One Week Back At Work

Like so many others, 2021 began with me working from home. I relished the experience and would jump at the opportunity to do it again – not that I want a 3rd wave pandemic to be the cause – but I thrived in that environment. Not only was I able to connect with and guide those I worked in partnership on their career journey’s, I voluntarily gave my employer more hours of service than I was compensated for. Good for the employer, good for people working with me, good for everyone all around.

However, as was always to be the case, the inevitable return to the office came about and for me it was Monday of this week. So, having been back for a week now, I feel the time is right to share a little of the experience being back, hoping that a recounting and sharing might be helpful for readers who have a looming return to their workplace.

I must say, an odd feeling came over me once a specific date was announced as a return to the office. I mean, working with and on behalf of people my entire life,  service to others is what I’m all about. Yet, there I was, not entirely comfortable with the idea of meeting and interacting in person with people I’d come to know as co-workers and the general public. That alien feeling was present, though not to a degree that it had me contemplating any kind of fight to remain working at home. Seeing the bigger picture, a return to in-person service was always the plan, and I knew it was the intent of my employer to return to this as a normal way of practice.

My thoughts ranged from how to handle initial encounters with colleagues. Hands would I hoped, not be extended to shake, and hugs I trusted, would be completely discouraged. Not that I’m against either practice in, ‘normal’ times, but we are after all, still not completely out of the woods and back to everything as it once was. I started thinking of my physical workspace, being as it is located in a common room with no walls except the one behind me, and open to people on three sides, used by the public and colleagues alike.

My concerns were and remain legitimate and real. Being 62 and a type 2 diabetic, I have additional cause to keep myself protected as much as possible, not only safeguarding myself but also for family, friends etc. I wondered about and hoped that colleagues were taking necessary precautions and being as vigilant as I was to protect not only themselves, but me in the process.

So there I was on Monday, back in the office along with the entire organization, standing in our Resource Centre, welcomed back by our Executive Director. It’s got to be satisfying at that level to see all your staff back in one place, healthy and safe, and taking the next step to normal business operations. The public still can’t walk in for service – not yet – but they will in time and this staged re-opening allows everyone to ease into the environment and familiarize themselves with not only known colleagues, but also the half dozen or so hired during the closure of the office whom we’ve only met online.

Now 5 days in, I’m happy to report that colleagues are still taking the proper precautions; physically distancing themselves, using hand sanitizer frequently, wearing masks properly and having their temperatures taken upon arriving at work.  People knocking on our doors are being either politely informed we aren’t open to the public, or if they do have a scheduled appointment, they are duly screened at the door.

All of the above has me feeling safe and secure, and that translates to allowing me to focus on the work I’m here to do. Much better than feeling anxious, cautious, and only focusing 60% or so on work while looking furtively around, suspicious of everyone and feeling a need to look out for myself because no one else cares to. That would not be a positive experience.

Now to you.

I’ve no idea how you feel about an impending return to your workplace; be it office, warehouse, store etc. My hope for you is that you come to have the same level of high confidence in the leadership there as I have where I work. It’s everyone’s responsibility to ensure that we’re all safe. Sure employers have a larger responsibility, but as my Executive Director said to us all on Monday, “if you see someone not wearing their mask properly, just say, “mask up please”.

Health and Safety Committees abound in many organizations, and in addition to checking on hazards in the workplace, one of their roles is also going to be checking in and responding to concerns staff may have directly related to protocols around Covid-19 pandemic safeguards. If we all take safeguards seriously and do our part as directed by our Health Units, we maximize our chances of working safely and preventing illnesses, or a return to some further closures in another wave.

May we all feel safe, protected and come to feel comfortable in our return to workplaces be they new to us or old familiar haunts.

Find The Right Fit And You Win

Of all the people you know, who’s the one person who knows you best? You. Oh sure you might be inclined to say it’s your partner and yes, I’ll admit my wife knows me exceedingly well given our 37 plus years of marriage. Yet, there are many times in a day when I’m in the company of me, myself and I. At work, in the garden, reading a book, playing the guitar or hey, writing this piece, it’s only me and my thoughts are mine alone.

So you know yourself; your likes and dislikes, the things that inspire, confuse, excite, demoralize, stress and stimulate you. Some people know some of these things about you no doubt, but the only one who knows all of these things about you is you.

I’ve said many times that a terrific thing to undertake is to do an inventory of your strengths, areas to improve, skills, values, morals, motivations, fears, personal characteristics and qualities. If you feel you just, ‘intrinsically know’ all these things, I won’t argue the point. However, if you can’t verbalize your workplace values, define success and measure where you are in relation to it, name 20 of your top skills and provide if asked, demonstrated proof of those skills, you might want to consider getting around to formally documenting these things. But that’s not my point I wish to share here.

What I do want to talk about is not just figuring out what role(s) you want in this life you’re living, but with whom do you want to share your gifts? So if you know you want to be an Electrician, that’s wonderful! However, how much thought do you put into the organization you want to be employed by? If you’re simply going online and applying to a job because the job title matches what you want, that’s not the best way to maximize the odds of being happy in the job should you land there. And despite all the great advice from many Job Coaches and Employment Counsellor’s, many still research the job but not the employer.

That’s kind of like saying, “I want to be married” without putting a great deal of thought into the person you’re going to be with. Come to think of it, I may have inadvertantlly and unintentionally just stumbled on to why we have such high divorce rates. Could be too many people who want to get married rush into things without taking the time to, ‘research’ and get to know their potential life partner. Of course, there are people who figure marriage is a two to three year commitment and then move on just like some people do with jobs.

3 things are needed to be ultimately happy career-wise; a job you love, having the skills and expertise to do it well and thirdly, the pay that makes the job one you can afford to work at as it fulfills your financial needs. That first one though – a job you love – isn’t only the role but includes the organization with whom you partner.

Some people make the mistake of believing they have the right job, then finding out that it’s not what they thought it was all about, they change careers and choose something new. Sadly, I’ve often found that the peson knew themselves well enough to pick the right job or career, but they make the mistake of believing that one bad experience with one employer was representative of all other simililar job titles with other employers.

You may find for example that one company instructs all their Electricians to get in and get out asap when on a job in order to maximize the number of jobs they bill for in a day. This might leave you the front-line employee and Electrician running from job to job feeling very little satisfaction. On the other hand, another company might want their employees to complete work while encouraging their Electricians to interact with customers and explain what they are doing, how to avoid future overloads and promote electrical safety in the home or workplace. Both strategies could make the company the same funds. One billing for 8 jobs but less time with each customer and the other billing for 5 jobs but for more time with each.

As the Electrician, you might find yourself with a preference for one environment or what we call workplace culture. It’s not that the job or career was wrong, it’s possibly the job or career was a good fit but the employer wasn’t. Two different ways of operating and two different types of people will fit. One is task-focused employee and the other a mixture of task and desire to educate using their people skills.

Okay so what about you? Are you in the right job but perhaps working in the wrong environment? Considering the length of years you have left to work, you’ve got to calculate the cost of remaining a round peg in a square hole, or finding a round hole that fits what you’re after. Again, get the job you’re great at, that pays well, and that you love, and you win! You’re happiness hangs in the balance.

Heading Back And Moving Forward

When the Covid-19 pandemic first starting gaining traction and gaining world-wide awareness, I recall resolving to abstain from blogging about it. First and foremost, I felt it was so prominent in the news, that this coupled with social media adding to the information already out there could potentially create fatigue in readers saturated with too much on the receiving end.

Now however, as many organizations recall or prepare to transition their staff back to workplaces, I feel the climate might be right for a read. While many have talked about a return to what once was deemed, ‘normal’, I personally rather feel that our, “getting back to work” might look very different. I’m just not sure in all cases if what becomes our new, ‘normal’ will be recognizable as what we’ve experienced and how we’ve gone about work in the past. 

It is clear that some businesses were forced to adapt how they moved their services and products into the hands of their customers. For many, this meant creating webpages, learning how to conduct transactions online, discovering anew how to market themselves and yes, go find their customers who in the past were the ones finding them. For many, I gather this was not such a bad thing whatsoever. In fact, some business owners have said they knew the need was there to explore online marketing or sales, and the pandemic gave them the push needed to adapt rather than fold.

Employees who were fortunate to keep their jobs during the worst days of the pandemic had in many respects, the greatest adjustments to make. For those who worked in the community in face-to-face contact with the public, their customers or clients and guests, this meant using personal protective equipment. Where that used to conjure up images of someone in a nuclear power plant or working in a lab, it meant ordinary folks were donning masks, face shields, using hand sanitizer frequently, refraining from getting within 6 feet of others, and sneezing into crooked elbows and all the while refraining from touching their faces. Did you notice just how often we reflexively touch our faces?

For the employees who suddenly found themselves working from home, there too was adjustments. There were Zoom, Teams, Skype and Ring Central Meetings to learn about. There were webinars and online team meetings to attend, renovations to be made so space became private and business appropriate. There were children passing in and out of camera views, tails of cats suddenly walking by online and dogs heard barking off screen who needed to be taken out and let back in. A knock on the door became a true event of curiosity and excitement; after all, we were in the belly of a pandemic and people just weren’t supposed to be out and about.

Some business thrived though. Courier vehicles delivering packages started making more than the odd appearance – dare I say daily as I observed. Amazon and Wayfair simply buzzed with activity and many chose to avoid going in supermarkets altogether and simply ordered their food in advance and waited in their vehicles for personal shoppers to bring out their purchases. That $3 or $5 fee for the service might have initially seemed an extravagance, but compare that to the many dollars saved when not buying impulse items. Personal Shoppers and Covid Checkers outside businesses were jobs that came about only because of the pandemic.

And now, we contemplate or have already begun the business of returning to work. How are you feeling about that transition? I remember John, Paul, George and Ringo first singing all those years ago, “Get back! Get back! Get back to where you once belonged.”  Odd how we might feel trepidation or anxiety the first few times we get back. The problem is that some people will immediately revert to handshakes and hugs while others will be cautious and adhere to social distancing. What do you do when someone shouts your name and walks over briskly with their arms open wide? What do you do if you’re the one looking for a hug and a previous hugger suddenly holds up a hand and says, “Whoa! What are you thinking?” 

And this is where Management teams have to assert themselves and both educate their workers as well as set the standards themselves. If and when people ignore the health standards and requirements, just like any other health and safety offence, a conversation and/or discipline has to follow. 

Maybe that’s the understanding we all have to have; right now, shaking hands, hugging, choosing not to wear your mask properly – these are similar to not wearing your steel-toed boots or tying off your safety harness. The only difference being you get in a nail in your own foot or you fall and kill yourself. When you don’t wear your mask or don’t respect distancing, you potentially harm not only yourself, you potentially harm co-workers, their families and anyone they come into contact with. 

People’s feelings are to be respected and are valid, no question. When one’s beliefs don’t align with others, in this instance you turn to science and experts; not the kind you find in a random online search, but subject matter professionals. 

When back in the workplace, my hope for us all is that we feel safe, secure and respected; whatever our new normal becomes.