, who are expressing their own entrepreneurial spirit. But if those individuals find themselves having to build boundaries between work and life, I really think they are viewing these two elements incorrectly. I also see it as part of the path back to the in-office environment, which for many means either sacrificing the freedom that they thought they were going to gain by working for themselves or sacrificing what they were working for in order to return to a larger organization.

Either way, I believe in that situation that they have lost. That is not to say I believe that working in an office environment is a negative experience or that only those who have given up on bigger dreams do so. Lots of individuals who have extremely successful careers enjoy the in-office environment immensely. The sense of group, of team, of being able to mentor and to learn from those around them—these are all important factors for these particular individuals and for many like them.

I do believe that for as long as we continue to try to see work and life as two separate elements of our existence, we will continue to see people dip in and out of the Out of Office work style. Perhaps our struggle to balance the two says more about our view of how work defines who we are as individuals than it does about how we want to work. Think about the last social gathering you were at; think about those opening moments when you met someone new for the first time. What were the first few questions you asked them and they in turn asked you? I would wager that “What do you do?” was among them.

“What do you do?” is such an innocuous phrase and is actually without meaning if taken as just a question. But we immediately interpret it as “What do you do to earn money?,” “What do you do to contribute to society?,” or “What do you to validate who you are?.”

All those implied questions sitting among those four words. In fact, we are often asked what we do for work before we are asked about our other activities. It helps us define who we are talking to, how we compare to that other person, and whether we perceive ourselves as more or less successful as they are. I’ve noticed an interesting reaction when I respond to that question with something vague like “I’m in marketing.” The follow up is “Where do you work?” The implication is, “Do you work for an organization?” When I respond, “I work from home,” there is an immediate reaction—sometimes positive, sometimes negative.

The reaction is very similar to the reaction I used to get when I told people I was a vegetarian. Some wanted to challenge the validity of that choice; others wanted to apologize for their own meat-eating preferences. So it goes with the conversation about working the Out of Office work style. Some will ask how on earth you get anything done; others will confirm that it is something they have always wanted to try but aren’t sure they are the right “type.”

If you are currently working the Out of Office work style, take the self-assessment at the end of Chapter 1 and see if you are still most likely to be suited to the work style now that you have been doing it for a while. If you aren’t, then perhaps it’s time for you to return to an in-office environment or perhaps it’s time for you to assess how you are integrating work and life.

I think that many of the people I spoke to while writing this book who moved back to the in-office setting did so, in part at least, because they grew tired of trying to balance work and life. I’m really not surprised at this; it is an exhausting activity, which is why I am such a proponent of integration rather than balance.

If you are considering moving back to the in-office environment, I’d encourage you to reread Chapter 8 and take a look at how successful you have been so far at moving toward an integrated lifestyle before making that decision. Of course, if the decision is based less on not being able to balance work and life and is more about an opportunity, that won’t be as relevant. Still, even for those working solely from an in-office environment I think the exercise of finding ways to integrate the two elements has a positive effect.

All of us are becoming more connected, more integrated into a whole lifestyle where work and leisure blur. Accepting that balance is no longer really achievable, but integration can reduce stress and help lessen guilt about not having balanced work and life at the end of each week.

Planning for the next way of working (which is for many already here) allows an individual to acquire new skills and retain relevance in the workplace. I have encountered individuals who are extremely resistant to the new work style. They refuse to take home laptops or other devices from the office in the evenings or during weekends and are therefore incommunicado. Although these individuals feel that they are making a statement about what they perceive as their “free time,” the statement they are really making is that they are unwilling to blend work and leisure and that they want a clearly black-and-white world. In a world that is increasingly lived in shades of gray, is that really the message you want to send?