2020 Work from home
As life looks to “resume”, the issue I want to explore today is WFH.
The dream of millennials for a decade (one of my colleagues described it as “work from the beach”), it was forced on Gen X’ers and Boomers with no credible excuse to not do it. After the failure of the open office concept and collaboration that would occur because everyone could see each other, work from home was actually the elusive bullet. No commute, no hours spent getting dressed or buying a closet full of clothes, no sitting on the computer in your office surfing the internet so that you could get face time and not look like someone who “left early.”
But old habits die hard, and one of the perks of seniority (and by that I mean those who are in the tail part of their career) is that they got to live by other rules. More boondoggles. No dress code. No formal vacation schedule. Rules for the staff didn’t apply to them, and so they got to go to kids sports and walk the dog, and work out during the day. That was, after all, reward for their success.
But work from home has made that schedule possible for everyone, and many won’t want to give it up so easily. Drive my kids to school while on the daily conference call?? Check! It will be a rude awakening for many, on both sides.
#hottakeoftheday
WFH won’t catch on in oil & gas for a very, very long time (maybe never), but hybrid schedules certainly will. In short, with a hybrid there will be certain days you’ll be expected to be in the office. The less collaboration your role requires, the more days you’ll get to spend working remotely. The higher up you are, the more direct reports, and the more your role is intertwined with other departments/disciplines, you’ll be expected to be in the office more.
This schedule will allow companies to downsize on office space. It will ensure a certain number of personal interactions and opportunities for creativity/collaboration, plus maintenance of “culture”. And it will become such a valuable perk that companies who don’t do it will be at a disadvantage when recruiting and maintaining talent.
The current generation of CEOs will push back on this, no doubt. But the guys and gals coming up in 5-10 years? They’ll be more open to it. As Ms. Hollub said, work flexibility has many benefits, including important impacts on mid-career women. I expect the hybrid schedule will be the answer.