Makers vs Managers: The Battle Over Remote Work

Explore the dynamic tension between makers and managers in the context of remote work. Delve into the unique challenges, perspectives, and potential solutions that arise when these two distinct roles navigate the increasingly digital landscape of modern employment.

Meetings fill the work day

In modern workplaces most employees are individual contributors, largely falling under the “maker” category, and feel the negative impact of fractured days and the stop-start of juggling meetings with deep work

• The ease of scheduling meetings in the office without consideration for their bigger impact is precisely why they’re such a threat to productivity
• While managers naturally make up a smaller proportion of companies, meeting practices largely tilt towards their preferences

Reward results, not presence

Managers who adopt these changes will be well positioned to take on the future of work which will be increasingly remote, more asynchronous, and where the teams with the best and fastest execution will win

• A workplace optimized for makers benefits everyone
• The shift to remote work following the pandemic is an unprecedented opportunity for managers to take stock of the ways that offices have often impeded work rather than facilitated it

Assess existing meetings

It’s up to managers to assess the state of meetings at the company and cut out meetings that don’t provide value

• Is this meeting a must-have?
• Who absolutely needs to attend this meeting? Could this meeting be 30 minutes instead of 60?

Open floor plans create distractions

Rather than dividers or cubicles separating employees, team members sit shoulder to shoulder working at the same long tables where it’s easy to glance at your deskmate’s screen, listen to their phone conversations at close range, and even hear the music through their noise cancelling headphones

• Unfortunately, most workplaces lean into busy open offices where collaboration is overemphasized and individual contribution is sidelined
• A better solution lies in eliminating offices all together

Forces a focus on output

Working remotely reduces managers’ insight into what colleagues are working on and how reports are spending their time

• Default to trust: value output over busyness
• People begin to fiercely guard their time for working, rather than dedicating it to meetings and team chat that can often be performative

Remote Work

In remote-first companies, everyone has the potential to do their best work by embracing a schedule that centers on focus

• Makers can thrive in their roles rather than serving as seat warmers in another meeting
• Managers can embrace disconnection
• Offices have been built around the needs of managers at the expense of makers; the move to remote work offers a rare opportunity to shift the balance

Diverging attitudes about remote work

As the pandemic wears on and the possibility for business-as-usual diminishes, support for remote work among employees has only strengthened

• A March 2021 survey by Harvard Business School found that 81% of people who have worked from home through the Pandemic either don’t want to return to the office or prefer a hybrid schedule
• Meanwhile, managers and executives continue to express reservations
• Accenture Plc survey found that 80% of executives prefer that workers spend four to five days in the office when the flu is over
• In some sectors like tech, executives have listened to their workforce’s preference for remote options

Offices optimize for busyness

In the absence of easy metrics to measure knowledge work, managers reward what’s visible

• Employees arrive early and leave late
• Being visible at meetings is rewarded
• Quick responses in Slack are expected
• The importance of putting in “face time” to earn a promotion or responding quickly to messages to simulate workplace engagement creates a prison of presence

Allows individuals to optimize their workspaces and workdays

One of the benefits of remote work is the ability to work wherever you want.

• Instead of imposing the same office environment and work schedule on everyone regardless of their preferences, remote work allows each individual to optimize the way they work best.

How managers can support makers

Managers need to recognize how their teams do their best work and set the tone for the workplace accordingly

Encourages async communication

By defaulting to async communication, conversations that don’t happen in real-time, teammates can participate in discussions as they’re available.

• Async communication helps makers build a schedule that centers around large blocks of deep work rather than fitting in focus in 30-minute slivers between meetings or multi-tasking between team chats.

Why remote work is better for makers

Working from home or intentionally opting for a co-workspace of choice allows makers to flourish

Embrace remote work

Remote work can create an environment where makers thrive with a newfound ability to focus, an emphasis on async communication, and the ability to optimize their workdays

• Not every company can transition out of the office permanently, in the short-term or the long-term. In these cases, it’s worth considering a remote-ish option where some employees work in the office while others work remotely.

Make a delayed response the default expectation

To see makers thrive, managers must end the constant drip communication of real-time chat tools and the distracting disruption of all-day Zoom calls.

How offices make it hard to work

For reasons that range from physical to cultural, offices tend to encourage communication over focused work.

• From the distractions caused by open floor plans to the emphasis on constant collaboration, it’s challenging to find the time to actually work.

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