When we make it easier on each other, we make it easier, and indeed, a priority, to put our clients first. This new policy would seem to do the complete opposite. The pandemic was forced on the world, and despite the anxiety and suffering it brought, as its many restrictions receded, so many of us were able to achieve an equilibrium between home and work that could never have been previously afforded within the artificial confines of corporate norms. I definitely see some abuse of our current WFH policies, as well as a good share of colleagues who seem to struggle with basic human interaction, and would therefore agree that a change is needed, but this is a stretch too far and being executed terribly.
Few remember the challenges of working amid the constant and maddening din of virtual meetings among hundreds of cubicle inhabitants, clustered together so tightly as if a reminder that you are a “resource” (please stop using that work, folks) not a human being, and with just enough space to be ergonomically compliant; and the utter lack of meeting rooms, which ironically used to make even co-located teams wonder what the point of coming to the office was if we could rarely find a space to meet. There was a palpable and persistent sense of unbalanced bodies and minds, further aggravated by a lack of campus gyms and meaningful breaks from and between constant meetings.
On those constant meetings, although I regularly come in 3 days/week already, 90% of my time is still spent at my desk on Teams meetings. I do my actual work at home, often late at night. Given how distributed my team and all of my partners are, this will not change with the new policy. Coming in that 4th day won’t benefit the firm at all, while essentially reversing any gains I’ve made on work/life balance, and placing a greater burden on my spouse in the care of our child and home.
As a people leader, I will do my level best to work with these policies, no matter how much I disagree, but it sure would be nice to get a little help. Instead, my org has already started an informal ranking of employees’ exemption requests, sometimes considering legitimate need and other times it’s a popularity contest. It’s ugly and incredibly demoralizing. If this policy is really an attrition play in disguise, I would prefer our leadership be honest about it, but if it truly is about culture, this policy is very far from the mark indeed.