Where Should People Work?

Because an increasing number of public- and private-sector leaders now think remote work is a problem, not a solution, we asked three C-level government executives a question: What are your thoughts about work-from-home arrangements? Here are highlights of their responses.

In-person work builds relationships.

“The whole point of on-site isn’t necessarily to do a bunch of strategy work. It’s to get to know each other because it can be really hard to understand the nuances of somebody’s email or what they’re not saying in a Zoom call when you don’t know them that well,” said Andrea Fletcher, CMS’ Chief Digital Strategy Officer and Director Digital Service.

Occasional on-site work fosters trust.

“I can’t [bring people together] and build those relationships of trust doing it 100% remote because you lose that collaboration, you [lose] focus [and] because then people multitask,” said Nathan Tierney, the Deputy CIO and Chief People Officer in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Information Technology.

Outcomes should be the top priority.

“We have to have outcomes. You have to be able to get the work done, and you have to be adult enough to tell yourself … [when] you can’t do the work that you need to do at home [and] you need to come [into the office],” said Mayta, with the City of Wichita.

Measuring outcomes will identify problems.

“The important thing is that we measure [what we do] … to see what’s working, what’s not working, so we can figure out where to improve,” said Tierney. “I think we’re all kind of figuring this out and prototyping some solutions.”

Remote work’s effectiveness depends on the individual.

“Like a lot of things, it’s never here or there. It’s always … depending on the individual. [Remote work] can be effective if they do it the right way,” said Michael Mayta, CIO of the City of Wichita, Kansas.

Remote options make recruitment easier.

Hiring great talent in smaller cities, where CMS offers more competitive salaries, “seems to be a really smart play and … leads us to talking about … how we recruit new talent and new skillsets,” Fletcher said.

Communication is key, no matter where you are.

“Either remote or in person, the hardest part for me is getting [people] to communicate and partner … with their fellow employees,” Mayta said. “They just don’t want to ask for help, and it doesn’t matter if they’re on premise or remote.”

Some work is hybrid-friendly, some is not.

“If you just do a blanket [approach], is that really going to help you solve the problem?” Tierney said. “Depending on the work being performed, [what’s appropriate] may not be the same. I don’t think it’s going to be a cookie-cutter solution.”

Telework allows for a more geographically diverse organization.

“I think there is something really nice about having people around the country being able to go into local offices,” Fletcher said. “It seems like a really big win to be able to have federal jobs outside of the D.C. area.” But we need to consider “what does it look like to have a workforce that is spread across the country?”

This article appears in our guide, “Conversations With CXOs: Lessons Learned in Management, Workforce and Technology.” For more insights from the C-suite, download it here:

Image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay