Ever since COVID-19 lockdowns ended, bosses and employees have been arguing about working from home. Prof Margaret Heffernan and Prof Leslie Perlow argue that the real issue is not about numbers of days in the office, but about productivity. When advising a software company, Prof Perlow identified two different kinds of work.
She proposed ringfenced days for uninterrupted production of output, either at home or in the office. This lower left practical approach reflects thinking about discipline, self-control, setting boundaries, planning, organising, resourcing, production, monitoring and control, delivery, and so on.
The rest of the week to be spent in the office for relating to colleagues. This lower right relational approach reflects thinking about meetings – both formal and informal, catch up, training, mentoring, coaching, being helped, helping others, and so on. Prof Perlow called this helpfulness.
The synergy from the two lower instinctive approaches gave a productivity gain of 65 percent. Products were shipped on time and the change in working practices cost nothing.
Prof Heffernan recalls how the late Richard Hackman demonstrated, time and again, that helpfulness is a mission critical part of any great culture. Because it is how information flows, how people learn from each other, catch mistakes and find new possibilities.
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