How to make your office days feel as flex as remote

Sweaty from your mid-morning Pelton trip you log again into your pc refreshed and energized. You shortly end the report for the afternoon Zoom gross sales name with the staff and bathe so you may be prepared for cocktails within the park with your pals at 5:00 pm.

Nonetheless, your good temper shortly turns bitter.

Tomorrow none of this shall be potential. You can be in your cubicle at your firm’s company headquarters and haven’t any flexibility.

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So, how do you make your office days feel as flex as remote?

Lean into the facility of autonomy

Researchers Edward Deci and Richard Ryan developed a concept, known as self-determination theory, that asserts that autonomy is certainly one of our instinctive psychological wants. When this want is thwarted, our motivation, productiveness, and happiness plummet.

While you assist your autonomy wants, you’re extra productive, have larger job satisfaction, much less burnout, and have greater ranges of psychological well-being.

Human beings have an innate drive to be autonomous. When that drive is liberated, you’ll obtain extra and be extra engaged and fulfilled. That is helpful for you and your employer.

Determine your want for autonomy

Management and selection over when, how, the place, and with whom you’re employed is important to assist your autonomy wants. Nonetheless, in case you are unclear on what your necessities are, you can’t make your office days feel as versatile as your days working from house.

Reply the questions under to establish your autonomy wants:

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  1. How a lot autonomy do you at the moment have over your duties—the first duties of your job and what you do in a day—if you make money working from home? What modifications do you expertise if you work within the office? What concepts do you’ve to tackle decreases, if any, in your process autonomy?
  2. How a lot autonomy do you at the moment have over your time at work? For instance: if you log in, if you sign off for the day, and the way you allocate your time every day if you make money working from home? What modifications if you work within the office? What concepts do you’ve to tackle decreases in your time autonomy?
  3. How a lot autonomy do you’ve over with whom you’re employed if you make money working from home? What modifications if you work within the office? What concepts do you’ve to tackle shifts to your staff autonomy?
  4. How a lot autonomy do you’ve over the way you full your duties every day if you make money working from home? What, if any, modifications do you expertise if you work within the office? What concepts do you’ve to tackle decreases, if any, in your execution autonomy?

Problem your assumptions and get artistic

Now that you’ve recognized your autonomy wants, the second step is to problem any assumptions that you’ve about your autonomy wants being met if you end up within the office and get artistic.

For instance, is there a written company coverage that prohibits you from going for a run at 11:00 am if you end up on the office? Or did you assume that this might be forbidden or frowned upon? Test your assumptions.

After you have examined your assumptions and decoupled the tales you inform your self from the info, you’re prepared to get artistic. If you’d like to work out mid-morning, might you invite a colleague to be part of you on your run? Or might you host a strolling staff assembly?

While you tackle your autonomy want and mix it with one of many advantages of being within the office—reference to colleagues—you’ve designed a artistic and impactful answer.

Focus on your want for autonomy with your supervisor

The ultimate step to make your office days feel as versatile as your work-from-home days is to have a dialog with our supervisor. Focus on your autonomy wants and your concepts to tackle any decreases if you end up within the office. Discover how one can accomplice to co-create an expertise that meets each your and the corporate’s wants.

The office has modified. Now could be the time to problem the established order of “work” and embrace the evolving office. You may make your days within the office feel as flex as remote when you understand your autonomy wants, forestall your assumptions from hijacking what could also be potential, and co-create a job with your supervisor that permits you and the corporate to thrive.


Carson Tate is the founder and managing accomplice of Working Merely, Inc., a enterprise consulting agency that companions with organizations, enterprise leaders, and staff to improve office productiveness, foster worker engagement, and construct private {and professional} legacies. She is the creator of Own It. Love It. Make It Work: How To Make Any Job Your Dream Job.