The New WFH

Does working from home redress the balance for older women and introverts? For years new opportunities have gone to those with youth on their side or those who love to speak up at meetings and in person. Does working from home mean that it no longer matters what age you are - you can be the newest member of a team and also the oldest member. Will not having to be in an office finally mean that you can be over 40 or incredibly shy?

While for some people working from home has been a massive pain in the backside, for others it has meant a chance to shine that they normally don’t get in the office. For those who aren’t the loudest or most confident, endless in-person meetings and presentations were the cause of huge stress and strain. It even meant losing out on promotions or getting kudos for projects because they were hesitant to put themselves forward or speak up. Now, in a Covid-19 working world, with less opportunity for grandstanding, it’s the actual work that matters more than anything else and those diligent staff members who always got the job done, on time and with great skill are the ones who will be the new employees of the month.

2019 offices with their performance heavy agendas were not the place for the introvert. Team building days out were terrifying, rotating turns to present key wins horrifying and constant in-person meetings soul-destroying. Bonding on big company nights out which were optional but expected, meant that those colleagues for whom small talk and friendly slagging with the boss came easily were often the ones remembered when it came time to promote or coach.

Susan Cain’s 2012 book Quiet and her Ted Talks are a great place to start to understand the needs of introverts when it comes to the working world. She says that brainstorming sessions often descend on the introvert like a flash storm and that offices should be designed to reflect both types of personalities with open plan parts for those that enjoy chatting and working together and with nooks and crannies for those that do their best work and thinking when they’re allowed the time and space to be alone. That is, when and if we return to office life as we knew it in a pre-pandemic world.

Working from home and conducting meetings via video calls has meant that lots of introverts are contributing to their teams more than ever. The joy of the mute button means that people have to wait their turn to speak and the ones that were shouting the loudest in person have had to learn to sit back and hold their whist. You can also use the chatbox to offer an opinion which means you can get your point across in a well-written way without ever having to unmute yourself!

It’s not just introverts that find success working from home. Older team members who often felt they weren’t cool enough or on-trend enough for the office are now on a more level playing field. Working from home (if you’re fortunate enough to still be working) is the great leveller and it’s much harder to scoff at someone’s ideas for being outdated on a Zoom call than it is to roll your eyes in a small meeting room.

The pressures that applied to parents (and it must be acknowledged, specifically to mothers) to leave the office by a certain time to do child pick-ups or their inability to get to breakfast briefings and away days because of childcare issues are also removed in a world where working from home is the new normal. Younger or childfree colleagues that were available to work late or early don’t see the same benefit when everyone can log back on in the evening when kids are in bed.

But that’s another issue.

The lines between work and home life are increasingly blurred when your office is the kitchen table.

Just answering another email at 9pm in front of Netflix turned from a once-off to a regular situation for many and being unable to physically distance yourself from work while being physically distant in life meant that for many work hours suddenly became longer and longer. And for those parents that didn’t have any childcare help during the first lockdown the stress of trying to be parent, teacher and a good employee was leaving some close to breaking point.

So while some introverts are thriving in their new work environments with lockdown comes an increased risk of becoming isolated and forgetting what interaction with anyone outside your family is like. Companies are going to have to dig deep to keep the mental health of all their employees in mind. There are innovative schemes from some companies that involve walking meetings within teams and for team members that live close enough to each other to facilitate it. The quizzes and virtual drinks that were a fun feature of WFH last April are being replaced with one to one check-ins and conversations and the option to make some meetings camera free are a positive development for those working from a busy and sometimes messy home.

While many people have wanted a remote working option, for some time this year has been more of a working from creche/home school/unsuitable box room situation and concessions have had to be made. But hopefully when all this is over a new working framework can be developed that will be suitable for introverts, working parents, those who want to live outside urban centres and those who really, really want to get back to the office.

The New WFH

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