Think Again. Ousting The “In-Person Is Best” Work Bias
It’s not going away. The appeal to work remotely has become more valued than ever before, especially for your youngest talent.
Employee engagement has reached frightening lows in just about every sector, which understandably has leaders deeply worried and looking for answers to see them through the Great Reshuffle. This disruption started (allegedly) when the pandemic forced many into remote work, and we stopped being together.
Indeed, having your people working side by side is the magical solution to everything returning to its ideal state, right?
Nope. For starters, surveys consistently show that people are looking for flexibility and choice about where they work, not less. The ability to work remotely has become more valued than ever before, and that’s not going away, particularly given that these trends are significantly more robust among younger workers.
Even in organizations that remain committed to offering employees significant remote or hybrid work, there is often a “rub” of under-aiming among Boomer and Xer leaders who believe that full parking lots are the sign of a successful system.
As learning professionals, we hear many biases regarding what in-person experiences can achieve.
With respect and love for the profession, I aim to provoke leaders and teams to stretch their thinking and check for bias as all of us increasingly move into uncharted territory with an abundance of promise.
What follows are the four biases that may not be 100% accurate and, when left fixed within systems, may interfere with your strategic promises to your community.
Bias #1: In-person learning is most effective
I learned best in person. I led campuses and districts where this was the best practice as well. I’m 100% biased because this was my lived experience, but there is something sneaky about this one. From my observation, many leaders who repeat this myth are not always aware of the complexities of learning effectiveness today — they want to bring people physically together, and “learning” seems like a solid justification.
The smarter we become, the better excuses we can construct.
The excuse that learning (and work) is more effective in person is demonstrably false. When one considers that the ideal learning process must hold both meaningful practice and feedback, in-person learning often is less impactful than well-designed virtual learning.
Bias #2: In-person everything helps strengthen campus culture
Increasingly, we hear leaders argue that in-person learning events are necessary because it significantly contributes to strengthening team culture. It’s worthwhile to consider, for a moment, whether that can even be true. After all, culture is the shared beliefs, values, norms, and habits that are held and practiced regularly. Culture is about how we work together, how we’re expected to behave with one another, the goals we collectively pursue, and the way we respond to challenges and setbacks. In other words, we experience culture all day, every day, when working together.
Virtual experiences are becoming more of our experience and a part of our culture.
Social and community events away from workstations can create a fondness amongst leaders and teams (especially if the food and drink are yummy, right)? Yes. Such events can be visible and memorable opportunities to celebrate a culture. However, they certainly aren’t where culture is exclusively built.
Culture is built in the everyday exchanges with your people and teams – virtually and in person.
You deserve to stop scurrying in confusion and busyness.
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Bias #3: People need a break from their devices
There is no question that your people are feeling burned out and overworked. Staring at our screens all day and enduring back-to-back virtual meetings does not help the work/life balance and mental health yuck permeating our people.
However, it’s absurd when we believe that sending our people to a conference center for two days to rotate between ballroom and breakout rooms is a better engagement strategy.
If your people spend too much time staring at their devices daily, you should encourage them to step away intentionally and frequently. Next time you attend that multi-day learning event, look around the room and count how many people are not lost in their screens.
Just sayin’.
I believe your people experience more significant stress from the backlog of work and emails that pile up when sent on an off-site learning journey. The solution will be found in thinking differently about work/life balance, mental health, networking, and access to best practices.
Don’t fall to the conspiracy bias that your single shot of in-person well-being workshops will make that great of a dent.
Bias #4: Real connection can only be made in person
When we operated exclusively in person, we had clear norms and cognitive schemas that provided us with implicit “scripts” for how to interact with people. We watched others do it throughout our lives and made this our way.
Admittedly, in the early days of the pandemic, trying to get to know people virtually felt very weird for those of us trying to do it for the first time. We felt lost.
- Do I keep my camera on?
- Am I supposed to look at the person speaking?
- Will they notice if I don’t?
- How do I excuse myself if a conversation gets awkward?
- Should I be raising my “hand” to speak?
- When is it okay to come off mute?
- Is it okay that my cat keeps running around in the background?
This myth that real connection can only be made in person directly results from risk aversion.
If I don’t know how to do something, it’s easier to say it doesn’t work… and call it a day.
Networking and collaborating virtually still aren’t entirely natural to many of us, though the initial panic of the unfamiliar does seem to have faded. With time and a little more practice, we’ll do what human beings have always done when new ways of communicating emerge (think of the telephone, emailing, texting, and social media): We’ll all get the hang of it.
Just keep swimming.
It still is important to be together.
All that said, people universally want opportunities for in-person connection. A recent survey found that two-thirds of employees wish in-person work and collaboration opportunities to be a part of their forever planning. It also found that they equally wanted to be a part of a caring culture.
Advantage in-person.
Unarguably, the natural expressions of warmth and empathy that give the impression of caring in humans can be more sincere and more powerful when we’re physically together. That’s because we have all communication cues: words, vocal tone, facial expressions, gestures, and body language.
I’m a hugger, and the new Zoom updates can’t do that for me.
To make the most of those in-person opportunities for connection, we need to make them optional, tactical, and intentional.
Optional
Most leaders I serve are tempted to think they know what’s best for their people. Don’t hate me, but don’t force them to come together if they are not fired up about the idea. Required attendance requires nothing more than compliance.
Turning one’s heartlight (desire) off will also cause their headlight (competence) to be off.
Autonomy and the feeling of choice have long been recognized as fundamental human motivators, and the campuses that offer more options can have an advantage in the talent competition. My experience post-pandemic is that roughly half of the leaders would instead learn virtually if given the opportunity.
Leaders should routinely ask themselves: Am I so sure that being in person for this initiative is needed, and where might I be alienating my people?
Tactical
Fact: People with little in common apart from the campus they work for don’t usually conduct a lot of “connecting” with new people at events. What they do, overwhelmingly, is hang around the people they already know. Yes, new connections can happen when unfamiliar groups of people convene for short, episodic experiences; however, in my experience, these interactions tend to be cordial but lacking in substance.
The real value of in-person events lies in deepening existing connections, particularly for teams of people who work together. That’s where the opportunity to send “social signals” — signals that convey our respect, liking, and empathy for others — benefit from our ability to amplify them through our physical presence (e.g., through smiles, lasting eye contact, gestures, etc.). These signals matter most for people whose substantive connections — who have meaningful things in common, work together frequently, or share common goals.
Intentional
The benefits of in-person connection don’t just “happen.” Conditions that encourage something beyond surface-level conversation and small talk, in both structured and unstructured ways, need to be created. Decades of research have identified the kinds of activities that tend to enhance social bonding, including the following:
- Creative problem solving
- Perspective sharing
- Rituals
- Humor
- Food
It’s worth noting that while being physically together can amplify the impact of these activities, you can still utilize them virtually to powerful effect. The challenge is often finding ones that work well in a virtual environment.
Higher Performance Group {HPG} has listened and recently responded to the high demand for virtual team development for campus/district leadership teams.
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Our ways of working have been permanently disrupted. We aren’t going back, which isn’t a bad thing. Sure, we have some things to figure out. Getting to a better tomorrow means being willing to critically question our assumptions about what people need to be fully engaged, fulfilled, and productive.
It means restraining the urge to grasp what feels like “easy” answers and accepting change and the hard choices that sometimes come with it.
It means listening to your people, trusting their judgment, and using the science of human behavior to create optimal conditions under which they can connect and thrive.
Don’t worry…you’ll get the hang of it.
We’ll get the hang of it.
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