Women at Work - Going Back to the Office

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

As offices — including HBR’s — carefully reopen after being closed for months because of the pandemic, we describe what it’s like there and discuss the risks and rewards of being back in person.

Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash womenatwork. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Emily Caulfield. I'm Amy Gallo. And I'm Amy Bernstein. Little by little, offices that have been closed for months because of the pandemic are finally reopening. And some employees who've been working from home are now putting on their face masks and heading in to test out their company's reentry plans.

What will this next phase of work life mean for women's careers? How well do hybrid teams include people doing their jobs remotely? Will the more even division of housework and child care that many couples achieved while working from home last? And what about women who aren't able to return to an office? These are questions that we'll continue to pay attention to and try to answer. And when findings from research studies on these issues start coming in, we'll share them with you so that we can all understand the big picture. But for now, we're going to start small and hear from women who have been back to their

offices, like me and Amy B. Then I'll speak with a colleague of ours who, like me, hasn't gone back. She and I talk about what it's like to know that your co-workers and friends are at work without you. But first, a few voicemail messages from listeners. My name is Karen. I'm an HR director in Nashville, and I've been back in the office for a couple of months now. And it's been really amazing just to see people in person, just to see their faces. And just to see how they're actually doing has been so amazing. And you don't really realize how much you miss it until you get it back. Hi, HBR. This is Becky Glead. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.

It's invigorating being back here. Every Friday, I greet reception, say happy Friday, TGIF, which gives a great sense of normalcy that the weekend is on the horizon. Something else I'm really liking being back in the office is being able to close my computer at the end of every day and know that I'm leaving work at work and going home to my kids. My name is Kirstie. I'm a marketing manager at an asset management firm. As hard as it was, I got really used to spending a lot of time with my girls. And now I have limited time and it makes me miss the little moments with them that I got for a couple months.

It's also now easy being back in the office to let your guard down and forget that there still is a pandemic going on. You know, you get used to thinking to yourself, oh, I see the same people every day. It should be fine. But as our office just recently saw, somebody tested positive. I had to quarantine because I had had a meeting with that person. I had to pull my kids out of daycare because I can't send them in the event that I was exposed. It ended up, for our situation this time, working out fine.

I tested negative. Thankfully, we were both wearing masks. I can send my kids to daycare again, but now my work is remote for a short period of time while they clean the office and everything. So I dislike being back in the office is waiting for it all to fall apart again. I don't know how many times

we'll go through something like this where it's back to work and then a month later we shut down again. My name is Jessica D. I am a construction project manager. I'm back in the office two to three days a week. What I really like about being back at work is the ability to be out of the house where I'm in an office and I can just care about work and not care about like the laundry. Also, I have an office with a door and I can close it and work uninterrupted.

I get to drink hot coffee by myself. I get to see people other than my husband and kids. And I also felt like the first time that I left that I was being released from this horrible feminist dystopian novel. I feel like I have my freedom back and it's wonderful. My name is Karina. I'm a construction project scheduler and I've been back at the office and on site from about June. It's been really difficult to gauge people on their comfort level, trying to give people their space, try to make sure people respect my space. Yeah, and then just the stress of bringing it home to my family whenever the few chances I get to see my parents. And, you know, I worry about getting them sick. So it's a lot of added

stress, but it is what it is at this point. Those messages came in shortly before Amy B and I had our first day back at the office. And listening to the messages made me realize that this is a time of mixed emotions for many people. Totally, Emily. Thank you to all the women who called and contributed. That first day back, our producer Amanda set up three microphones in a spacious area so that Maureen Hoke could join us. Maureen's the editor of hbr.org and the supervising editor of this show. She's leading a team that's mostly working from home

with some people going into the office one day a week. All right, here we are. Here we are. We are here. Yes, Emily and Maureen and Amanda and I are all Tuesday people. And what that means is that we are allowed to come back to our office on Tuesdays and only on Tuesdays. So we're all together for the first time since March.

Right? That's right. That's right. Looking at each other. Looking at each other in the eyes. Just the eyes. Just the eyes. Only the eyes. Just the eyes. Just the eyes. Only the eyes. In a virtually empty office

with the loudest HVAC system I have ever heard. So re-entry, how's it feeling? We're like six hours into our re-entry. I'm sort of feeling like it's a little sad. Yeah. It's a little sad to not have other people here. And I'm also looking at all of you and I'm so happy to see your faces, but I can only see your eyes and I'm never sure if you're smiling at me or. I'm grinning at you. Oh, yay. Now I can see it. It's nice to have a change of scenery, I would say, today to venture outside of the house a little bit. What about you guys?

Feels pretty weird to me. You know, I was also this is my first time back in the office since March. It sort of felt like walking into a time capsule, like everything was still on my desk, like just so I found out I did not leave any food in my drawers which I was very excited about and I am so grateful for the feeling of normalcy that I feel being here it also feels nerve-wracking and strange and weird to be here without many other people right With lots and lots of new rules. That's right. Like, okay, there are green circles on the floor with arrows. Yeah. So, so, Fessup, have you, have you adhered to the arrows? I have already gone against the arrows. But in my defense, there was no one around. So I kind of felt like I could just run and do it really fast.

Okay. You don't have to be in COVID prison alone. I violated the rules, but there was no one here. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. That's what's hard. Yeah.

Yeah. It's all for the best reasons. But if there are going to be three of us here on any given Tuesday, on the other hand, I have to be honest with you. I'm not sure I really want to come back. Yeah. It does start to feel like a lot of effort to do the things that I could be doing from home, you know? And somehow I got it in my head that if I were sitting here in the office, I could meet with more people and it would be easier to go from one meeting to another. And the part that turns out to be

completely idiotic is that I'm still in WebEx all day long. And it really doesn't matter where I am physically. I mean, I find myself just like questioning my every move, though, like I went to take the elevator, and we're only supposed to have two people in the elevator, and the elevator doors open, and someone else was in there. And I was like, do I get in? Do I? OK, face the wall. I mean, but it's like, you know, you don't have to think about all those things when you're at home.

I mean, like being here and wanting to be safe and follow all the directives. It's like it's this whole other level of organization and decision making that you have to employ. I felt totally uncoordinated coming in today. Like, I just didn't have it together. I didn't have all my stuff. I kept, like, starting to leave the house and then I had to backtrack and get my ID

and backtrack and get my lunch. And it's thinking on a totally new level now at work. It's a little bit of... A lot of logistics. Exactly. Plus masks. And masks. And masks.

What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. Hey, listeners, if you want to hear from more leaders to help you answer questions like,

should I talk about my anxiety at work? Or how do I claim my leadership power? Then you should listen to TED Business, hosted by Columbia Business School professor Madhupe Akinnola. The show features TED Talks about everything from setting smart goals to the latest on DEI in business, followed up with a mini lesson from Madhupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. So we asked our listeners what their reentry experiences have been like, and we got a lot of responses.

So Emily, what resonated for you? I really liked hearing from Jessica, who was a construction project manager. She talked about being able to be at work and focus on work and then going home and being able to focus on home responsibilities. And I think that that's really important to kind of separate those two areas. I think I have a more difficult time not letting the mess of the house or not letting those things kind of bother me throughout the day. Even today, I think coming into the office, I kind of was dreading the commute.

I drove in today, so it was pretty easy. But I think having that time in between being at home and being at work was so nice. Just having a few minutes where I could like, I was talking to myself in the car, I was listening to the radio. And it just felt like this middle space in between these two areas, which was great for me to have. Instead of just rolling out of my bed and jumping onto my computer, It was good to have that separation for me. What about you, Maureen? What resonated with you? Yeah, I think Chrissy, who is a marketing manager,

talked about, you know, she had gotten used to spending time with her kids at home, which is, of course, just so complicated for all parents out there. But it's funny, even being here today, I am so used to being home with my daughter that I'm like, well, what's she doing? Like, what's going on? What did she have for lunch? You know, I mean, I didn't have lunch with my daughter every day prior to this, you know, and I don't now. But you know, we usually, you know, have moments where we check in. So it's like, as much as I am so excited to be away from a lot of the things that I have to do at home, you start to form new habits. And now we're trying to form them again. I think I really related to what

Christy said about just how everything feels so fragile in that, like, if I'm exposed to one person who's sick, then that affects my whole family. You know, like, and then suddenly everything that we've set up for my daughter, like going to school or whatever, suddenly that all goes off the rails. So it's like everything just feels like it's constantly like you're just on this very thin ice of like, could something go wrong? It's all a delicate balance. Right. So what do you guys feel like you're either gaining by being in the office or what do you feel like you have to give up in exchange for being here again? So obviously it's

nice to be able to see all of you in person. And I was able to have a socially distanced meeting. So I do feel like that is exciting and I could see it kind of reigniting some motivation and work. So on the gain side, that seems good. But again, on the giving up side, it is. It's just like all of the hurdles that you have to jump through. And this isn't really giving up, but it's like even walking around the office and we have a lot of small phone rooms like that are closed. A lot of the things are sort of shut down if they're not safe. And that feels very weird. And like, does that actually help me do my job better?

I'm not sure yet. I don't know yet. What about you guys? I think now that we're beginning to come back into work and things sort of feel like they're starting to move into the direction of going back to normal life. I am wondering if like I squandered this time, this unique time that we had. I know that that sounds horrible and we shouldn't be putting so much pressure on ourselves right now. But I'm concerned that I should have been spending the time differently. Did I make enough sourdough loaves? Did I work out enough?

Right. Did I work out my morning routine well? And I don't feel like I've done any of those things enough during this time. So I think I kind of want to gain that time back in a way. I'm going to miss the opportunity and the good things that I think have come from it as we transition back into what life used to be if we get there. What about you, Amy? Well, you know, I was excited to come in. I was excited to see all of you guys. I was really excited to be back here. I like our office. I like coming to an office. And then, you know, the reality of it sort of hit me square between the eyes. The rooms we are not allowed to enter.

You're only allowed to walk in certain directions. And there are, you know, five people here on this very large floor. Yeah. I miss Nan. You know, we have been, my partner and I have been together in that house since March every single day. I miss seeing her. I miss that, you know, those, I don't even realize when we're checking in, sometimes they're just these super quick flybys. But I miss that. I miss seeing my pups. I mean, I think when we're all really back, which, you know, who knows when that's going to be when this office is filled with the people you really want to see, you know,

our colleagues, the folks we work with every day. And you walk by someone and you take a sec just to say hi and check in. I think it'll be wonderful. But right now, because it's not that, it just feels like we're in the office, but the office exists in silhouette. Like their puzzle piece is missing. And I miss them. So both of you are managers here at HBR, and I'm sure that presents a whole different set of challenges in trying to work through people's schedules and just manage the transition that we're up against right now. Can you tell me a little bit about how that's been for you and what you see for the future? So that's a really interesting question because this transition isn't like we're

going back to normal. This is way more abnormal than the last several months have been. And for me as a manager, my concern is making sure that the people whose work lives I affect feel comfortable and safe and able to bring their best to their work and making sure that I'm doing what I can to create the conditions where they can do that. And so that means making sure no one feels pressed to do what they don't want to do. What about you, Maureen? Yeah, I think there are some people on my team who I think are really excited to come back to the office. I think there are some people who really need more time or need some more flexibility. And I think Amy said it well. I mean, part of what I'm trying to do is how can I make you feel set up to succeed? And that may not

mean like coming back into the office if like you've got everything set up to succeed, you know, and that may not mean like coming back into the office if like, you've got everything set up to work from home, and it's working for your life too. And I thinking about it from the context of concerns for women in particular, I think something I worry about, and I totally agree, I mean, this isn't really coming back to normal. This is like, we're in this like some in between time right now. But as, as more people do come back to the office, I worry about more opportunities to miss out, you know, especially if you've got young kids at home, and you just can't come in or whatever, then suddenly, oh, all the other managers are at the office, I'm not there. Like you could just

see the pressure building in a whole new way. And when we're all on WebEx, when we're all Zooming to meet, we're on equal footing. Exactly. But when you're the one person who's not physically present at the meeting, you miss out on so much. We've all been there. It's kind of, I mean, it sucks. I hate being the one who's not there. So I feel like we have to take special care. I'm asking myself, if half of us are here and half of us aren't here, should we do all

meetings on Zoom or WebEx? Isn't that easier for everyone? I think we're really going to have to, as managers, sort of think about that carefully. Yeah, and really think about what kind of advantage we have by being together when others cannot be here together with us. Right. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're

able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. Maureen, how are you going to handle when business starts getting done again in the kind of margins of the day when people are seeing each other in the hallway and stuff starts happening? Do you worry about that at all? You know, when there are parents of young kids who can't come in or whatever?

I do. I do worry about that for the people that just for whatever variety of reasons just can't be here and knowing how much those informal conversations, it's not even like the work, it's the relationships too, you know, that that helps build. I worry about that. I worry about new people, like people who are new to the organization. I mean, I, I had one editor who joined right at the beginning of when we all started working from home. And I was talking to him now that we are starting to come back. He said, well, maybe we can have a cup of coffee, like one of these weeks. And I was like, blink, blink, blink, like cup of coffee. You know what I mean? You mean on Zoom? And, you know, it was just,

and then I, but that was replaced with a feeling of like, oh my gosh, like this person has never worked in the office with their colleagues. This is an even bigger challenge as we continue to go on. How do you create that, that team feeling? Like those people don't even have the FOMO of the office because they never even had the office to begin with. So there's a bunch of stuff that is going to be really complicated. You know, in keeping with the weirdness of this moment when we have these puzzle pieces missing, it's just weird not to have Amy G

be part of this conversation. And I really miss her. But I'm so glad to see you guys in person. You too. It really warms my heart. We miss you, Amy G. We miss you,

Amy G. Yeah. Thanks for letting me join you guys to talk about this today. Yeah. Are you kidding? You were the only other person in the office. I mean, true.

There was no one else, but you know, thank you anyways. Oh man. I miss them too. I miss all of them. Oh, man, I miss them, too. I miss all of them. Oh, me, too. I'm here with my colleague, Erica Haas, who is a finance manager at Harvard Business Publishing, to talk about what it feels like to hear your colleagues go back to the office when you are not there.

Erica, thank you for chatting with me. Oh, I'm happy to, definitely. I have to say, listening to Maureen and Emily and Amy B talk was just a roller coaster. You know, my first reaction was complete FOMO, that I could picture them. I actually even pictured them sitting at my desk without me. And then, you know, part of me, then I heard, I could hear Amy B's voice a little bit mumbled by her mask. And I was like, oh no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want that. You know, and I just sort of kept going through like, oh, I wish I was there. I'm so glad I'm not there. I wish I was there. I'm so glad I'm not there. What was your reaction to it?

Yeah, I definitely had the FOMO, like, oh, they're having such a nice time together. But also I knew that was not the norm, that most people at the office are by themselves in their own little section and not really talking to each other. Right. Now you haven't been back, right? No, I haven't been back. I just don't see that the benefits outweigh the risks right now. Yeah. That's how I feel. To be completely honest, I don't have a choice because I'm technically a contractor. And HBR, for many reasons, aren't allowing contractors back to the office, which makes sense. But even if I had the option, I don't know if I'd go in. I'm really nervous about the risks, both for my own health and the health of my family and people I interact with. Yeah, for me, I have the situation that my

mother has just moved in with us. And she's in her 80s. And every interaction that I have or anyone in my family of four has, I'm constantly doing a risk benefit analysis to think about, is that worth exposing her? Yeah. Yeah. And I imagine being in the office and chatting with your colleagues does not rise to that risk analysis level. Exactly. Exactly. You know, because the collaboration, hey, you know, come look at this spreadsheet with me. What am I doing wrong? Or, you know, feeling freed from the feminist dystopia that is being locked in your house with your spouse and kids, and in your case, your mother. Like, that freedom sounds so lovely, but I'm still not ready. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely had moments where I've been like, oh, yeah, just if I could just be in peace and quiet, you know, at my desk at work and, you know,

have that uninterrupted time again, how nice that would be. And I think if my kids were younger, that would be more tempting. Remind me how old are your kids? Mine are 10 and 15. So they're pretty self-sufficient. Yeah, they're old enough to understand that they have to knock before they can come in or, you know, that there's some rules. Right. And they could make themselves toast if they need to. In an emergency, they will get sustenance. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And my daughter's 13. And I'm fortunate that she's at school full time in person right now. I mean, and that's actually another consideration.

As you know, I live about an hour from the office, so I only went into the office one day a week in the before times, before COVID times. And actually, Tuesday was my day, so hearing Maureen and Emily and Amy B. say, oh, we're Tuesday people, I was like, I was Tuesday people. But the distance is actually even more concerning because now, you know, there are these rules around school that if your kids

have any symptoms, you have to pick them up right away. And, you know, the idea that I would be in the office an hour away would be really, really hard. Yeah, I'm in this weird situation where my kids haven't actually transitioned to hybrid yet. They're still full remote, and they're just about to transition to hybrid. And so that's still a big unknown for me, what that's going to be like. As you know, I'm starting a new role. So I'm going to have a new manager and new colleagues. Fortunately, I know them, or most of them already, but not very well. And so I'll have to be creating and building new relationships.

And I think the kinds of things that I'm going to have to do are to be really on top of making sure that we're doing WebEx calls, that I'm making myself available visually, and that I'm figuring out ways to connect throughout the day and not just have these huge blocks of time where I'm just like doing my own thing. Yeah. One of the things I've liked about all of us being remote is that it has leveled the playing field. And I think I've been in more meetings as a result because it was often that I was, other than being in the office on Tuesdays, I was home. So meetings were happening without me.

I would find out what happened later. It worked just fine. I had no complaints at the time, but now I'm able to participate in ways that I wasn't before. Right. And I worry that, like Amy mentioned, maybe we should make sure that if some people are not in the office, that we're all on WebEx or we're all on Zoom.

And I just think that's a fantastic idea. Yeah, I think that's something we should consider. The other thing, the request I would make of my colleagues, especially colleagues who are managers or have other positions of power, is to not default to the people who are in the office. It would be super easy. You have something that needs to be done. It's like you look around the room. Who's here? Okay, right. I know Erica can do this and she's right there. So I'll go talk to her. I can imagine it would be so easy to be out of sight, out of mind. And just as managers, especially just trying to keep people who aren't there top of mind for opportunities, especially for keeping them in the loop with information,

that feels really important. Yeah. Thinking of them, keeping them in the loop, like you said, making sure like they're on that email that came out that was important, making sure that they have those important opportunities that give them the visibility or the career opportunity, the upskilling, the ability to be working towards their next development goal, all those things. You have to pay attention to it. And I feel like we're asking an awful lot from managers right now, especially middle level managers are kind of getting caught in the

middle. So that's kind of a lot to ask them. So I think as much as other colleagues can help as well, I think it's an opportunity for people to really help each other. I'm actually glad you made that point because I do think the burden on managers, especially with these hybrid teams, half in, half out of the office, are just the mental load of having to keep track and keep in touch with everyone, you know, keep things fair and equitable is a lot. And I do think that means those of us who aren't managers have a responsibility, especially if we have, you know, some sort of power or privilege to say, I think we've left so and so out of this call, can we reschedule? Yes, right. Or I noticed this conversation happened in person when half of us weren't there. Could we have that conversation again on our next meeting or what next WebEx? You know, I live in fear that these conversations are going to be happening in the office or like even this is so silly, but I had this this fear that there would be a Slack channel that would be created about going back into the office and I would not be included in the Slack channel, which is that that's like such a middle school feeling right of like, I'm going to be left out. But those concerns are real. And I do think we have to both speak up for ourselves that, hey, don't forget about me.

Because oftentimes the exclusion isn't unintentional, right? Absolutely accidental. Right. But we also have to speak up for our other colleagues. And that kind of brings up the idea of the women kind of caretaking for everyone else. The idea that mostly it's going to kind of fall on the women to do that kind of caretaking of their coworkers. Yeah, that work. I'm so glad you brought this up because that work of making sure things feel fair and equitable and people feel included.

I can imagine that falling so often to the women on a team. I mean, I even noticed myself on a WebEx call scanning the faces of my coworkers to make sure they look okay. Yeah, yeah. Back to the question of what kind of our colleagues can do to make continuing to, you know, work from home feel like we're all in it together. The men can really kind of step up into some of those roles. I think that would be immensely appreciated. Yeah. I'm thinking back to our episode with Katherine Goldstein from The Double Shift. She had this idea of, can you make that a man's problem? Right. Which I think is a provocative question. But in this case, right, why not ask

a male colleague of mine to say, hey, can you check in in the next few team meetings when we're on WebEx and just see if everyone looks okay to you? Right? Like, why not just make that request? Make the ask. Yeah. I've found myself actually turning off my phone. I've just started doing this in the past two weeks because, I mean, throughout the pandemic, I've really kept my phone close, you know, just in case I heard from family or friends or co-workers who are struggling or needed something. And I realized it's a complete distraction from my work. And so my home office is right off my kitchen. And I try to sort of put it in the kitchen in a drawer and close the door. So like put as much distance between me and my need to caretake others. And it helps. I'm not sure I'm getting more work done. I probably

am. But I actually find I feel better about the work I'm doing just because I can focus. And that's one of the things I loved about my Tuesdays in the office before was that it was just I was in the office. I was working. That was it. And if people reached out to me, I didn't feel the need to answer the phone. I'm in an office. I didn't feel the need to answer the text because I'm working. Right. or the text because I'm working. And I think for those of us who are not going back to an office anytime soon, we need to regain some of those boundaries and put them in place.

Yeah, because those lines have really blurred. Yeah. Erica, thank you for having this conversation with me. I'd love to say see you soon, but I don't think that's going to happen. Thanks for having me. I know I'm imagining a day when that will be an option and we will see each other and things will be back to normal. Yeah. In the meantime, we'll just wave on WebEx. Exactly. That's our show. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Amy Gallo. And I'm Emily Caulfield.

Our editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Adam Buchholz, Rob Eckhart, and Tina Tobey-Mack. Thanks for listening. Take care.