🏁 Axios Finish Line: Work anywhere

Our blueprint for a new world | Thursday, September 08, 2022

Open in app View in browser     Axios Finish Line By Mike Allen, Erica Pandey and Jim VandeHei ·Sep 08, 2022 Sep 08, 2022 Welcome back. Axios CEO Jim VandeHei is at the helm today. Reach him at jim@axios.com. Smart Brevity™ count: 801 words ... 3 mins.     1 big thing: A work-from-anywhere blueprint Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   Business leaders everywhere are scrambling to reverse work-from-anywhere policies, Jim writes. At Axios, we are not: We are all-in on allowing everyone to work where they choose. Why it matters: This approach is not without controversy and complications, so I wanted to share this rethinking of work and lifestyle. 🖼️ The big picture: I have talked with dozens of CEOs and hundreds of workers about this raging debate. The CEOs privately say they are convinced that with work from home, productivity dips, culture softens, creativity wanes, and a few but not inconsequential number of employees will get paid to do yoga and chill. The workers retort: This is nonsense. Most adults are fully capable of working better without time-sucking commutes and noisy, distraction-filled offices. Sure, they might exercise more or take breaks at home, but that ultimately makes them better employees. 🧠 Between the lines: I do worry about two big risks of working from anywhere: Younger workers benefit more than they realize from being in the trenches, in person, grappling with tough, teaching moments. There is a magic in human interaction. It is way harder to create strong emotional bonds with colleagues and your company from your couch. People stay in jobs and thrive when they feel tight connections. Here are four steps Axios takes to mitigate the risk: Hire self-motivated, driven people. You need to screen hard for those who naturally blend work with life, motivated by passion for their craft, not money or rules. Clock-punchers or check-cashers are very problematic in a WFH world. Create new human interactions. We take the money reserved for office space and spend it on company retreats, team off-sites, and regional and local meetups. We encourage employees in the same city, regardless of their job, to get together at a bar or for coffee. Communicate until you annoy yourself. A good CEO or manager should be writing to — or Zooming with — their teams at least weekly and ideally more to amplify the purpose, the strategy, the goals, the common pursuit. This is more than most employees ever got when everyone was in person. We created software — called HQ — to do this easily and effectively. Create new performance measurements. Each of our leaders is in the process of coming up with better data to make sure everyone is doing the right thing, in the right order, at the right speed. The bigger you are, the more important this is. We will share it with staff so they know the expectations — and how to beat them — at home 😃. Every employee needs to know that with great freedom comes great responsibility. If you work from home, the more you see colleagues in person, the better. The more you connect by something other than text, the better. My personal view is that if you are lucky enough to live near a physical office, use it. I go in every day I am in town. If you are not near an office, force yourself to connect with others often and consistently, on the phone or Zoom. The bottom line: I am big on living in the world we have, not wish we had. The truth is people moved away, started new lives and habits, and often have a lot of choices where to work. It's our job to tap into this and turn it into the best virtual, dispersed workplace ever. Share this story.     A message from Axios Your next great read is here     Refer your friends to Axios and enter for a chance to win a copy of our upcoming book, Smart Brevity, and an Amazon gift card. The more subscribers you refer, the more chances you have to win. Get started today.     🧠 The worker's view Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   Erica here. Here's my two cents for younger workers, as someone who was 24 years old in March 2020. Work-from-anywhere is a gift. I've found new hobbies, and I live a far more well-rounded life. But part of that life is an engaging, challenging job. And maintaining that engagement is undoubtedly harder now. I was lucky enough to have 2½ years at Axios pre-COVID, and the biggest, most exciting opportunities I've gotten in the work-from-anywhere era came because of the time I spent fostering relationships and seeking out mentors in person, before COVID. Oh, and about half of my closest friends are colleagues from those days For younger workers, face time is critical. And we know it. An Axios/Generation Lab poll showed that 40% of Gen Z workers preferred in-person work due to the mentorship. Many haven't gotten that — either in person or on Zoom — and so they're turning their attention elsewhere and "quiet quitting." So if you're new to the workforce, consider an in-person or hybrid job that puts you in the room with your team. And if you manage a young person, communicate and engage twice as much as you would with a seasoned employee. It makes a huge difference.   Are you a fan of this email format? It's called Smart Brevity®. Over 300 orgs use it — in a tool called Axios HQ — to drive productivity with clearer workplace communications.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox.   Follow Axios on social media: