Working From Home
After the recent lockdown and ongoing tightened restrictions, we received this in an email from our CIO:
This past week has been rather quiet in the office with most of you working from home. Let's hope it won’t be long before we get back to normal. If you are returning to campus please ensure you wear your mask at all times and adhere to the social distancing guidelines.
I take several issues with this.
The Old Normal
Why are people in senior positions so eager to "get back to normal"? That's rhetorical, of course; I know why – "normal" is what got them where they are, so they have positive associations with it; and: most people in senior positions are older, and you know what they say about older people and resistance to change. But the old way wasn't necessarily the best way, let alone the only way. In fact, the old way is what lead us to where we are. Why not take the opportunity to do something new? Maybe even better?
Accountability
I'm on campus today because we are required (by our Associate Director*) to work from the office at least two days a week. My role doesn't require any face-to-face contact at all, neither with clients nor colleagues – my actual work is entirely on computers, which function just as well when I'm at home; and the occasional meeting on Zoom is acceptable – so there's no reason I can think of to require me to be on campus. And I'm sure the majority of my colleagues know their own positions and responsibilities well enough to make the call about how much time they need to spend physically present too. So why are we required to be here two days a week? The implication I draw is that management doesn't trust us to Do The Right Thing™. Not very empowering, nor great for morale.
At the same time as being told to work from the office, we're told to set up a roster so that we're not in at the same time as people around us (for distancing reasons), and reminded that we're required to wear a mask at all times, including in the office – far more restrictive than in the past. Which means they know it's not actually safe to be here. Coercing someone to be in an unsafe environment when you know it's not safe and when you know it's not required has to at least count as negligence, surely, if not wilful.
And on top of that, "please ensure you ... adhere to the ... guidelines" is an abrogation of responsibility. By telling us that we are personally, individually responsible for our own safety, despite being coerced into a known unsafe environment, is not just an attempt for management and/or the business to shirk responsibility for our safety, but a conscious one. Someone actively decided to cover their arse in this way. It's unconscionable.
And to tie it all together, the implication that management doesn't trust us, juxtaposed with them declaring us to be individually responsible, has to mean some combination of these two things: management actively wishes us harm; and/or management doesn't have a consistent purpose and vision†. Whichever way you put it together, not the people you really want to be working for.
- * the AD reports directly to the CIO
- † that's business jargon for "don't know what's going on, nor what to do about it". C.f. left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing