It's Time For A Summer Slowdown

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2021-05-29 15:30:04

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It’s starting to feel like a real summer out there. Which means one thing: time for some seriously bad ‘future of work’ takes!

I’ve written about a few of these takes in past newsletters (don’t threaten your employees in a major newspaper!) but last week offered a new batch. The Boston Globe published an essay by a behavioral scientist suggesting that hybrid work is likely a fad. He argues that remote work will hurt trust, cause employees to go unseen, and make them feel isolated (things that are only true if your organization refuses to evolve and do the bare minimum to meet the challenges of hybrid work). My favorite of his arguments was this big-brained idea:

I’m not explicitly anti-commute — it can be helpful to have a forced excuse to segment one’s days. And I agree with the author that breaking up one’s day is healthy. “Of course, remote workers can plan breaks into their days,” he writes. “But most people aren’t very good at putting boundaries on their time.”