Countering Two Problems in Working From Home

A client today said she had lost motivation to work because of a double-whammy: "My boss has been micromanaging me more than ever. Plus, I don’t like working from home. I’m very social."

"Micromanagement"

First, we tackled the “micromanagement” issue. I asked if she thought any of the following were operative;

• Business is slower, so the boss has more time to provide feedback to employees
• Amid the economic drop-off, the boss could be under increased pressure from her boss to improve the quality or quantity of her supervisees' work, perhaps in hopes of avoiding more layoffs.
• The boss has lowered her opinion of you and is micromanaging you to get you to quit so s/he can avoid a protracted, painful termination process.

The client said that the latter seemed possible but she wasn’t sure. So I asked her if her peers had noticed an increase in the boss’s micromanagement. My client said she didn’t know, so I asked her if she felt comfortable taking a brief break in the session to send a text to one or two trusted peers asking about that. She did and got one response almost immediately: Her coworker did not perceive an increase in the boss’s micromanagement.

That led my client to reframe her perception of the situation. The client said, “Maybe I need closer supervision but before we were working from home, my boss didn’t have time to provide it. Maybe I shouldn't prematurely reject her criticisms as micromanagement but rather try to consider the feedback—It may help me keep my job and even if I don't, it could improve how I do on my next job.”

Social isolation

We then discussed my client’s missing the workplace’s social interaction. I asked if she is doing the virtual equivalent of what she had done at work: bopping over to people’s desks or to the break room for a brief chat, professional or otherwise. That is, is she occasionally Zooming for a couple minutes with her favorite coworkers or one’s whose input she could use? In today’s work-at-home world, there’s a tendency to confine meetings to the formal. After all, we’re all getting pretty Zoomed-out. But a few-minute chat, even on video, can provide some of the human interaction that many people appreciate about being in a workplace.

Then I asked whether she has the flexibility to get together—per social distancing restrictions—with other people who are working at home. A bit sheepish, she said, "That's so obvious! Yet I somehow haven't done it much, but I will." I took it one step further: "How'd you feel about inviting neighbors—subject to COVID restrictions—to an outdoor lunch hour or happy hour." She liked that idea too.

The takeaway

Alas, most of my clients are being told to expect to be working from home for the rest of the year, if not indefinitely. So it helps if we can make this new way of working not just effective, but pleasant.

I read this aloud on YouTube.