I really enjoy working from home. I work on-site the majority of the time, but I usually take 2-3 days a month to work from home. We have a few employees who exclusively work from home, but the majority are on-site like myself, and work from home when they aren’t feeling well or there’s something during the work day that requires them to be at home.
There’s a bit of a generational difference within our ownership with the general attitude around working from home. Despite being united on the front that we emphasize results rather than dictating one prescribed process for reaching said results, there is a pervasive attitude that WFH is “not really working.” As someone who works from home, albeit infrequently, I know for a fact that WFH actually results in a more focused, less distracted environment, and I tend to work earlier and later than a typical work day. Sure, I do some loads of laundry, but generally productivity is higher because of one key difference: I don’t get interrupted as much.
While I use the reduction of interruptions to work on large projects that require more focus than working on-site provides, I can see that there’s a downside as well. Interruptions have a negative connotation – I’m in the middle of doing my “work”, and someone interrupts that “work”, either with a call, an email, or more likely, by walking into my office. When I work from home, there are no walk-in interruptions (unless you count my dogs), internal pages/calls are all but eliminated, and it becomes very easy to manage client calls. In my mind, interruptions = stress, so working from home is less stressful.
Interruptions can go by another name: engagement. Engagement is a critical element to how my companies are successful. The mix in-office between experienced and inexperienced, different departments, and multiple levels of management allow my companies to be agile and adapt to new situations and processes quickly and efficiently by collaborating and engaging with each other. If my teams worked entirely remotely, I know we could not operate in the same manner. Redundancies and double checks would have to be implemented to ensure that any errors are being caught, especially with newer employees. I would anticipate that less questions would be asked, more decisions would be made based on prior situations rather than evaluating the new situation on its merits.
These are all generalizations – there are, of course, employees who are incredibly efficient working from home and require no monitoring, know what they don’t know, ask for clarification when necessary, and manage their workload independently. And my companies are small, so any bumps in the process are felt more keenly than within larger organizations.
A lot of my friends who are not in the title insurance industry work exclusively from home, mostly for large organizations. When asked about their jobs, and if they enjoy what they’re doing, the majority respond, “eh”. It’s a very take-it-or-leave-it attitude. They get their work done, enjoy the perks of working from home, but there isn’t really a buy-in for the organization that employs them. They don’t have company outings, they don’t meet with their teams in-person, they don’t do happy hours with their work besties. There’s no passion for what they do and I’m guessing that’s because they have nothing that provides them with validation that what they’re doing matters. This makes it very easy to isolate your individual job from the company, switch companies just for better pay, and doesn’t encourage company loyalty.
I know my day-to-day is pretty different from my friends, so I don’t expect them to have the same sleepless nights due to staffing problems or how to pivot your organization in response to a shrinking market. But I also didn’t expect them not to have a similar passion or drive for their careers, as these are highly motivated people who have successful careers.
Is disengagement the real problem with working from home? Not the myth that working from home isn’t as productive or more distracting. But that exclusively working from home disengages the employee from the organization. The separation between the day-to-day job duties and the organization’s mission is like oil and water – they don’t naturally mix together. Engagement is shaking that bottle so that, even just for a short time, the two are mixed. Employees need to be reminded frequently of how their work positively impacts the organization, answering the question, “what’s the point of all this?” I am the first to admit I don’t know the challenges of engaging a large organization, nor am I an expert at engaging my current organizations. But I am very sensitive to the individuals that make up my team, and I can tell when they aren’t engaged with the organization. It’s not a matter of being social with each other, it’s collaborating to increase each other’s breadth of knowledge while simultaneously improving the process and product for the company.
We aren’t likely to ever return to the pre-COVID in-office percentage of workers, nor am I an advocate of doing so. Working from home has provided so many people with more opportunities – from where to live, to how much they can earn, to what type of companies they can work for, and many more. But just like working in-office has its pros and cons, so does working from home. As a business owner or leader, it’s important to evaluate those pros and cons, including the intangibles. Engagement becomes absolutely critical as organizations expand or contract. We’re no longer in a crisis mode, doing whatever it takes to keep operations steady, putting out one fire after another.
It’s a good time to focus on engaging your team so that they know they’re an important and crucial cog in the machine, effecting and relating to each interlocked piece, churning out the final product.
Here are some ways I’ve worked on engagement with my own teams:
- FOOD. Everyone loves food. But it’s more than just buying lunch – it’s encouraging everyone to eat together by setting it up in a conference room. Sure, there will be people that opt out because they’re too busy or they just don’t want to, and that’s fine. But sharing a meal together makes it impossible for team members to isolate or ignore each other. Bring back that water cooler talk! It connects us together, whether it’s bonding over the terrible refs calling the Lions game or excitement over a new addition to your family. And if your team works from home – make time for a dinner. Plan in advance, try to get as many attendees, make it in a central location (or at your physical office if you still have one), and of course, pick up the bill.
- Connect your beginning-of-the-process team members to your end-of-the-process team members. I know it’s not applicable to every business, but definitely in the title industry, there’s excitement and enthusiasm at the end of the process – the closing date. Clients are happy, money is exchanged, and the transaction was successful. The beginning-of-the-process team members like order intake or examiners don’t get to experience that same feeling of accomplishment. Making sure to tie in all team members involved in a file when providing congratulations or a job well done goes a long way to making those beginning-of-the-process team members be engaged, as well as reminding the end-of-the-process team members that it was a collaborative effort.
- Take time out of your day to have a normal, non-task-related conversation with your team members individually. You don’t have to compromise any professional boundaries or delve into personal business. But generalizations like “How was your New Years?” are much less intrusive than “What did you do for New Years?” Sharing a bit about yourself (think, more water cooler talk) promotes trust. But most importantly, asking the team member how you can support them better, or if there are any resources you can provide to support them, will show that you’re engaged, and you’re inviting them to engage as well. Some other questions I like to ask, “What are some challenges that you’re facing that I can maybe help you with?” “What’s something that might seem small that I can resolve for you today to make your life easier?” “Is there something you’d like to learn about the company or a process that’s outside of your daily job?”
