LATEST RESEARCH: singles, predators & more gorillas

This week we published the findings of 100 interviews with knowledge workers we began on 1st September. (Some of them we interviewed twice as events unravelled in the UK—thanks Kwasi).

The highlights:

⏳ For a lot of bosses, the combination of economic winds, time lag since Covid, and the new school year, means it’s time to make decisions they have been avoiding: Reorganising teams, releasing space, demanding more days in the office (seelast week)…

📆 Hybrid is settling not settled, because the hard work to make hybrid work mostly haven’t been done yet. Communications are still happening in a pre-Covid way, coordination is still haphazard, teams are still not getting the best out of office-based days. And teams that work different patterns are starting to piss each other off: like the people who rock up every day being irritated by the noise of midweek ‘coffee-morning crew’ who come in to be sociable.

🦍 The employment market is reforming across a much wider geography. HR leaders are working out how to ship people across the country a few times a month, across country borders for a week at a time, and facilitate people working in Lisbon or Boston. It’s causing them headaches with travel, visas and tax but is an exciting shift for many.

🏡 The biggest predictor of people wanting to work in offices (aside from bosses who are highly rewarded by offices because they are the boss) are those who live alone and enjoy the office.

✈️ An employment lawyer says there has been a rise in harassment cases due to the many off-sites. Another challenge for HR.

👩‍💻 It’s true, we should worry about the 20-somethings, but not because they want more office time than anyone else—they don’t! Because they tend to spend more time in training and most of it is still online (and often crap), which means they are hating it and not hanging out with their peers when they should be.

Interested in your builds: does anything surprise you? Did we miss anything you’re seeing?

NEXT WEEK

We’re in the risky business of predictions 🔮

Christine