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It's official. The American economy is reopening, and I'm having a lot of complicated feelings about that. I'll be real with you. I'm too scared to go back to the office right now, and I know I'm not alone.
To do my job well and equitably, I wanna be out in the community, but at the same time, I'm put more at risk.
I am not in a rush to get back. I can work from home very effectively.
Similar to a lot of people, where I think it's a bad idea. The risk of COVID-19 hasn't disappeared.
So for the moment, I'm really, really lucky. I can continue working from home. But, you know, in the not-so-distant future, I can assume one day I'm gonna be asked to go back to the office, and I have to think to myself, "How am I gonna talk to my manager if I'm not ready? What if I wanna just continue working from home? What if that's better?" I found an expert, and she's gonna help me answer these questions. Karen Mattison is a flexible working consultant and co-founder of Timewise based in the UK. She helps workplaces think differently about the value of flexible working.
When people talk about flexible working until now, it's always about what you can't do. So it's been a very limiting kind of conversation. "Oh, you can't do that. I can't see you. How will I trust my team if I can't see them? How will I know they've done their job?" And I think actually there's so much about the possibility in terms of how can people combine caring responsibilities, reduce travel, do better things for the environment, work in a different way, and I think we just haven't had our eyes and ears open to what's possible, and I think now we really have.
So I should mention that even before I had my conversation with Karen, I did a little exercise. I was curious, what would I even say if I tried to negotiate working from home a little bit more and, uh, postponing re-entry? So I did a little mock interview, and here's kinda the language that I ended up using. [beep] Uh, my request for you is, is it possible to work from home, um, for just a little bit longer? Um, I don't quite feel comfortable going back in yet. [beep] I think if the company truly cared about its staff, you know, on top of all these safety
Episode notes
How to Negotiate a Flexible Return to the Office
28 May 2020
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𝙎𝙪𝙗𝙨𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝘼𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙤𝙙𝙖𝙮! ✨ https://www.youtube.com/c/HBRAscend ✨ Many of those working from home during quarantine are now being asked to return to the office. But how do you talk to your manager if you don’t want to go back in? The pandemic forced physical coworking spaces to temporarily shutter, and for many employees the transition from working in an office to working from home was abrupt. However, many of us have adapted to working from home—and what may have seemed unfamiliar at first now feels more routine. And until a Covid-19 vaccine is widely available, office re-entry carries both measured and unknown risks. Karen Mattison, a flexible working consultant and co-founder of Timewise, offers advice on how to enter a negotiation with your manager for an alternative working arrangement during this crisis. Tips for negotiating flexible work: 1. See things from your manager’s perspective. They’re most likely under a lot of stress during this time, so your goal is to make this difficult transition smoother for them as well as for yourself. 2. Take the time to practice. Role-play with a friend or someone in your network who’s a manager. You can even record your sessions so you can replay them later and workshop what you could have said differently during the scenarios. 3. Avoid going