Saskatchewan Land Surveyors Association – Councillor Corner

I have been doing some reading recently about what people who are smarter than me think will be the trends for work-from-home post-pandemic. There is no denying that COVID-19 greatly affected our workforce and our businesses. Companies around the globe have embraced a wide variety of tactics from working from home to hybrid models to tackle the challenges that COVID posed at the workplace. Other businesses were able to continue operating with everyone in the office.

We are (hopefully!!) approaching the time when the need to work from home will be reduced compared to what it was during the pandemic. Some employees are eager to return while others are dead set against it. Some employees work well from home while others struggle to provide the equivalent results they would have pre-pandemic. What will our offices look like going forward?

In my opinion, I believe some aspect of work-from-home is here to stay but we need to consider what that looks like. Some interesting ideas I have encountered are adding a requirement for work-from-home employees to attend various in-person meetings either weekly or monthly and allowing a hybrid combination of work-from-home and in office work according to a schedule, not dictated by whim. One benefit for the survey industry is being able to access a larger pool of potential recruits when hiring technical staff as not everyone wants to move to the small towns and project centers where we need the staff. On the other hand, it is a challenge to train new employees and make sure existing employees remain “part of the team” when working remotely.

Managers can struggle with issues around work-from-home teams as well. A web article by Global Workplace Analytics called Work-at-Home After COVID-19 – Our Forecast said “One of the biggest holdbacks of remote work is trust—managers simply don’t trust their people to work untethered. They’re used to managing by counting butts-in-seats, rather than by results. That’s not managing, that’s baby-sitting.” It is a trap that is easy to fall into as a manager. Another challenge for the manager is communication. During the pandemic, I worked for stretches at home and in the office as did the team I typically work with. I noticed a drastic increase in communication when we were all in the office that was absent when we were working from home. Beyond the water cooler chat, there seemed to be a lot of “little things” that came up in conversation that simply did not occur when I worked from home. All said, the job of managing was simply easier when the team was in the office as communication required less effort and was more effective in person.

Some companies have had remote workforces for years. These centered around longer term employees that were self-starters and had a history of providing results. It worked because the individuals were trusted by management and worked well in an unsupervised setting. When we consider the topic of onboarding and training new employees in a remote work setting, it can be challenging to achieve success remotely.

A recurring theme in my reading on the topic is that for remote work to be a successful part of our models going forward, it will require some adaption for many businesses to achieve success. Items that will need to be resolved are trust and a focus on results rather than attendance. Extra effort will need to be spent on communication to make sure remote workers remain a valuable part of the team rather than becoming de facto contractors. Will remote workers be offered the same career opportunities compared with folks who work in the office? Is this fair or is it considered a lifestyle choice made by the employee?

Well, lots of questions and fewer answers. The only thing I can say for certain is our workplace has changed forever and here is hoping it will be for the better.