Back to office? A challenge or breeze?

 

Mary sat sipping coffee in the bistro chatting with her colleagues. One of them was describing her challenges around returning to the office and the others were listening intently.

“I don’t think I can go back to office to work. I am searching for a new job that suits my requirements. I see challenges managing my home and work front. Besides, I am not sure why are we being called to the office? Our team has been excelling in the work even as we work from home”  - a colleague

“Yes, me too. The work-life balance has been redesigned to suit this new reality; I am enjoying my motherhood as well as being a professional at work. I think the culture of the organization matters. It’s important to discover if it’s a command-and-control type or it is de-centralised and manages more by outcomes. It also depends on your rapport with your manager and how flexible he/she is to your requests”  - another colleague quipped

“I think the pandemic accelerated the adoption of an adaptive model of work leveraging the  benefits of using technology. Companies took advantage of it to diversify its workforce, acquire new businesses, learn new technologies, and gain agility for moving their specific business units across the globe. Isn’t that cool?” – the discussion was getting interesting

“Yes, of course! There is a lot that we all have gained. For me, personally, reduction in travel made a lot sense. I am not a travel enthusiast but had always felt a lot of travel was unnecessary and detrimental to the environment in the long run. But, on a flip side, when some units just cannot have a work from home (eg healthcare workforce), I also see issues such as disparity in compensation, career progression, preference of careers etc. This can cause a dissatisfaction. Technology to monitor employee behavior may seem like micromanagement causing employee dissatisfaction. And last but not the least, I think I will miss the team bonding that happened over coffee and in corridors”.

“Oh yes, there are numerous challenges that will hound us. But I think the benefits of a new hybrid model of work will prevail over the disadvantages”

Mary was silently listening to her colleagues as they battled over these contemporary topics.

“I agree with you all. In all this maze of benefits and challenges, what I think is important is being ethical in your work. Ethical values are key to sustainability and success and in the long term, where businesses and organizations will thrive in the new model of work, it’s only the ethical principles that will help drive positive outcomes. Didn’t we experience this the last couple of years? While we saw our near and dear ones grappling with unprecedented situations, organizations across the globe, their own ways, supported them to the best of their abilities. The empathy was evident from their support.

The organizations, no doubt had multiple challenges and I found PMI Ethics resources are a good reference.  When faced with ethical challenges at work, I would refer to PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct to support in decision making.

Hey, at the end of the day, it’s happiness that matters; isn’t it?- Mary concluded

The group fell silent as Mary’s comments on ethical values were echoing in their minds.

Do they resonate with you too? Would like to hear from you.

References

https://www.pmi.org/about/ethics/resources/toolkit

https://www.pmi.org/ethics

https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussion-topic/179887/return-to-working-from-office-after-pandemic----redesigning-working-model-