Pre-COVID-19 Work Style

Before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, March 2020, I requested the team to be in the office, 09:00 - 17:00, Monday to Friday. The reason I justified this was there would be a clean delineation between work and personal life.

I made a rule that I would ever contact team members outside of work hours when there’s a real emergency. The number of times that happened was zero, from my point of view.

This kept things simple through the physical presence. I also told them use the physical presence of being in the office to focus on work, so when you leave the office, you can leave work there.

In this setting, working from home was the exception, not the norm. Team members would tell me whenever they wanted to work from home so I know where they are.

In a way, I was managing knowledge workers using industrial age management style.

😅

When the COVID pandemic started, I had a shift in work style for the team.