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Linked: Remote work, innovation, and the Great Resignation

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

It seems pretty simple, if your team gets work done just as easily from somewhere else as they do in the office, let them work wherever they want.

But wait, they aren’t being innovative and creative. Surely they would if they were back in the office with each other.

No, not really.

Employees want to work from home. Their bosses, however, can’t wait to get back to the office. Knowledge workers think being remote makes their jobs better, while managers worry the arrangement could cause the quality of work to suffer. But in scapegoating remote work, companies may be disguising the real scourge of creativity right now: too much work.

I love this because there are so many companies, SO. MANY. COMPANIES. who think that creative and innovative ideas simply spring to life from people being in the same place, and completely miss that it’s not the proximity, it’s the time.

How many time has someone said to you that they would like to work on an idea with you, and you should book some time on their calendar when you’re both available.

And you look. And maybe in 3-4 months, you can both be available.

Innovative ideas do not come from people who are so swamped with work and meetings that they never get time to focus. People doing the work that 2-3 people used to do are not coming up with great new ideas. They are barely keeping their heads above water, maybe.

That’s not how this works. If you want the best creative ideas and you want to promote innovation, you need to make sure there is time for it first. If there’s time, the location isn’t going to be much of a problem. People will find each other through mutual connections and start sharing ideas again when they have time to do it.

https://www.vox.com/recode/22904758/remote-work-innovation-workload

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