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Ok, people. We need to talk. It's been a month and I've heard some execs talk about "Now that things have settled and this is the NN*, we can talk about getting back to work."
Gather round, because we need to talk.
(*NN = New Normal, a term added to our Banned Words List) 1/11 https://twitter.com/spydergrrl/status/1240372597306556427
Gather round, because we need to talk.
(*NN = New Normal, a term added to our Banned Words List) 1/11 https://twitter.com/spydergrrl/status/1240372597306556427
Let me tell you what I've seen in the past 4 weeks as my team runs emergency ops and still try to do projects. I'll make it simple:
1. We are still in an emergency.
2. People are not "ready to get back to work".
3. You aren't paying attention if you think they are. 2/11
1. We are still in an emergency.
2. People are not "ready to get back to work".
3. You aren't paying attention if you think they are. 2/11
I let my team spend the first week getting used to working from home full-time, getting set up with their tech and workspaces and having them figure out what they could get done. 3/11
The second week, they tried to work as normal and many realised that they were really stressed out about all sorts of things: kids, extended family, the future, the present. All of it. We trudged through but it was hard. 4/11
The third week, they were enthusiastic about getting into some bigger long term work, so we discussed projects they could pick up and how they could task switch to balance their creative and productive brains. And you know what happened? Not one of them was ready for it. 5/11
Deadlines were missed. Some people were completely unproductive. Stuff took 5x longer than it should.
They didn't realise how they were really feeling and they didn't all tell me because they wanted to deliver or they didn't realise it. It definitely wasn't normal. 6/11
They didn't realise how they were really feeling and they didn't all tell me because they wanted to deliver or they didn't realise it. It definitely wasn't normal. 6/11
So this week, we had some honest chats. They are not ready to go back to working like normal. And as much as I don't want to micromanage, I've realised I need to dole out very specific tasks with short deadlines because that's mostly what they can handle right now. 7/11
And I've come to realize that this is *not* micromanaging. It's managing in a crisis.
My team is lovely and brilliant. They want to help. They love to work on tasks that contribute. It makes them feel better despite everything that is going on. I love them so much. 8/11
My team is lovely and brilliant. They want to help. They love to work on tasks that contribute. It makes them feel better despite everything that is going on. I love them so much. 8/11
They are facing all sorts of different types of anxiety: dealing with kids trying to learn from home, sick family members, death in the family, isolation. So, as keen as they are to help, and as hard as they try to work, they need smaller chunks of work that they can finish. 9/11
If you think that after 4 weeks of working from home that people should be ready to get back to working as usual, I challenge you to really talk to your people and to listen. They might not be ready yet. Especially as we are hearing that this might continue all year. 10/11
The crisis is not over and you can't manage as if it is. This is not normal. This is not working from home. This is an emergency and we are still at the beginning of it. This is not business as usual and it's unfair to your staff to treat it as such. 11/11 <end>
