It’s like the Old West.
On one side, you have the Homesteaders — peaceful work-at-homers who have thrown a virtual picket fence around their home offices and refuse to budge, even if it means burning down the ranch and their career path with it.
On the other side, you have the Outlaws — resume-toting desperadoes who will leave their homes and come into work, willing to prove management’s belief that having employees working together in the same space increases productivity and stimulates new ideas.
It’s management, of course, who is the villain in this classic tale of conflict. Instead of acting like marshals, delivering justice, managers have acted like managers, delivering confusion. These Dithering Dudleys have decreed that some employees can work from home, some employees can work at work, and some employees can bounce back and forth between the two options, whenever and why ever they may choose.
The result of the employment range wars?
For the moment, the Homesteaders are winning.
According to “The Worst of Both Worlds: Zooming From the Office,” an article by Emma Goldberg in The New York Times, a survey of 188 major employers in New York “showed that 8% of Manhattan office workers are back in the office full time, 54% are fully remote and everyone else — nearly 40% — is hybrid.”
If you’re a Homesteader, you need a strong, laconic John Wayne type to protect you and your home office. Alas, all you have is me — a chatty Gabby Hayes type with three strategies you can use when the Outlaws ride up.
NO. 1: BEWARE THE RTO
Companies uncomfortable with a staff of free-range employees can issue an RTO, or “Return To Office” order. If you’re a Homesteader, this means you must give up the ranch or give up your job. While many are hesitant about accepting the risks of looking for a new position, there is also danger in returning to your workplace.
Your managers let you escape your cubicle once. They won’t want to do it again.
There could be virtual locks, like higher salaries or better snacks, but if there is too much resistance, management may decide to hire a posse of Pinkertons to keep the peace.
The solution is to pack a shovel in your briefcase on your first day back. If you see time locks on the conference room doors and the parking lot has been turned into a moat, you may have no choice but to dig your way out.
NO. 2: YOUR DEPARTMENT HEAD MAY HOLD THE KEY
Some companies are letting individual department managers make the work-from-home decision. Considering all the terrible decisions your manager has made in the past, Homesteaders really can’t count on a positive outcome.
There are many strategies for making a manager see things your way, like pointing out the high cost of first recruiting and then breaking the spirit of new employees. But the best solution is cold, hard cash.
It doesn’t have to be a fortune. Calculate the money you would be spending weekly on commuting. Write a check for the amount and mail it to your manager.
Your manager may protest, but trust me — they’ll cash the checks.
NO. 3: OUTLAWS RULE, HOMESTEADERS DROOL
Though it would be nice to think that Homesteaders and Outlaws have equal opportunities in a hybrid office, the Outlaws definitely have an advantage.
“It’s not hard to imagine all the ways remote workers might be undercut,” Goldberg writes. They can be “muted in a heated discussion, shut out of lunchtime bonding.”
It was to avoid these problems that companies like Zillow instigated the “One Zoom All Zoom” rule, stipulating that if even one person is participating in a meeting virtually, everyone in the office is required to join on separate laptops.
This sounds fair, but you can see the edge this gives the Outlaw. If the course of a meeting is not going their way, all Outlaws have to do is mute the Homesteader’s audio and then move forward with whatever had been decided at lunch.
This is why I recommend Homesteaders give up the fight. Do agree to come back to the office, but only for lunch. Arrive at noon. Make sure your opinions are heard and your share of the lunch check is paid by someone else. Then mosey back to your home office for the afternoon.
It’s not a perfect solution, but it could keep you from losing the ranch.
Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at [email protected] To find out more about Bob Goldman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
