Dear Madeleine,

I am hoping you might have some insight for me. The problem isn’t mine but my wife’s.  

She has a great job with a company where she has been promoted several times. During Covid, when everyone went to virtual work, we took the opportunity to move closer to her family. Her parents were eager to help out with our kids.

When things went back to normal, my wife started going into the office twice a week. The commute was a bear but it was working.

Now her company is demanding that everyone be in the office five days a week. Commuting every day is just not sustainable. We could move back closer to her office but it would mean uprooting the kids and losing the extra help from her family. Still, that’s what I think we should do.

However, another company has been pursuing her rather aggressively. They have promised that she can work from anywhere, which is the deal I have. They are offering a huge bump in salary and an amazing benefits package.

Despite everything my wife has told me, I have a bad feeling about it. I can’t really explain why, but it all just seems a little too good to be true. Every time I point this out, my wife accuses me of not believing in her and not thinking she is worth the kind of salary they are promising her, which is not the case at all.

How can I find out if the company and the offer is on the up and up? I would much prefer to stay put, and it would be great if my wife didn’t have to commute anymore, not to mention the big salary increase. I can’t put my finger on what feels off to me. The whole debate has turned emotional and I feel at a loss as to how to get to the right decision.

Big Decision

________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Big Decision,

You and your wife are a functioning unit where both parties have to work together to grow both careers and children. So make no mistake—this is indeed your problem, not just your wife’s.

It seems that you have two big issues here. The first is that your wife doesn’t seem to trust that you have her best interests at heart, and the second is that the job offer seems too good to be true.

I am no marriage counselor, but it seems odd that your wife is getting defensive about your doubts instead of taking them at face value. It could be that her judgment is clouded by her desire to stay put, eliminate her commute, and make more money. But if she is doubting your motives, there could be some repair work that needs to be done. Perhaps she feels undermined by you or has the impression that you don’t think she is very smart. The two of you are going to have to have some frank conversations to get to the bottom of this. If you want to enlist some help, I am a huge fan of John Gottman. The Gottman Institute offers a ton of resources to help couples improve their relationships. It can’t hurt to check it out, and it might help—not just in this instance, but for the long haul.

The second issue is that the job offer seems suspect to you. Right now it is just a feeling, so the next step is to get all the facts. Here are some ideas to get your research started. Maybe one of them will help you to pin down what feels off to you.

Research the company.

• Company website: Does it look professional and up to date? Are the contact details legit (email with a company domain, physical address, phone)?
• LinkedIn presence: Is the company listed on LinkedIn? Are employees with real profiles working there? Might your wife be willing to contact a few of them and talk to them about what it is like to work there?
• Online reviews: Check Glassdoor, Indeed, or Google Reviews for employee feedback.
• Business registration: For U.S. companies, you can check the secretary of state’s business search. Other countries have similar registries.
• Talk to people you trust and get other opinions.

Inspect the communication—if your wife will allow it, of course. Or you can share these recommendations with her.

• Email domain: Legit companies don’t usually use Gmail/Yahoo/etc. for hiring. Look for an email like recruiter@companyname.com.
• Grammar and tone: Scams often have poor grammar, generic greetings (“Dear Applicant”), and overenthusiastic language (“You’ve been specially chosen!!!”).
• Urgency or pressure: Be wary if they’re pushing you to act fast or not ask questions.

Examine the job offer and contract.

• Is the job description detailed and specific to the role? Real job postings usually include tasks, skills required, and expectations.

The principle here is that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. If you truly believe that your wife is wearing rose-colored glasses, you must approach it delicately. Ask good questions and remind her at every turn that you think any company would be lucky to have her.

Changing jobs is tricky and stressful. It really does make sense to do all due diligence before making the leap. Worst case, your research yields some real concerns and you avoid a disaster. Best case, this opportunity could be a stroke of luck for the whole family! I sure hope so!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Now that public health initiatives are controlling the pandemic, the return to the office is a hot topic.

The Ken Blanchard Companies wanted to know what leadership, learning, and talent development professionals felt about the return. In a June 23 poll, three questions were asked as a part of a webinar series exploring the hybrid work environment. 195 HR / L&D professionals responded.*

1. Which of the following best describes the business environment you are returning to?
2. Which of the following best describes your organization’s response to this environment?
3. What does “return to the workplace” look like in your organization?

BUSINESS DISRUPTED

Which of the following best describes the business environment you are returning to?

Some 77% of the 195 respondents experienced moderate to major disruptions to their business environment. 7% identified their environment as completely disrupted. 44% described their business world as substantially to severely changed.

MORE CHANGE COMING

Which of the following best describes your organization’s response to this environment?

Covid sent a shock through the world. Businesses are still experiencing the aftershocks and are reimagining how they’ll operate in a post-pandemic world.  Some 68.9% of respondents are making “moderate” to “major” changes in their strategy.

Covid compressed a decade’s worth of change into a year. What will the new workplace look like?

HYBRID WINS

What does “return to the workplace” look like in your organization?

The pandemic redefined the role of the workplace. Leaders must now establish the post-pandemic office. What will the post-pandemic office look like? According to the leadership development professionals polled, a hybrid arrangement where employees come in two/three days a week. (Of note: 20.8% still aren’t sure what they’ll do.)

One thing is certain. Post-pandemic work policies are evolving. Still working on yours? Check out helpful articles, blog posts, upcoming webinars and an infographic summarizing the survey results courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies. Access all resources at https://resources.kenblanchard.com/hybrid-work-environment

*195 HR / L&D professionals polled by The Ken Blanchard Companies on June 23, 2021

Hybrid teams are nothing new. Pre-COVID, many hybrid virtual teams existed. Some team members worked from the office full time, some worked from home or from the road full time, and others did a mix of the two. So what’s so different as we look ahead to work in the future?

What’s different is the sheer volume of people who are looking to work either full time or part time from home. One of the lessons we’ve learned from the grand global experiment is that both individuals and organizations can be far more productive when people work from home at least part time.

To be effective hybrid team leaders in today’s world, we need to adopt three fresh mind shifts and four skills to guide our team members as we embrace the new future of work.

The 3 Mind Shifts

1. Remote first. Whatever we do as leaders, we must think about the potential impact on remote team members. Among other things, this means all meetings should be virtual. No more having some of the team in a conference room while others dial in. Make everyone connect remotely.
2. Recognize and mitigate proximity bias. We naturally favor those team members who are physically around us on a regular basis. This issue existed before the pandemic. Remote team members often felt left out of new projects or growth opportunities.
3. Continually experiment and learn. We saw this happening in abundance throughout the last year and a half. Let’s keep trying new things and learn from the experience.

The 4 Skills

1. Make the implicit explicit. Leaders must express their expectations to their people clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt. What are the core hours the leader expects everyone to be available? What are the expectations if the leader will be away from their computer during core hours? What are the expected response times for chat and email? These are just a few of the things that need to be made explicit.
2. Foster community. Many teams did this well during the pandemic. Pre pandemic you rarely saw remote team members on camera and things like virtual coffees and happy hours were unheard of. Teams have learned to be creative in the way they have fun and celebrate virtually. We need to learn from those experiences and continue to make this a priority.
3. Promote well-being. Well-being was and will continue to be an important issue in our hybrid teams. As leaders, we need to pay attention to our own well-being and promote activities that will encourage others to do the same.
4. Ensure hybrid meetings are effective and engaging. We are meeting way too much and many of these meetings are an ineffective use of our time. As leaders, we need to plan our hybrid meetings so that they are engaging. We should meet to discuss, collaborate, and do the work of the team—not just present information. Every meeting should have a clear purpose and agenda. Keep them short and end at least 10 minutes before the hour or half hour to provide time for employees to have a break between meetings.

We have learned a lot from the worldwide work-from-home experiment that is COVID. Now we need to take these lessons and apply them to our work. The future won’t wait!

Editor’s Note: Would you like to learn more about successfully leading in a hybrid work environment? Join The Ken Blanchard Companies for a free webinar series designed for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals looking to upskill their leaders for a new world of work. Learn more here.

A misnomer is floating around—the concept of return-to-work. This phrase conjures up images of coming back from a sabbatical, a leave of absence, or maternity/paternity leave. But today, return-to-work is used to describe how employees should return to the location where they did most of their work prior to the pandemic.

We have to be clear: this term is not about returning to work. Employees have been working—hard.

The issue employers are struggling with is the decision to return-to-office—and to what degree they should accommodate employee preference. Just as important is the question of what employees can do when they are not aligned with their employer’s desires—and subsequent policies—about returning to the office full time. How do organizations develop a strategy that both addresses safety and shapes policy? How do leaders flex and have conversations with their employees when preference and policy aren’t aligned?

Balancing Safety and Increased Flexibility

Most organizations today are trying to determine if formal policies should dictate an employee’s work environment. Prior to the pandemic, work-from-home policies existed but weren’t widely adopted.

Now, as requirements begin to relax, organizations find themselves at a crossroads. What policy updates should be made, if any? Should organizations mandate that employees be vaccinated and return to the office? When should organizations encourage working remotely vs. working from the office? How should organizations accommodate employee preference?

For instance, Microsoft has prioritized physical, mental, and emotional well-being to guide decision making. The office is a place where employees and teams can choose to come together to innovate and collaborate. The focus isn’t on return-to-office, but on flexibility in the environments where employees and teams prefer to do their best work.

Enabling People to Do Their Best Work

Leaders have an opportunity to interpret evolved policies and navigate their people’s anxiety, uncertainty, and preferences in a way that is a win-win for both employer and employee. Keeping an open mind and flexing leadership styles based on each employee’s individual needs is leading in a way that allows for a hybrid approach to management.

To lead employees through continued change and evolution, leaders must:

• Adopt a learning-focused mindset. Employees are going to have concerns about returning to the office. Leaders need to explore the views of each employee and realize the leader’s and the organization’s views may contrast with those of the employee. Even though many employees are ready to return to the office, not all are.
• Identify blind spots. Organizations and leaders are making assumptions about what employees want right now. Some employees have strong feelings about continuing to work remotely rather than returning to the office five days a week. How might leaders partner with their employees to develop a plan that honors organizational policy as well as individual employee preferences?
• Be curious. Leaders must ask what employees want—genuinely ask, and listen to the answer. Leaders also need to ask if they see themselves remaining with the organization if there is a mandate either for continuing to work from home or for returning to the office. When leaders are sincere and humbly inquisitive, employees are more apt to share and less likely to minimize their needs and feelings.

This is a time to be transparent and direct about the direction of the organization and the strategy for whether to return-to-office. It’s also a time to listen attentively to employee preferences and desires—consider it a temperature check of your team. Otherwise, all the productivity gains made with remote work will reverse and employees will look for new ways to do their best work—at a different organization.

Editor’s Note: Would you like to learn more about successfully navigating the future of the work environment? Join us for a free webinar. Over the next five weeks, The Ken Blanchard Companies® is hosting weekly webinars focused on the different aspects of work post-COVID. Join us for one, two, or all five events. The series is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies. Learn more here.

About the Author

Britney Cole is Associate Vice President, Solutions Architecture and Innovation Strategy at The Ken Blanchard Companies. With more than 15 years’ experience in organization development, performance improvement, and corporate training across all roles, Britney brings a pragmatic and diverse perspective to the way adults desire to learn on the job.

Now that we’ve dealt with the initial implications of leadership and development in a COVID environment, L&D professionals are increasingly turning their attention to what the future will look like in a post-COVID world.

Remote working will not go away after COVID—in fact, many research firms predict that 2021 will see the number of employees permanently working from home double from pre-COVID times. If these predictions are correct, organizations will need to transform how they manage their workforce in several important areas.

For example, from what I understand from client sessions as well as research I’ve been reading, at least half of employees may look for other jobs if their current employer doesn’t provide a work-from-home option in the future. It doesn’t have to necessarily be full-time, but it must be an option. That’s going to require a major shift in the day-to-day leadership practices of managers worldwide. Although the immediate need to keep doors open and lights on has been met, there is a lot of work to do to keep working from home a viable alternative.

In some ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the need to implement a lot of policies that should have been in place before COVID. For instance, people who worked remotely used to feel like second class citizens who often were forgotten about when it came to development opportunities, being informed on what was going on in the organization, and, of course, social gatherings. Once nearly everyone was working from home due to COVID, this situation drastically improved. Many people report that they know their team members much better now than they did before.

But there are still issues to be resolved. A majority of at-home workers feel overworked and have trouble setting boundaries when there is no explicit end to the workday. Solving this problem may require more discipline around how, when, and how often we meet using online platforms.

Managers also need to be more aware of each individual’s home office setup. One colleague of mine is working out of a 400-square-foot apartment in Hong Kong with his wife and two children. They both work and homeschool their kids. That’s radically different than my home setup with a separate office and two monitors.

For managers, this means recognizing if somebody’s kids aren’t able to go to their physical school, there may be a certain time during the day when they’re in class and need their parents’ attention. That parent won’t be able to attend a meeting during that time. Kids will end up back in the actual classroom, of course, but it will still be important for remote managers to be aware of people’s personal environments.

Performance management will also change. Measuring an employee’s productivity by the amount of time they sit in an office chair was never the right thing to do. The future of work is to measure by outcomes. That means managers will have to become even more skilled in proper goal setting—clearly identifying what is to be accomplished by when, and having reporting processes that are transparent to everyone.

Management now will be seen as more of a partnership. Good managers will check in with their people instead of checking in on their people. These new post-COVID leaders will make regular one-on-ones a priority just to see how people are doing, and will ask questions such as “How’s it going?” and “What do you need from me?” In the future, we will see more shared scorecards that everyone can access and keep up to date so all members of the team can see what their teammates are up to.

L&D has an important role to play in this future. We’ve made great strides in converting content to virtual and digital formats over the past 12 months. The next step will be refining our content to address the new skills needed for leading in a virtual world.

Training can help. In addition to goal setting, performance management, and day-to-day coaching, we will help future leaders build awareness, trust, and community. You can learn more about the complete list of 12 skills The Ken Blanchard Companies has identified here.

As we all step into this new virtual world together, leadership qualities such as being available and being responsive are more important than ever. These characteristics will be valued more highly than were some of the qualities we thought we needed from leaders in the past. Successful companies will work on equipping their virtual leaders to excel in more areas like these.

To learn more about some of the ways The Ken Blanchard Companies can help you on your post-COVID leadership journey, visit the Leading Virtually homepage on the Blanchard website.

Dear Madeleine,

I am so frustrated with what I am calling the “in-person addiction” in my new company.

I started here two months before COVID sent everyone home. It was very much a traditional “everyone comes to the office” place before that. I am surrounded by people who are still struggling with the virtual aspect of our work. Everyone is complaining about working from home and all the web conferencing. Many are juggling home-schooling their children along with their work commitments.

My boss is convinced that everyone is less productive working from home—and that may be so with other groups. There is a bit of an attitude that we are going to wait this thing out but, frankly, I have doubts that anything is going to change soon. If we could just shift the mindset we could really get some very cool things done.

I came from an organization that was much more geographically spread out. In fact, my entire team was virtual and in different time zones. It worked great! I just don’t get it. I am far more productive when I don’t have to deal with a commute and the time it takes to get dressed and do hair/makeup. I do have kids at home, but they have always known Mommy has a job. We have created a daily routine that works well for all of us. I am not saying it is perfect—and I will be grateful when they go back to school—but geez. I think people let their children get away with bratty behavior.

My problem: how do I get my colleagues out of their constant moaning about our new way of working? I mean, it’s been six months now, with no end in sight. How do I prove that my new team is crushing it (because they are) despite the WFH thing? Most importantly, how do I develop the relationships I need to influence the way I need to move forward on my very ambitious goals? Many of my colleagues act like they aren’t going to trust me until we can spend time in person together. How do I get everyone to get on board with reality?

Way Ahead

Dear Way Ahead,

I understand your frustration. I led a completely virtual team in our very “headquarters-and-in-person-centric” company for years! We all worked from home for two decades before virtual was the norm, and it was a constant battle to remind people we were out in the field making things happen. Now at least the playing field has been flattened for virtual teams—but it sounds like for you, things have just gone flat.

Here are your concerns, in order. You want to:

1. Get your colleagues to stop complaining.
2. Prove that your new team is highly productive virtually, and that others can be, too.
3. Influence your new colleagues in this virtual environment.

Let’s unpack all of this and look at what you can control, what you might be able to control with some help, and what is probably out of your hands.

You can’t make your colleagues change but you can change your own attitude. I wonder if your colleagues feel your judgment and if that might be getting in the way of building strong working relationships. I am not doubting your superiority at working virtually, but nobody likes to feel inferior. If senior leadership seems willing to suffer the consequences of waiting it out, you may be asking a lot to expect the extra effort required to shift the collective mindset. I suggest you focus less on how to fix your colleagues and more on how you can add value and—without blame or judgment—be a role model for how to operate in this new environment.

Regarding the kid thing: If you are betraying your opinion that your colleague’s children are bratty, that is not going to win you any friends. You can think whatever you want, but I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself. Nothing causes people to get defensive faster than someone criticizing their kids. You got a serious head start creating a culture of “Mommy works” in your own home—and it may be a little unfair to expect your colleagues with kids who are suddenly at home to crack the whip and get everyone to behave. One thought on that topic is for you to create something you could share with colleagues about how you managed it—something like “Tips for Getting Your Kids to Respect Your Work Time.” I Googled around and, I have to say, there isn’t much out there. You must have some good ideas based on your experience! My memory is dim—my children are grown—but I am pretty sure I resorted to threats of bodily harm, which is probably not recommended.

The first stop is a conversation with your boss re: your concerns about the disdain for the virtual WFH office. There are two issues here: the fact that your boss seems resigned and unenthusiastic about how to help people people be successful virtually, and the fact that you are not able to get acknowledgement for how well your team is doing. I think the approach for both is curiosity. You might ask questions like:

• Is it your experience that people are not being productive working from home? What are you seeing that leads you to that view?
• May I show you how my team and I are handling things? Might that be helpful?
• Do you worry that our lack of productivity could hurt us long term? What are your thoughts about how might we counteract that?

With any luck, you can shift your boss’s perspective with open-hearted inquiry. Your confidence could be catching if people don’t feel belittled by it.

Now let’s talk about your need to make friends and influence people. The #1 key is to get curious and interested in each and every person—and show it. Make the time and put some real effort into it. You might check out Keith Ferrazzi’s new book, Leading Without Authority.

Some ideas:

• Set up individual time with each person and do a “Getting to Know You” questionnaire. Provide the questionnaire in advance and be ready with your own answers. You can be creative and ask whatever you want, but make sure the person knows they can choose not to answer what they don’t want to answer! Favorite book or movie, pets and their personalities, favorite job you’ve ever had, fantasy travel spot, what would you do if you won the lottery? Favorite holiday and why? What is something I would never know about you if you didn’t tell me? What is your superpower? Hobby? What is your least favorite work task? Are we all sick of Zoom calls? Yes, but this would be a fun one!
• Suggest social distancing picnic lunches or coffee or happy hour (BYOTreats) at a nearby outdoor spot.
• Create an opportunity for your team to do a group Pecha Kucha over Zoom (20 slides, 20 seconds each) and everyone gets the same assignment—again, you can make it up. A Day in The Life is a fun one, or My Life Story. The idea is to use images and photos to create a super efficient story. Stories are powerful and people remember them.
• Our company has some amazing on-demand free webinars for increasing productivity when working from home and leading virtually. You could share these with select folks who are open.
• If you think you might have already done some damage, do ask for feedback and clear the air. If people do give you feedback, do not defend your position, simply say “thank you.”

You can’t change people, but you can be a role model for the behavior you think is appropriate in the situation. And you can extend an invitation: anyone who is interested in how you are sailing through what seems like a big challenge can ask for your help.

Compassion, humility, patience, and generosity will go a long way for you right now.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!