Does tech help or hurt hybrid working environments? | Ep. 47
companies that adopted new technology to help promote workers during the pandemic are now finding that the same technology could be hindering them in hybrid or return to office settings we'll explore these hybrid Tech challenges on this episode of today in Tech [Music] hi everyone welcome to today in Tech I'm Keith Shaw joining me today to discuss the issues of Technology around hybrid workers is Lauren Isaacs she is the CEO and Executive Vice President at all points PR and integrated PR agency that specializes in the franchise industry welcome Lauren hi thanks for having me yeah so um when um when your company reached out to us to talk about some of these issues uh what I found fascinating was a discussion of the technology that that your company uses uh as it goes through as it went through the pandemic but then also in the post-pandemic period so take me back to the sort of the early days of the pandemic what you guys did in terms of your technology to support remote workers and then lead us into sort of what what's going on now sure um I'm actually going to take you back a little bit further okay so we so we um have been in existence since 2011 so well before the pandemic and when the pandemic hit we were already pretty prepared from a technological standpoint right everyone had laptop computers everyone had the ability to FaceTime Zoom was just kind of starting I'd actually been begging my employees to get on video conferencing for years we had you know really good use of Dropbox and email servers and everything was set so the pandemic happens we bring everyone in the right it was Friday the 13th and we bring everyone in for a seminar we basically say like we'll see you in a few weeks and here's the technology that we're going to be relying that we'll have to rely upon and um the technology actually went really well for the beginning of the pandemic right like we really hit the ground running I was really proud of our team and the fact that we were ready to work remote um we really had no time analogy hiccups and again we were relying on Dropbox and so we had all of our files were shareable our emails were really strong um and we were we were getting on Zoom so then you know now we're like in a structured hybrid model right and so right when the pandemic started to kind of end right there was only definite end right yeah well there are a lot of companies yeah there were a lot of companies that didn't know exactly when to sort of ease back in so you saw like an up and down sort of like uh starts and stops I think we were talking about that right yeah absolutely I mean and I like to say that it was much easier to like exit than it is to come back in right like when we had to shut off like that we could do that we understood but like the the hybrid and kind of how we came back was really confusing um and then like Omicron happened and there was all of this like uncertainty so in the meantime where we've settled is we're a structured hybrid so my staff is here either two or three days a week depending on what week it is um and they're here with their main team so any given day I have 50 of the office in and the technology that we're relying upon is the same technology that we use during you know total lockdown right we're still using zoom we're still you know using um the shared Dropbox and things like that no you yeah you know you mentioned the the term structured hybrid which I think is the first time I've heard that now uh it's different from sort of a like a a regular hybrid or um let's call it casual hybrid um and you started with that too but then you found some some challenges around that right yeah exactly so like just hybrid right like kind of come in when you want and show up like you know when it works for you that was really confusing it was really hard for managers um and honestly it was really hard for for me and for my husband we run the business together and I remember like walking in the office and it was like a surprise who was going to be there that day and it's just a really uncomfortable way of conducting business and managing especially young professionals so we switched to a structured hybrid now there is still some flexibility within it but the main kind of value behind structured hybrid is I know who's going to be here today today is Tuesday right and pads three and four are in on Tuesdays Philip I need to have an impromptu meeting I can have it in person if I want to save something and do it on Zoom you know I kind of I the structure gives me as strange as it sounds it actually gives me more flexibility it allows me to really understand the flow of work and where people are going to be um one of the things that we're trying to figure out within structured hybrid is what work should we do when we are in person in the office together and what work should we reserve to do when we're home right and how technology kind of plays a role in that is something that you know we're exploring as well right and but you were also telling me before when we when we chatted before the show was uh that Zoom is now you're actually sort of struggling with it when you have those meetings that are some people are in the office and some people are still remote having like either larger meetings or meetings where you have two different sets of people in terms of their location talk about that a little bit about what what challenges you guys are facing there right so Zoom for like a one-on-one totally fine right like we know how it works it's structured it's super easy Zoom for um a client to a group of team members that are all in person fine right we have a zoom camera everyone's lined up they're presenting to the client where we really start to step in it with zoom is when I am trying to do a presentation for my office and so if I have you know 20 people in office and 20 people that are on Zoom where do I look where am I presenting right am I presenting to the camera but then I'm ignoring the people that are there right and I actually think that people that are in person should get the priority they should get the eye contact right they should get that face-to-face interaction and so our cameras aren't really set up to do both they're not set up to switch from this like one-on-one Dynamic to uh I'm presenting to a group and I have people you know on Zoom it's almost like more of like a theater setting it's hard to figure out how to present when you have half your staff in and half your staff on zoom and have you seen any other Technologies out there by either other companies or Zoom itself are they addressing this at all or is this sort of up to just you guys to figure it out and or companies that are also struggling with this yeah I mean I think a lot of people are struggling with it um we do have a great Tech provider that we work with and we've been talking about it recently and you know we're trying to come up with like do we put the camera like on an arm that we can pivot and move and you know and the camera and the microphone relationship is really complicated especially for like a small office I don't have some like great sound system you know I have my earbud right like that's the best I can really do um and so the microphone actually is the hardest component because if I stand on the opposite side of the room of the camera the camera and the mic you know then I'm picking up noise that's in between us right um and so I have not seen a good solution yet so all right I wish there was one too we have the same problem here sometimes especially with these larger meetings uh and uh yeah I I hope that someone comes up with it with a cool solution um now did you have any problems with sort of that return to work uh mandates we're seeing a lot of stories where company uh you know employees that that did move to that remote work from home sort of scenario are now either fighting back or they don't want to come back in because they they did it enjoy the benefits of being at home and not having a commute things like that you say structured hybrid and I think you you mentioned that this was sort of a mandated thing right yeah yeah so um I think I think the the biggest issue that we have is I think my my staff is worried we're gonna take it away right like I think that they like working from home they like having that you know chance to work from home two or three days a week and I think there's like a little bit of paranoia of like are you is this for real like is this always gonna be this way or are you going to be one of those companies that's like starting on Monday everyone's in five days a week period yeah um we are not gonna do that so I do think that if we did that we would have a lot of people resign um I do think it would be like the great resignation right um and so we really want to keep our staff happy and I do think that the staff sees the benefit of being in person I mean being in person being able to swivel your chair around and talk to your Mentor who's sitting behind you you know being able to talk to people in the kitchen as you're filling your water bottle like those are really Irreplaceable conversations we cannot do those when we work from home right um you know even if we pick up the phone even if we're on FaceTime it's just not the same yeah and we did we are seeing a lot of research that's come out now that says mentoring relationships especially with these uh with younger employees uh is more beneficial in the office do you did you find employees that that wanted to come back into the office and were missing that or did they sort of just kind of like go okay I guess I gotta go in today or you know dynamic is good right yeah I mean it's interesting that you asked that so I actually I have a couple of Staff members that came in like throughout the pandemic um they were like my roommates driving me crazy um and can I just come in and we have a really small well we have like a nice office building right so we don't have like elevators like it's a kind of a small office building so people definitely felt safe to be able to still come in and we kept our distance and we relied really heavily on testing at that time um and now that we are back with structured hybrid I have a covenant staff members that come in all five days a week they just like being here they feel like they're kind of siled and alone at home um so I do think for every person that kind of gives me like the role you know rolls their eyes and like yeah I guess I can come in two days a week I have others that are like I love coming in it's it's the best part of my week yeah what would be funny is if you actually then said all right well on Mondays and Fridays we're not even going to open the office and everybody's at home and then you'd probably give some grumbles from people there too well totally so Fridays you know Fridays are my interesting one like no one really wants a Friday um so we do alternate every other Friday for half the office but you know it kind of is what it is like I'm not going to close the office one day a week and you know I also find that some of the best conversations that are happening on those Fridays they're more casual they're a little bit more laid back and I think they're good team bounding days alternating Fridays reminds me of my my gym class in middle school because it was always Monday Wednesday Friday or and then the next week it was Tuesday Thursday Friday and you never wanted that Friday gym class as well um sorry I went off on a little tangent there um what kind of advice would you give to companies that might be struggling with sort of a return to office mandate and and it could vary between big companies and little companies but I think every company is unique but there might be some some companies out there that are struggling with this sort of kind of get back in is it more that you just have to sort of promote the benefits and sort of downplay the negatives or like what would you offer as advice because it sounds like it's working for you guys yeah I mean I have two pieces of advice my first piece of advice is like stick to the plan like if you make a decision to stick by that decision um and don't let yourself waver based on immediate feedback right and so like when we made the decision to do structured hybrid I literally like wrote like made a calendar item was like I can review this in two months I wasn't gonna review it in two weeks like I needed to stick with the plan because I think that people appreciate leadership I think people appreciate like when you are decisive and you have like an idea um and so that would be my first piece of advice is don't waver like make your decision to stick firm to it um and then my other piece of advice um is to address it address it head-on like don't pretend you don't know what the problems are right so I'll say to staff like I understand it's hard for you to have the commute again like when the prices of gas were really high Yeah we actually gave people gas gift cards because we felt really bad that that kind of happened simultaneously to the return to work um and I think that like by addressing things head on and being like yeah we're people too like we understand um instead of being like oh great like this is what we're doing it's fine there's no issues no no like we understand that it's hard to to make change and to have to come back in we understand that not having the commute was a benefit we we get it um but then we also do layout what the benefits are and we structure meetings to be in person so like brainstorms are in person and I think that people start to figure out that energy and I think people really like that energy right and so we really try to you know have lunches and things as teams to play up the benefits of being with your mentor and you have the benefit as well you're in the Chicago area so you don't necessarily have a you never went fully remote with sort of around the world with hiring and and you know getting employees right no and that's a really good point I mean my husband and I never considered going to like a fully remote office and so every hire that we made even in the heart of the pandemic it was all people that knew eventually we would be back in that's the other thing like I never did a bait and switch right like I always let people know like Our intention is to come back into the office because we actually we grew during the pandemic we were super lucky um our office is I think about 10 or 12 people bigger today than it was at the start of the pandemic and so every one of those hires knew even if we were in the middle of like the Omicron lockdown they knew that once we were ready we would be back in person at least a couple days a week does the does the nature of your business being in sort of public relations does that rely more on a face-to-face uh communication with either clients or uh people in the media or like I don't know people in the media probably don't like face to face but like you know what's the nature of PR for you guys does it require that in person no so I think that's the ironic part about our business right is that we are actually like fully remote with our clients our clients are National Brands and we do not see them um on a daily basis I mean you know we do calls and we do video conferencing and now we're going to conferences and we do a lot of travel but so the irony is that like we are not a client facing business um and we don't you know visit members of the press I mean if they'd like us to we'd be happy to but that's you know not a standard practice yeah and so um but I actually think that makes it even more important for us as young professionals to be together right because we're not we don't have to do it for the clients but I think we have to do it for ourselves and I think that we really have to commit to wanting to grow as as people quite frankly and kind of get out of our pajamas and and come into the workspace and I know that we've been picking on Zoom a little bit uh during this discussion but there are some other sort of Technology platforms that came out during the pandemic in terms of getting people communicate and now there are articles out there about Communications overload uh so a lot of companies that integrated things like Microsoft teams and and slack and you know people still stuck up with email and instant messaging and all that and now they're finding that most of their days are just responding to emails do you find that as well at your company yeah I mean I'm laughing especially when you say teams like that one just gives me shivers um I like to say that I constantly feel like someone is tapping me on my shoulder right like I constantly feel like someone is asking for my attention whether it's you know the phone or the email or text or like people coming into the office right like and that communication overload is something that I think we all really struggle with it's actually one of the things that we take a lot of time training our new professionals on is like how do you effectively communicate because if I'm sending out emails and no one's reading them it's like talking to the wall so I have to be really careful in the way I communicate with staff and the way that I receive their communication so um we are not on slack I I won't do it I do it I'm a graduate student also and I'm on it for my graduate class and I hate it I feel like communication gets lost I think it can be incredibly passive aggressive at times um and so you know for our office we do rely on email um because our clients rely on emails right so we have no choice but to stick to the platform but we also we text each other you know we we swivel our chair around I get it from my desk and I go and talk to someone and I think for us texting is kind of that wave still connecting as if we were in person um but you know slack I think has really helped a lot of businesses but I think people are overwhelmed with it especially all like the different channels like it is too much and I think that companies really need to to remind their communication yeah the other thing that we run up against is Dropbox versus Google Drive and like I can't maintain two platforms right and so we try very hard to keep people like only on Dropbox for file storage as well so it's not just the communications it's also other technology platforms that tend to overload us yeah so totally so who's we all like shiny new objects right like we all want to try like what's new and yeah we just can't do that as a business it's too confusing well it's a lot of this generational too like you know you probably have a range of employees from sort of you know older employees now to to gen Z employees do do you find that they have their own personal technology choice or do you feel like you're like okay here's what you're going to use and and learn how to use it yeah I mean watch it because I'm the old lady at the office so I don't have any older employees I am the old person um yeah I mean my husband are in our mid-40s and then our youngest employees are in their mid you know to early 20s I do think that generationally um there are differences I think that I don't know like I think that actually their use of the computer itself is very different than our use of the computer right um everyone is on their phone about everything and so for us like we kind of have to meet them at that which is one of the reasons that we do tax as an organization is because I'm actually trying to meet my staff where their needs are um I would be fine not texting my staff but I think that they like that form of communication a little bit better but yeah I mean definitely there's like a generally generational issue I mean we talk about like email the first few weeks and they look at me like really like I'm gonna be on email for things we also live and die by in back zero at the office I'm not sure if you're familiar well yeah just tell me about that I've heard the term but you know Define it for us yeah so inbox zero is it's basically like I think of it as a philosophy right so you have to either do it delegate it delete it or drag it there's a fifth one called defer we ignore that one in the office because defer doesn't make sense if you're going for zero yeah right so like if it's something that you can immediately do get it done and get it out of your own back if it's information that you need for later drag it into a file so you can reference it later if it's something that you're never going to be able to do but you know the right person for the job defer it you're I'm sorry um delegate it give it to somebody else and then the last one is if it's like a newsletter that you're not gonna read within a certain amount of time just delete it like don't hold on to junk and so the goal is to have and back Zero by the end of the day I mean you know I was kind of teasing like I could get you know 50 messages in the time that you and I have been talking we've been talking for about 20 minutes like I get hundreds of email messages so if I'm gonna be good at my job I've got to have a system to get through those so the ones that are really important I address and the ones that I'm never going to address I don't pretend I'm going to um you know I just get rid of them like how many Google Alerts am I really going to read today right it's not happening yeah I I heard a story once that said uh someone coming back from vacation just basically selects all for all of the emails and then just deletes them and someone was asking that person well why do you do that and they said well if if you know anybody that needs to get in touch with me they'll know how to do it and so um that's a great philosophy I I try to I try to do that whole inbox zero thing as well um that reminded me with in terms of emails and new users uh because I wanted to talk about this this viral video that that came out a few weeks ago of the CEO of this company and she was doing a zoom meeting with her entire staff and uh she was talking about the the term pity city which I think that I think the reason that she it went viral is because she used that term um not not necessarily because of the management style of this but more about technology like Zoom allows employees to sort of record without sort of the managers knowing this and the reason I think it went viral is because they didn't have any sort of safeguards in place to sort of like either prevent that or it's so easy to just basically turn any kind of communication into a viral thing um do you do you know how do you how do you sort of address that you know as the head of a company I mean yeah like you know my phone is here lady if I'm recording this on phone versus like on my computer right like we have recordings available anytime anywhere and you know so I can answer this question from two perspectives right like we're a PR Company and so we are actually reputation management for a lot of our clients and you know I always talk about like anything that you say assume it's going to be recorded any email you send any video you make any social media you post like you should assume that the person that you don't want to see it is going to see it yeah um and I have that same conversation you know with my staff right like if you're you know posting stuff about how crazy your boss is like you can pretty much assume I'm gonna see it I don't know how the universe or the algorithm work but it will come on my Newsfeed right it'll come across yeah so you know I think that that woman like with the pity City like we've just got to be really careful with our language we've got to always assume that someone is gonna record you um and I think you just have to really live your life in a way that not that you're fake but that you're authentic right and that you're saying things that you're willing to stand behind and that you know you're speaking in a way that that you feel like has Integrity um and so I do understand frustration I mean I often will say like if it was up to me and my husband we'd be back in five days a week but it's not up to me right I have to meet my my employees where their needs are so sometimes when I kind of feel down that like pity City like kind of path in my own head being the old lady of the office I do have to like temper the way I say it and and kind of say like I understand that this might be an old school way of thinking but it is really hard for me to communicate on zoom and I'd rather do this meeting in person you know rather than saying like I'm not giving in to you with a zoom like you have to come right you got to choose your language right and just be really careful yeah so do you think like this is now sort of the the status quo moving forward or do you think we're in sort of another phase and and then another phase will then happen with both technology and sort of office culture or is this is this where we are moving moving forward or you know without getting into the term AI I don't want to bring that up no no especially don't get me started um I could talk about Chad gbt all day every day um you know I I think we're in beta testing right like I kind of think like life right now is just one big beta test with all this new technology coming at us with all of these like Innovations happening it's a really really exciting time I mean I'm such a nerd I love this stuff so like I'm having a great time with it I also think the pandemic taught us a really valuable lesson that you know we can plan and we can think we know how the world works but something can come at us from nowhere and change our whole way of thinking and so I think for me like being really flexible going forward is is the motto right like you know we have to Pivot you know we have to this is the new normal like all those expressions I think that um I think that we just have to be ready for what comes next and just keep your head up and be excited about what comes next yeah so so bottom line do you think that technology is sort of uh enabler or a hindrance to sort of the office culture in this sort of frame of time right now oh I think it really depends on what you let it be right like it can be a huge hindrance um I actually kind of live my My Life by saying like technology works for me I don't work for technology right so like my car for example there's like a thousand bells and whistles right like you buy a car can do all sorts of cool things I have an electric car I have chosen to not use those options because I need my car to get me from point A to point B yeah right so like you can fall down rabbit holes really really easily with technology and as I said like technology works for me right like I'm gonna turn off the notifications I'm gonna shut things off I'm gonna make things work in a way that is allows me to be productive and allows me to be Dependable for my clients and my staff that reminded me of another question do you have do you have people on the staff that are really into technology and they come in and go this is gonna be the greatest thing ever this is what I want we should have the entire staff use this thing and do it do you have that out of your company because we've had a few at our company here yeah yeah and I gotta tell you like I love those people like I try not to play favorites but you know when they walk in like showing me something new I'm like come in and I'm gonna clear everything to talk about this um but that's again like the nerd in me but um but yeah I mean I have a couple of people on staff that are always like looking at like the newest stuff and I I do like to think it keeps me young especially when they're teaching me like all the new social media platforms and you know whatever it might be but I I embrace that but I also am like okay hold on like we are not switching the whole office to this you know we do try to be really really strategic okay so to tap on AI with that you know it's like okay do I just say to myself like use chat TPT like just have at it and instead I've actually chosen to be relatively quiet about it until I could form like a real opinion and then we're leading like an all-office um seminar about it yeah and so I try really hard not to be impulsive but to like be reflective to understand that if I make a move I'm asking 45 people to make a move and I've got to be really solid with what that move is and not just impulsive and think oh it's shiny and fun and new and let's do it yeah I used to be that guy I used to be the the sort of the shiny the Shiny Happy Tech Guy and would try to get everything involved and do everything but now as I've gotten older I've become the old guy who yells at the cloud and uh you know my kids my kids took my you know they try to get me into like Tick Tock and Instagram and all that other stuff and I'm like nope not gonna dance not gonna do this not gonna do this and they're like come on come on I'll show you how to do it like nope so I think I've turned the corner in terms of that technology adoption thing but it is cool to have both both sort of inputs uh Lauren thank you very much for uh for being on the show with us today uh great stuff and uh hope to talk to you again sometime my pleasure thank you so much and that's all the time we've got for today's episode don't forget to like the video subscribe to the channel and add any comments you may have below join us every week for new episodes of today in Tech I'm Keith Shaw thanks for watching foreign
2023-05-16 18:43
