Municipalities in a post pandemic reality
When asked recently, 92% of Google staff indicated that they would prefer to continue to work from home in future rather than return to the office. In July, a survey of staff at the City of Toronto revealed that “95% of city staff surveyed in July said they’d like to keep working from home at least part of the week, after the pandemic.”
This is a fascinating thread about what leading firms are doing.
Productivity in teams has undeniably gone up, and staff enjoy the flexibility that home working has brought. Municipalities certainly don’t provide office space or working conditions that rival Google's. You can imagine that a similar sentiment to that held by Googlers will exist across all industries. In fact, many companies are already asking employees to move into more permanent home working arrangements; remote working is becoming more widely a standard in the tech world - with companies like DropBox and Twitter becoming remote-first working companies. Cottage sales are booming as people look to work remotely.
Leadership teams are thinking hard about their options and their approach to return to work. Remotely working represents many opportunities for employers and employees.
For the employer, attracting the most talented employees from across Canada instead of within 30 km of your office is a massive opportunity to hire the best talent. Retaining your best employees by offering a more flexible, life-friendly working environment, and defending against other companies that do, and of course, reducing office space costs are other attractions.
For the employee, work-life balance, a recovery of time previously taken up with long commutes, and a more humane way of working with an increased ability to focus is something that many staff are enjoying. There are also questions and challenges ahead, which will need to be tackled.
In our last newsletter, we shared municipal leaders' thoughts in Ontario about the reexamination of processes, such as physical wet signatures and smart forms. There are many pdfs that you had to download, print, fill in with a pen, sign and then return. COVID has provided the impetus to accelerate work on smart forms.
“You rarely need a physical signature,” remarked Sasha Einwechter, GM IT, City of Guelph. “It was amazing, as we digitize the forms, how many people [said] I need them to sign that. Do you need them to sign that, or do you want them to sign that? Because there's a difference there–a wet signature and a digital signature. You rarely need an actual physical wet signature.”
We will need to learn how to manage remote teams and measure productivity in non-invasive, respectful ways. Surveillance of your staff is disrespectful and inappropriate. We will need to work out how to collaborate asynchronously and how to share knowledge more effectively.
We will have to get better at managing mental health, isolation and our apparent tendency to overwork. Burnout is real. We will need to figure out how to deal with this. Simulating informal watercooler moments, serendipitous work connections and team building are other new challenges to be faced. Notwithstanding these questions, remote and flexible working is finally having its mainstream moment. It’s here to stay. Progressive organizations should embrace this way of working in a curious, open and learning fashion.
Just as COVID presented us with new reality challenges to deal with, so too will post-pandemic. We’re going to be watching closely to see how municipalities respond to this opportunity. We’ll be hoping they will be progressive, looking to the future and embracing change, not regressively looking to the past’s comforts and a return to the office as normal.