The Gift of Covid19 - Unshackled Employees

So you worked from home. 

You figured it out, and built office space in your kitchen, second room, or closet, with no guidance from HQ.

• You learned Zoom. 
• You became more 'self-managed. 
• You weren't considered 'essential'.  That high standing was reserved for the antiquated accounting department and even more old-fashioned mailroom. 

And now, today, the taskmaster wants to look out upon a sea of workers toiling away in the cotton fields of the 21st century - the cube farm. 

Managers hope we don't figure out how obsolete they've become - they fear for their jobs. 

The most fearful are in the C-Suite. Those "Killers of Passion" who command their complacent, easily replaceable, and 'loyal' chattel back to the stalls. 

It's worse.  Upon return to the office, everything you learned and did 'for the company' during Covid is to be forgotten or suppressed - the hierarchical, top-down rules of management must be enforced to maintain order.

They entice and seduce:

• Friday is blue jean day.
• Group outings to the baseball game.
• Free cappuccinos in the luxury kitchen; beer.
• Catered breakfasts, corporate BBQs, and Christmas Parties.
• 401k's, healthcare, and 2.5% yearly pay increases.

Ignore the 45-minute commutes, and missed recitals.

Enjoy the useless, mundane, and mindless 4PM meetings that inevitably and predictably run over by 60 minutes - "this could have been an email."

Don't forget co-worker personalities and hostile environments - HR is not your friend.

"Some simply refuse to schlep back and forth to an office, taking two-plus hours a day commuting into a crowded, dirty and crime-ridden city. Insurance and financial services giant Prudential conducted a study that found “one in three American workers would not want to work for an employer that required them to be onsite full time.” - Forbes

People are quitting jobs more than ever.  

Here's the nasty and silver lining:  Covid19 and remote working opened our eyes to bigger possibilities.  We can pursue our passions and our passion is not a 9 to 5 prison.  Sure, there are great advantages to working for somebody else from anywhere.  The big, huge transformation will not be technology-driven, it will be powered by passion your passion, unleashed.

This is a great fear the establishment denies - workers, once unshackled, will move away from the establishment and towards their personal, unique dreams.  Maybe that dream is to be the best Events Manager in the industry - why would the best work for one company?  Better yet, why wouldn't she work for herself instead of Big Brother?

Fascinating...the possibilities are endless.

Gambling man rolls the dice, working man pays the bill

It’s still fat and easy up on banker’s hill

Up on banker’s hill, the party’s going strong...

Down here below we’re shackled and drawn

New to Copier Sales: Sales Lessons Learned in the Last Year

I’ve been saying for almost 12 months that virtual selling and remote work is the wave of the future. I’ve also predicted that few people will go back to the office to work — which as you know will greatly affect your ability to sell copiers.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m prepared to say that I was wrong with my prediction on how few people will come back to the office because some major corporations have announced a back-to–the-office policy. Companies like Bank of America, Wells Fargo and T. Rowe Price are announcing policies, and predictably, so are large commercial property firms. Any company with an interest in commercial real estate, office space and financing encourages everyone to come back to the cubicle.

This is counter to what happened over the last 12 months. Revenues for companies that operated during the pandemic went through the roof.  Productivity for work-from-home employees increased by double digits. Employees were happier, reconnected with their family, ate fewer cold dinners, and never missed a soccer game.

However, this didn’t bode well for people who make a living renting office space, running parking lots, or selling copiers.

People will be coming back to the office, but does this mean they will be buying more copiers?

Probably not. But the gift ...read the rest here.

"Nobody Wants To Work."

Maybe, if you treated employees better when they were working for you, they'd come back to you today.

"We can't find any good employees and we're just starting to come back."

"People do not want to work and who blames them? They can stay at home and make just as much as I would pay them!"

Well then, maybe you should pay them more.  Maybe you should have valued them more when they did work for you.  Maybe, you shouldn't have demanded they stay late, and miss their kid's soccer game.  

"Our employees don't want to come back to the office.  They are the least engaged."

Could it be that after nearly 100 years of office work, everyone is recognizing that engagement with a corporation is a one-way escapade?  

That corner office, 401k, and 12 days of vacation are all part of the trap.

Companies have convinced employees that long commutes, cube farms, terrible co-workers, hostile working environments, company policies that defy logic, 2.5% pay raises, overtime, water coolers, ping-pong tables, and company half-barrels are worth the cold dinners, missed little league games,  red-eye flights, brainless managers, and corporate disloyalty.

They've convinced you that your worth is determined by who you work for, how many hours you put in, and how loudly you tow the company line.  They had you believing that if you worked anywhere but under the florescent sting of an open floor plan, you wouldn't get anything done.

Remember the companies who just 12 months ago were saying, "We're all in this together.  We want what's best for all our employees." and are now treating the same employees like nothing happened you are shameful.  They worked in a completely unfamiliar environment and learned more about technology, human-to-human communications, and getting things done than a dozen of your "corporate training sessions" could ever muster.

Your revenues went through the roof.  Company travel costs approached zero - no client visits, no hotel, dinner, or drinks on the expense reports - FOR A YEAR.  Sure, bigger companies still paid rent - but utility costs tumbled, and what about all those government loans?

Every one of your employees who worked at home deserves a HUGE increase in salary, a bonus, or both and you know it. 

Additionally, the mantra, "Everything has changed because of the fear of COVID-19." is true - so why are you going to manage your workforce the same way you did in 2019?

But if we let our employees work from anywhere, we'll lose that personal touch and will kill our corporate culture."

Personal connection in the business world is a fallacy - it does not and can not exist.  Any bond established under the influence of business transactions is by definition, impersonal.  All the relationship-building, all the dinners, lunches, and drinks spent with a client or prospect are designed with one goal in mind, get their money into your pocket. 

Don't play the "personal touch" card in an effort to force employees back to the cages. 

By the way, working from anywhere doesn't kill the corporate culture, it IS corporate culture.

The argument for returning office workers back to the office revolves around:

1. A need for centralized management is built on mistrust and insecurities.
2. The Luddite view of "getting back to normal".
3. An effort to bolster commercial office space return on investments.

We are witnessing the struggle between indenture and freedom; between value and being unvalued.

The good news is that your skills are transferrable to organizations that want to be part of the future and understand monolithic structures of management are part of a bygone era.  Find those companies and go work for them - from anywhere on the planet.

Cheers!