The year 2020 has taught the world lessons beyond imagining: Empathy, Connection, Change, and Adaptability. How will we grow to learn from these hard lessons? What is the future of the architectural firm, the AEC industry, and firm policies?
The pandemic gave firms a strong push into virtual work, whereas without it many would discuss the possibilities, test it for a few years, and then slowly integrate into their practice. From one big push into everyone working from home, firms had to learn how to be able to work remotely, stay connected, and still provide our clients with great work. We have proven that architects can still do great work while working from home. Yes, we miss the interaction, in-person collaboration, informal discussions, and so on. But what is your firm going to take into the future? What are new benefits and policies that can be implemented for morale, productivity, and equality?
The biggest factor for regarding such any changes is TRUST.
“Trust is choosing to make something important to you vulnerable to the actions of someone else. Distrust is what I have shared with – that is important to me – is not safe with you” – Charles Feltman.
When mandates were issues requiring staff to work from home was there trust, readiness, and willingness to learn from the change? Or was there distrust, anxiousness, and quick to want to have everyone back in the office? Change from the cultural norm of having everyone in a traditional office is not easy. If there is a lack of trust within the company and project teams, this transition is even harder. A building is designed and created by a team. The team needs to be accountable, reliable, and trustworthy through the process.
Anatomy of Trust – Brene Brown
Benefits of Working from Home Policies
Reduced Real Estate
If each person is not required a dedicated workstation and a flexible agile seating can be accomplished. The number of seats or area needed for workstations is less than if everyone was working in the office. This means less area needed to rent/lease reducing the company’s expenses. Or possibly increasing the amount of collaboration spaces that were once workstations.
Expanding the talent poll.
By allowing remote work you could expand where your talent is coming from. Some may not want to move to your particular location but wouldn’t mind traveling once a month to be in the office. Some may not have the ability to afford traveling to the office daily or want to spend a long length of time commuting daily (car, gas, parking, time, public transit costs, etc). For the profession, the options are endless. You are not limited by the firms that are in your area, and firms are not limited to the talent living in their area.
Expand diversity and inclusion.
This can allow for a more diverse group of workers. Working parents for example who need to pick up kids from daycare may not have the time to fit everything in a day: drop off kids, work 8 hours, have a 1 hour lunch, commute to and from work, and get back to pick up the kids by the daycares designated pick up time. Parents who are struggling to afford daycare 5 days a week may no longer need to or can save money on gas/parking/transportation by being able to work from home. From the Pittsburgh Equity in Architecture Survey, annual daycare costs are on average 20% of someone’s salary for those with 3-10 years of experience.
A 2015 study found that, six months after childbirth, women who worked from home experienced a statistically significant decrease in their levels of depression, compared with women who’d gone back into the office. (link to Atlantic article) Most maternity leave was 12 weeks long, per the Pittsburgh Equity Survey. Or there could be someone that is a great fit for your firm but is not willing/able to move to your particular city or have a longer commute. Being able to offer remote working policies can help to attract top talent.
Is your firm looking to expand beyond your region? Typically, expansion has been addressed by opening an office in a new location, acquiring another firm, or having a local firm to partner with on a project. What if you hired remote worker(s) from those new market areas? They can be the “boots on the ground” for that local work and can help support your team on other projects while business development works to pursue projects. This can save your client on expenses on flying/driving out to the new market area for every meeting, and/or your company overall on expenses such as real estate.
“When you limit hiring to people who live in a small number of big cities, or who are willing to move there, that cuts out a lot of people who live in different communities, have different backgrounds, have different perspectives,” Zuckerberg said on a livestream posted to his Facebook page.
Work from home policies reducing stress on PTO.
Offering flexibility of working from home or adjusting someone’s standard workday hours can be enough to help your staff. If someone needs to be able to get their child off the bus that may mean working 6-7 hours in the office, and 1-2 hours from home per day. The ability to work from home as needed helps if something breaks at home and someone needs to stop by during the day to fix it, or packages that require signatures are being delivered – or for any other reason that someone may need to be at home but could easily still work a full workday virtually. That way staff can work from home rather than wasting a PTO day. PTO can be saved for time to recharge and enjoy life, which leads to a happier more productive worker for you.
Consider policies that exist for some firms already such as work from home Fridays. It is a weekly morale booster and a way to provide a benefit that many firms do not currently offer. If you choose not to work from home on those Fridays, that could mean a quieter office where you can focus with fewer distractions and interruptions.
Sick policies.
Those currently back in the office during the pandemic now typically have policies if you are feeling sick or have Covid-like symptoms you need to stay home or quarantine for 2 weeks. What would happen if we acted this way with the flu? We are all aware of when “something is going around the office” and it is just a matter of time before half the office feels under the weather.
But having to use very limited PTO because I was coughing up a lung in the office was never a good enough excuse for me to use PTO when I was perfectly capable of working. If your firm allowed and encouraged people to work from home when they did not feel well what would happen? Less staff could get sick. That person could get more sleep from not needing to commute to the office. They could even get better faster from less stress, more sleep, lunchtime nap, and home/pharmacy amenities nearby.
If someone is truly not able to work, then yes use sick time or PTO to take a whole day off. But for many, the constant coughing or runny nose does not mean they can’t work, and they don’t want to get behind on their work.
Heads down work becomes simpler.
How often have you been trying to complete an important proposal, get through tasks to meet a deadline, do a quality control review of a large set of drawings, or need some solid time to focus on complicated detailed submittals? In the office environment, how often are you interrupted with questions? Since working from home how often are you interrupted by coworkers? In Microsoft Teams you can put up “do not disturb” to show you are busy and with a virtual environment staff can easily see that status. In an office environment staff just see you at your desk as usual. (Granted we understand many have families also at home during the Pandemic. The example questions are based if children are back to school or daycare.)
Challenges of Working from Home
Firm culture is more complicated.
Having a more agile approach with balancing in-person and virtual workforce adds additional new layers to the firm’s dynamics. If COVID-19 didn’t happen many firms would have researched for years on ways to have more remote employees and test out how to collaborate on design virtually, but the pandemic required firms to learn by doing. It has given firms the opportunity to learn and practice leveraging technology to be able to collaborate differently. But it is definitely different than stumbling across coworkers sketching at the break room table or walking past a sketch on the wall.
Mentoring young professionals can be harder virtually.
There is still a steep learning curve for those that have recently graduated from professional programs. For many reasons it may be better to advise young professionals to be in the office daily. There is an infinite amount of lessons learned and knowledge shared by simply sitting next to another employee with more experience. This type of learning is difficult when everyone is virtual and is still better suited for being in-person. However, flexibility to be able to work from home if sick without judgement could achieve the balancing a priority of office learning and empathy when feeling under the weather.
Allowing for more agile seating in the office from not everyone being in the office daily can expand learning and growth. Young professionals can sit near different senior staff, or even sit with their project teams when working for a deadline. Project teams can work faster by just turning around to discuss. By sitting near a variety of professionals can help expand someone’s network, learn what is happening on other projects, and feel more engaged with the firm. If there were permanent seats for all staff, AND allowed people to work from home most of the time it may lead to some professionals feeling isolated without someone nearby to communicate with and less engaged if that professional doesn’t have a very outgoing personality.
This means having TRUST in your employees.
Leaders from many different industries highly value seeing their employees in their seats and seeing that they are working. A virtual work environment means you do not see that and don’t receive that instant acknowledgement. Allowing virtual means you trust your employees to meet the goals and deadlines of the firm and projects. This type of change can be very overwhelming as it’s a big cultural shift. If there is someone you cannot trust to work from home and still meet deadlines or objectives, do you need to penalize the whole firm? Building trust can be a daunting task, but how has it gone during the pandemic. Who from your firm has exceeded your expectations during 2020?
Blend of labor and family life is blurred.
Working from home can make it difficult to step away at the end of the day and there is no commute to decompress and transition between these two parts of life. Anecdotal evidence indicates that people working remotely are currently working longer days. It can be a challenge for some to have that same transition feeling of commuting and know when to turn off the computer for the evening.
From experience, it has been nice to be able to take a quick break to feed the dogs dinner then jump back online to finish a task that added an hour to my workday. Before Covid, I would either be rushed to finish the task as soon as possible, dogs get fed really late, possibly have more traffic on the commute home, or need to find the motivation to sign back into work after going through the transition phase of commuting home. Overall leading to less stress working towards a deadline and allowing for more time to review my work before submitting reducing errors.
Everything circles back to trust. Trusting your firm leadership, coworkers, project team, and most importantly yourself. When there is trust the possibilities for changing and adapting to a new future of the office/work are endless. When there is distrust it leads to limiting yourself for how you can adapt, looking only to return to how things were, and choosing not to learn from this experience.
Written by
Katelyn Rossier, AIA, LSSBB
Resources:
The Atlantic : Work From Home Here to Stay
Small Business Trends: 67% of Companies Expect Work From Home to Be Permanent or Long-Lasting
NPR: Get A Comfortable Chair: Permanent Work From Home Is Coming
CNN Business: These companies plan to make working from home the new normal. As in forever
Fast Company: Here’s an ever-growing list of companies that will let people work from home forever