Recently, Katherine, a consultant at an investment bank in New York, met a colleague for the first time. He went for a fist-bump four times in the same interaction.“He was like, ‘Hell yeah! That’s great, Katherine!’ Fist bump. ‘Yeah, I’ll see you later!” Fist bump. ‘Okay, I’m going to head out!’ Fist bump,” she said. “The fourth time, I looked up at him and was like, ‘Are you sure?’ and he just held it there.”
She gave him the fourth bump.
As of April 11, an average of 43 per cent of workers had returned to offices across 10 of the United States’ top business centres, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and D.C., according to data monitored by Kastle Systems. In late December, during the Omicron surge, occupancy averaged just 17.5 per cent.
Katherine, who is identified only by her first name to speak freely about her employer, went back to the office in February. She still calls her co-workers her “Internet friends.” They know each other from Zoom, but in person, they feel like strangers.
“People are so excited sometimes when you do say hi and you do meet them, they don’t really know how to act,” she said. “Everyone approaches it awkwardly but kindly.”
People are so excited sometimes when you do say hi and you do meet them, they don’t really know how to act
As singular and transformative as the past two years have been, workers have broadly been having parallel experiences until now. Companies shuttered operations and adopted remote work by necessity and in unison in the early phases of the pandemic. But as the virus recedes and firms are forced to chart their own courses, we’re in “this weird liminal state” that presents an even greater degree of uncertainty, said Andrew Knight, professor of organizational behaviour at Washington University in St. Louis.
Being around other people feels draining. Swapping flexibility for anything mandatory seems like a downgrade. Old routines have become foreign and taxing: suiting up and commuting, making calls in front of co-workers, navigating run-ins with bosses in the restroom, picking a seat in the company kitchen. And the new stuff is weirder, like schlepping into work just to sit on Zoom calls in an empty office.
Social media has been studded with posts about the less rosy realities of encountering colleagues in their physical forms, from unwanted physical contact to farts.
Barbara Holland, HR adviser at the Society for Human Resource Management, said one of the most basic steps to creating a comfortable environment in the current landscape is “making sure that people who are very comfortable are aware that others may not have the same feelings.” Some of this can be encoded in policy — like mask, vaccination and social distancing requirements — but invariably, there will be a learning curve, Holland said.
Source: Financial Post
