š¼ GET THE FUCK OUT
Perception is an interesting phenomenon. Have somebody say āork, ork, orkā before they answer how you eat soup and against better judgement they say fork. Since we donāt test for COVID-19 anymore in the Netherlands the discussion under white collar workers has been āworking from home or working from the officeā. Even my esteemed ex-collegae Kristel talks about it in her last podcast.
The thing that has been bugging me for months is why these seems to be the only two options. As former employer I can now confirm I did some things horrible wrong. I think we need to stop thinking about the boxes!
Employers have more issueās than ever to get the right talent and make sure they donāt leave. When money and lease-cars werenāt enough anymore employers brought in snacks and ping-pong tables. When that didnāt comfort the employee enough there where unlimited holidays and shares. All super interesting of course but it didnāt make the actual work better. The thing youāre supposed to do 40 hours a week but do 50-60 hours.
Iāve worked with teams on apps for big hotel chains while the young millennials didnāt have any experience visiting hotels. They had no idea what an horrible experience it is to wait in line to check in while thereās a simple solution that can be made with an app. All they where thinking about was what tent to buy for the next festival. Hotels? Ok, boomer! Weāve built apps for a german sports car brand and I shit you not where we almost lost the account because we where not in line with the clientele. They where afraid we couldnāt level with their clients. That we couldnāt understand what it is to be able to buy and drive this pure metal bundle of joy.
The solution to all this was simple. Give the team the possibility to sleep in hotels for a few nights. Have them pay for it so they understand the value and reimburse it later. Have them understand why the app is a valuable part of the experience. Not only did the app become something spectacular, we also where able to help our client with so much more that we normally donāt even think about. We expended our services and kept the client on for longer than we ever imagined.
Oh and the sports car brand? Simple solution. I bought their top of the line model as a token of trust and bought a āwonāt go bankrupt if they crash itā version of their convertible model for the team. Everybody was allowed to take the car. Bring it home, take it to the office and visit clients. It put smiles on everybodies faces except for the financial controller. We had a blast working for this client. We met up over the weekends to go go-karting together and all that effort showed in the product. Almost 6 years later the app still shines.
Weāve made work into something so boring and tedious that we forget what itās all about. My wife works at a bank and it kind of bugs me that thereās no safe with stacks of money where you can swim around in. I mean, come on! I coach design teams that have never seen the Centre Pompidou. The magnificent museum where the architects Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano have put all the infrastructure on the outside. The first I saw that I understood what thinking outside the box actually means.
My point? The boxes. Home and office. During COVID-19 I missed a few things. Mostly people. Another big percentage where views. The view from Passo Manghen in Italy, the few from a run along the Seine in Paris and the look down from fjords in Norway. But what I missed most was experiences. I finetuned the shit out of my home so nothing went wrong. My tea was just perfect at 80 degrees, my screen and computer the best you can imagine and the air quality was exquisit. What I missed was walking into a store and smelling stuff. Drinking overpriced coffee that tasted bad. Visiting musea and making a picture where it didnāt look like it was jam packed with people. Going out and challenging my senses is what missed.
If you ask me, the discussion shouldnāt be about office or home-office but about the quality of work. Work becomes better if you move around. I know this is a luxury perspective and only focuses on the creative jobs but please, widen your view. I've been getting back in starting a company and what is the best feeling ever is to be inspired. I stop working when I see there's something that can inspire me on the work I'm doing right now. Tomorrow I'll be working in Rotterdam because at some point of the day there will be a viewing of the Lightyear 0. I just need to see that.
I don't have the solution yet to what we should do but there should be more than home or office.