May this Case Study of WFH Be Ever In Your Favor

It’s amazing how swiftly our approach to culture can change when our lives depend on it. In a matter of weeks, we’ve been forced to re-examine what “work” and “productivity” actually looks like and adjust accordingly. In fact, this emergency policy change for large corporations to move within a day’s notice to a global work from home policy shows something about what our work culture really could look like, if there was enough progressive influence within our corporate structures.

I can’t tell you how many debates I’ve engaged in about the lack of utility in mandating in-office work hours, and the ridiculousness of encouraging an 8 or 9am start time for work, in situations where employees can’t physically start their work with clients or partners until hours later. Or how about that one argument about the inefficiencies of meetings about meetings or meetings that could have been emails or chats.

For many years, managers and leaders have argued that this rigid approach to work ensures productivity. All of this without accounting for life and how sometimes this life we live isn’t conducive to unnecessary prioritization of time and power. Well I hope they have a plan for productivity now, because all that is out the window for the many people who are new to the WFH culture. 

What was once seen as a luxury afforded to some, and a nuisance for those who prefer to micromanage others, has become mandatory for business survival, and to preserve the health and sustainability of resources— AKA the people. I’m here for this. THIS moment in time, will be the case study for work culture in the future and I can tell you why.

I often tell a story of a D&I event I attended that was largely comprised of highly influential c-suite executives, who were mostly white and an impressive number of them men. During the conversation, none of the men spoke up to participate in the discussion on race and culture, which to me defeated the entire purpose of their exclusive invite to this event. At the end of the event I called out that this is the forum where we need more white men in power to contribute to these conversations, as their silence was perceived as indifference. In private, one man pulled me to the side to confide that his experiences with policy changes on behalf of race and gender take a long time and are difficult to push through, which long story short is due to politics.

While I know he meant well, I left my conversation with him even more frustrated. Because while I understood what he was saying, I also knew deep in my spirit that none of these politics mattered when people of influence REALLY wanted or needed to make shit happen. So here we are nearly a year later and it looks like The Corona, is out here showing me what my gut was telling me— In times of necessity, people with influence can make even the most unorthodox changes to policy, even when time isn’t on their side. 

What I know to be true now, is that some of these new policies in discussion to make workplace cultures more inclusive, CAN be pushed into effect if stakeholders actually WANTED them to do so. And the current bottle neck status of these policies, whether due to race, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc… is clearly due to a lack of intention and care. 

To leaders across Advertising and other industries, be clear. History and tradition are no longer on your side. This new unveiling of indefinite global Work From Home policies, will be the new benchmark for which your employees will gauge what you CAN and CAN NOT do, and they will perceive your efforts moving forward as a direct answer to what you WILL and WILL NOT do, for their sustainability. Think critically, because they are watching you closely.

May this case study of WFH be ever in your favor…