Jon

Hi everyone, and welcome to IntheOffice Cast. I'm John Kent.

Adam

And I'm Adam Scorey.

Jon

And today I wanted to talk about a problem that employees are having in the workplace that has been highlighted to me by three different people from three very different companies as one of the biggest issues that they're facing in the workplace at the moment. So if I let you share the stories that they're coming out with, and then maybe we can have a discussion and see what your views are.

Adam

Sure thing, yeah.

Jon

So the first person that spoke to me, she works in a law firm. She sits just below the partnership level, so she's quite senior.

It's a very large law firm. And she described this to me, because we always talk about jobs and things like that, how are things going, how's in the office, all of that sort of stuff. And she said the biggest issue that they've got at the moment is that they're doing battle with their desk booking system.

And it's doing battle, her words. And the issue that she has is it used to be that with their desk booking system, people just didn't use it. They just refused to, because it was another thing they had to do, and people were just fed up.

And there's lots of hangover of that from all of the other stuff that we've talked about previously. But she said the biggest issue that they've now got is that the firm has put rules in place on how far in advance you can book a desk. Because what they were seeing was people were doing a number of things.

You'd have one person going, I'm just going to book this one desk for the rest of the year, because it's my desk. And then I can set it up how I want. I can have my monitor how I want.

Regardless of whether or not I come in, I'm going to book it, then it's mine, then no one else can use it. So that's one of the reasons why they decided to come up with a rule about how far in advance you can book it. Then there's the other problem, which is...

So that's the sort of booking because it's theirs, their desk. Then you've got the booking to forget, where because they're being told you have to use the desk booking system, even though they've refused to, they just go, fine, I'll just book random days. And people will think I'm in the office complying with the mandate, and I don't have to log in again.

So I've booked and forget. So the issue that she was seeing happening was because of this releasing of desks, the desks were being released really late on, I think it was a Friday night. And the structure of a firm is that you have partners, usually partners, associates, then trainees, and then paralegals, for example, is in the sort of hierarchy of experience.

And what was happening was that they were getting either the trainee or the paralegal to stay up late on this Friday night, waiting for these desks to be released. And then they were booking them for their whole team on specific days so that their team could guarantee they'd sit together. In theory, sounds good.

Adam

Tactical booking.

Jon

Tactical booking. Regardless of what was happening in their lives, regardless of what their actual needs are, because they were told they had to book these, they had to be in the office a certain amount of time.

They were like, right, we'll book, then it's in the system, then no one's going to complain. Well, of course, what was happening was then work life would change and there would be whole sections of the office that had been booked out, but that no one was sat at. So people who did actually need to go in couldn't sit at a desk, they had to sit in the canteen.

So that was her story, hence the battle against the desk booking system. Another friend who works at a very large medical company said their biggest problem was their office is very, very, very small and they've got very limited parking spaces. Similar system of releasing the desks and parking spaces a certain amount of time before.

But obviously what was happening there, because the people weren't, at their company, allowed to book for other people, you could only book for yourself. So that was then, it wasn't giving it to a trainee or a paralegal as they're considered at the bottom of the hierarchy, it was something that they had to do so people were staying up and then booking random desks again or random spaces regardless of what you actually needed in the coming weeks. But then, of course, forgetting to change it when what happened in your life changed.

So frequently you would turn up and there would be spaces or desks. So the firm then put another rule in place, which was if you're not there by 10.30, if you haven't signed in, you lose the booking and it's then open for anyone else. A bit too late in my opinion, but anyway 

So that was those two. And a third was a developer in a software company who said they just had a free-for-all in terms of desk booking. There was no limit.

And people would be very strategic about their bookings and who they were sitting next to, and you get lots of nice cliques going around and trying to exclude other people. So they similarly put in a rule about how far in advance. And similar to all of this, he was finding that people were then trying to find ways around the rules and trying to break the system that had been set up because it wasn't aligned with what they're wanting.

And when you did actually want to go in the office because you had a need, or you wanted, to see your team. There wouldn't be enough desks, or people would have booked it and not turned up. Similar sort of story.

So I know I've got some very strong views on this idea of if there's a problem that you're trying to fix that's focusing on how do we ‘force’ people down a specific way of working, a specific way of doing it. So let's put in rules and regulations to force particular behaviour. So I mean, those are the stories. Based on that, do you have any thoughts about that?

Adam

Yeah, well, I mean, the kind of first thing that comes to mind is what happened about having a conversation with your teams and the business about what's the reason why you need a desk booking system in the first place? I mean, I don't know whether these are conversations that I've had or whether the desk booking systems are quite mature in businesses. But first and foremost, why are people trying to break the rules when the point of the desk booking system is to try and enable you to manage this hybrid and remote way of working and collaborate with the people that you need to collaborate with when you need to collaborate with them?

So it’s kind of... That's the first thing that comes to mind, the communication piece around what the hell is going on. The rules bit, I kind of, I understand in that situation that rules need to come in afterwards, but were rules not agreed or parameters, framework, whatever it is agreed in the first place.

So that wasn't necessary. It feels a little bit like it's a hierarchical kind of regime as well. So that the more senior people get first choice and the paralegals in that particular example, or the trainees are the ones that suffer because they've got to stay up until two o'clock in the morning or whatever it is to go, well, yeah, I'll book the desk for the next three months for you.

What about you? Well, yeah, there wasn't any left or whatever the case may be. So that kind of defeats the object of being in the office in the first place.

And then the whole business about booking it for great tranches of time, for me, that again defeats the object. This isn't about ownership. It's about using the office in a very different way and using your time in a very different way.

Otherwise you might as well not bother with the desk booking system at all and just say, right, you're all in. And you've all got a desk, that's your desk, crack on. So it feels a bit like a rate, all of them feel like a bit of a race to the bottom is that if you're not prepared to use the framework and the system that we've created so that we can all rub along nicely and collaborate together and speak with the people we need to speak with and being on the days that we need to be on, that's the bit that feels lacking.

You've missed the point, if you see what I mean. You've really missed the point about why we're trying to do this, about trying to, for the good of everybody in the business, use hybrid and remote working. And this kind of, we've got a set capacity, which is 50% of the total amount of people in the business.

How do we do this? How do we make it so that everybody has got a fair opportunity to work in a hybrid fashion? So, yeah, I mean, it feels to me like target missed massively.

But it also feels like as time has progressed and the maturity of the desk booking system has been in there, that people have gone, meh. The human condition starts to arise, laziness and efficiency right, just book it for three months, because that means I'm efficient and it's my desk then and I haven't got to worry. I know that it's there.

No one else can take it. Yeah, that again, it just feels a little bit, oh, what's going to happen is somebody at some point is going to tell me to go, right, you've had your chance, children. Now we're taking the opportunity away and you're all just in.

Or it'll be, we're going to take the desk booking system away completely and it's going to be a bonfire. So you might turn up and you haven't got a desk. Now, regardless of how senior you are, you're not allowed to kick anybody out of the desk because if you turn up later than they do, and then what's going to happen?

So you can just, this is becoming a bit like trying to herd cats or hold back the ocean, you know, hold back the tide.

Jon

Yeah, I mean, there are a couple of things in there that I thought you brought up. Well, firstly, you know, why have you put in a desk booking system is something that everyone should really be thinking about. And you know, this is what our bread and butter is, you know, not convincing people that they need desk booking systems, but seeing if that's the right, the appropriate tool for the problem that they're experiencing.

And I mean, I think there are a number of parts of this. The first part of, you know, there's a huge refusal to use the system in the first place. I'm, I don't know if it's that the systems are far too complicated and so people don't use it.

Or if they become more complicated as time goes on. And so, you know, there's an initial, okay, yes, we're going to use it. And then the usage drops off.

But the biggest issue I have about this is, and this actually came up with a client very, very recently where they asked what rules we have, for example, to prevent people from booking too far in the future. And I said, well, you know, we've heard a lot about this. And my view is why are you putting the rules in place?

Because is it that you do have the sort of culture where if you say, guys, you can't book six months in advance because, you know, you don't know what work you're going to be doing six months in advance. So you don't know if you're going to need to be in the office and collaborating with people or if you can be at home or if you're someone that actually goes, I can't work at home, I need to be in the office, then surely the best solution for that is to actually make sure that they have a dedicated desk so that they can just always go in. You know, there's, we've talked about this before, you know, people aren't all the same, we work in different ways.

So trying to have the most up to date, you know, fine plan for the future, but appreciate the plans change. And so really, if you're looking at a desk booking system, people should be looking as well as the night before to remind themselves that they've booked a desk. You know, when I've gone into a WeWork, I'm generally not booking it six months out unless I know I've got a meeting.

I'm going, you know what? Actually, I really want to go into the office, the WeWork tomorrow. So I'm going to book it tonight because actually I've got some work where I just, I need to be out of my office at home.

I need to be in a more open environment. It makes me think of, I remember way back when I started my career on Facebook was just, you know, getting quite big and people were losing days doing scrolling on Facebook. I think the wall, you know, the latest, the new feature of the wall where you'd have a feed had just come out.

And a lot of companies were then going, we're going to ban people from using Facebook because they're just, it's destroying productivity. And of course, some of those companies then realised they were being left behind because other people were using Facebook for marketing and for networking. So then they're like, oh yes, well, we had two people that were using it 

So rather than deal with them and say, actually, you're spending too much time on Facebook as a good manager would, they put a rule across the whole firm saying you can't do it. Then they went, oh shit, we need to change that. So then they brought it back and said, well, you can only use it during lunchtime unless it's for official work business.

And then you're like, well, what, if you're saying that, what's the point in having the rule in the first place? You know, people are trying to get around it.

Adam

So, it feels to me in that instance, I mean, yeah, first and foremost, why? Why have you got the desk booking system? What is the outcome?

And have you communicated that across the business? Because that surely would enable people then to go, oh, I get it. And that's going to be really helpful.

Jon

Well, and at that stage, you should be then getting and soliciting feedback from people about how they feel. And if you've got some people going, but I need to come in, then you need to take that into account or similarly the other way or everything in between. But then you're working with your employees to try to come up with a system that actually works.

Adam

Yeah, but this also comes back to the whole purpose of the office now having transmogrified or have changed generally about our thinking about why are we going into the office in the first place? It's not just to reserve a desk for the next three months and going, it doesn't matter if I'm there or not. It's about actually what type of work do I need to do?

Where am I best to do that? Is home better? Is a near row?

Is it the office itself? The point is you've been, we've magnificently been given this opportunity because of COVID to go, and lots of businesses had actually done this before. Of course, I mean, we worked around longer than we were then COVID, but you're given the opportunity to then go, ah, I've got the choice now 

I've got options. So I can think about the type of work that I need to do, the people I'm meeting, who I need to do it with and go, I've now got three or four options to go, I can do that. And so having the flexibility of a booking system to tell people where you are, surely that's the purpose.

Thinking about the office differently, thinking about your time differently, and thinking about productivity differently. You don't have to have your bum in an office seat to be considered to be productive. Yeah.

That's the bit that seems to have, you know, that is the bird that's flown in this particular circumstance to me anyway.

Jon

Well, I think you really hit the nail on the head there, that it's the desk booking system isn't just to make sure you've got a desk. It should be to also let your colleagues know that you're going into the office so that everyone can come together and work together. And that was one of the things that the second person mentioned, where, you know, with the, if you don't check in by 10.30am, then you lose your desk.

It didn't actually, I stupidly didn't follow up about, well, what happens if you've got an external meeting first thing in the morning and you're not getting into the office until 10:45am. Yeah. You know, that's an immediate example of why that rule then doesn't work.

So you then have to have an exception. And I think that's the thing as well, that desk booking is, and, you know, in the office as a product, it's a planning tool. It's a communication and planning tool to help people be more organised and to avoid times where you turn up and either people aren't there, or you turn up and desks aren't there.

It's to try to make sure that actually you've removed a huge area of friction. So releasing a desk at 10:30am is only useful if someone's going, I'm desperate to go into the office today and it's 10:35am and I'm looking at, oh my God, there's a desk there. Yes, I can finally go in.

But by the way, you were meant to be starting work at 9am. So you're already an hour and 45-minutes late. So you're going to miss your lunch break.

You know, I'm being particularly difficult about it, but it's the idea of setting rules to try to control people's behaviour. It's, you know, it's stick, not carrot. Yeah.

Should know that expression.

Adam

I think you're absolutely right. Yeah, it is. It's the problem I see with it is that one rule begets another rule, begets another rule.

And then you start to, the triangles upside down. Once you start that process, you never end it is that because then you're talking about kind of segmenting particular needs. And because, you know, particularly I imagine in a large company, this could be a nightmare.

It was upon rules upon rules that, you know, say it's allowed to do this, but, oh, hang on a minute. If you're a trainee, oh, you're not allowed to do that. And then, you know, if it's different levels of developer, oh, yeah, but the, because it's an open office and the directors don't have offices, they sit within us of the, but they've got to have their desk because they're the owners, right?

They're the directors. So it then starts to get lucky and kind of like, hang on a minute, that broth gets a bit murky. Where does it, the point is, where does it end?

Jon

Mud pie!

That's, that's the whole thing, isn't it? It's, and no one wants that. No, but I mean, that's, and I think there's, I think probably taking a step back from it being just about desk booking, thinking about software in general, there does seem to be a bit of a misunderstanding about, I see it as a misunderstanding about how software is built and should be built.

And actually this client that I was talking to earlier in the week, when I said about, you know, these things about the rules and she said, well, actually, yeah, we had exactly the same issue with another provider that they used, you know, I think it was pre-COVID where they did have all of these rules and they kept going back and going, well, we can't launch it until you've put in this rule because we've just come up with another scenario.

And in the end, they had to cancel the contract. And in her words, the developers were crying because they'd spent all of this time building all of these complicated rules and the whole thing just fell over. It wouldn't work because you can't think of every single exception and codify it.

Actually, in a place I used to work at, that's what they kept doing was, you know, the clients could get whatever they wanted. And what I've said to our clients when they've said, oh, we need a rule. It usually happens when they've just rolled out desk booking and they go, oh, someone's done their desk or the book and forget.

How do we stop it? I was like, well, is it really? Is it lots of people that are doing this or is it one or two?

Because if it's one or two, are you able to have a word with them and see why they're doing it? Be in a relationship with them. Don't say you can't do it.

Ask them why they're doing it. Because it might be that they go, yeah, this is the desk where, it's like the neurodiversity conference I said I went to where, you know, someone might actually physically hate having their back exposed. That means that they're anxious the whole time.

So they need to sit with their back to a desk, back to a wall, sorry. And so there might be a real genuine reason as to why they're doing that. And if it's one person, then you can deal with that one-on-one.

But don't set a rule for everyone. And whenever people have said that, I've said, well, let's keep talking about it. Because if it continues to be a problem, we can start to think about some basic rules that we could put in place.

But let's not, until you've started to use the platform, don't start trying to change the core functionality of it and make it more difficult.

Adam

It becomes about the desk then and the office real estate rather than what does the person actually need. And what it does is it fosters a behaviour of, it doesn't matter what my need is, I'm going to have it anyway. Rather than, actually, I feel pretty comfortable that generally I can book a desk and if I can't, then I might have to sit in somewhere else or go into a, oh, I'll book a boardroom instead.

No one's using it. So I might just use that for a bit. So what is the fear behind these three different rationales?

I mean, you don't want total chaos, but equally, you don't want so many rules that actually no one ends up using because it's like, do you know what, I can't be asked. And I'm just going to turn up and I'm going to sit at a desk and if somebody kicks me out. So two extremes there.

So yeah, that's the bit for me that kind of developing this conversation out says to me, this is a cultural thing. This is about communicating the purpose of the office more and having the flexibility to think people and outcomes first, not desk, room, chair, mine. It's, again, it's just, it's going to end up not being particularly community driven 

It's not going to actually end up with the right outcomes. Some people get theirs. It's not a win-win situation.

It feels to me like compromise and win-lose.

Jon

Yeah, I mean, you can tell from the language that was being used, you know, doing battle with the desk booking system. Yeah, it's seen that, and I mean, the resentment as well of, in her example, she was saying that she did have a client meeting. So came in, but there were no desks.

So went straight up to the canteen to work from there because she needs to be in the office because she booked an office. Sorry, a meeting room out. And it was only when they went down to the meeting room that saw all of these banks of desks that were just empty.

And, you know, then said, well, who booked those? Oh, it was this team. Well, why are they booking it and not updating the system?

Because now I'm being affected, especially in a, in a law firm where you've got targets of hours billed. You know, this is, if you're not doing, if you're not billing because you don't have the right equipment, you get penalised for it. You know, you can be fired for it.

So it's, it's a way of these rules, actually almost double down on the badness of it, in my opinion, because you don't feel the trust as an employee, you feel lots of resentment and then you're going, well, I'm just not going to use the system because what's the point? I'm not getting any benefits out of it.

Adam

Or I'm not going to turn up because I can't, I don't want to use the system. I can't book a desk. Might as well just not bother.

And because the desk booking system is the way to track, I'd rather deal with the questions of why are you not coming in the office? Because then you make it, rather than about the culture, you make it about, well, the software's not working for me. Why is that?

Because we never book it because everyone else. So then it becomes, the problem isn't about the culture of the business. It becomes about the software, which isn't actually the fault necessarily.

So, and then you, you know, okay, we'll put some rules in. And then again, we just, you're getting to that. You're not dealing with the root cause.

You're dealing with, I guess, in an analogy, there's an Apple issue and a core issue. You're dealing with the Apple issue, not the core issue. And constantly you're just chipping away at the Apple.

Eventually you'll have to get to the core. That's what I'm talking about, right?

Jon

Yeah, yeah. Not the diseased. Very, very true.

And it's, I mean, I think, I will come on to some ways that I think people can avoid doing this in a second. But I mean, I'm trying to think, are there, can you think of an occasion where those, I guess, if the company culture isn't good, then maybe you do have to be setting those rules because, you know, being part of teams where the culture is really bad. And almost if you suggest anything, even if the person that you're speaking to, you know that they're going, oh, that's what I want to do because I've actually mentioned that a couple of times, but because you've said it, they're immediately going, no, that's rubbish, that won't work.

I'm just trying to think if they're, you know, trying to play devil's advocate of, would there be a way where I go, no, actually we need to set rules and we need to go really fierce on the rules.

Adam

Well, I do understand if you use that lawyer example of rather than it being a hierarchical in terms of rank, but that person builds the hours as a paralegal or as a trainee, I mean, I don't know the system, but you may, first of all, you might be booking hours or be a revenue generating stream your support. So it's by proxy that you're running. If that's the case, then you can understand, well, actually they should get priority because they're not necessarily going to be able to build the hours.

However, the flip side of that is, well, can you not do it at home? Why is it you're coming into the office? It keeps coming back round to, for me, why are you coming into the office?

Is it because your machine's there? The printer's there? Well, most people have got laptops these days rather than desktops.

Printer, are we printing out anymore? Are we putting documents into digital format? It's drilling down into those core issues and going, why is this such a deep attachment to the office as the only place to be able to use billing hours?

But I can understand it. If that's the only place you can work and you've got a library of books, for example, or a filing system or a paper, and it is a physicality of the office that you have to do, then I get that. But surely a conversation or when you're installing the system, you're sitting down with people and going, right, these are the people that need to have priority because...

…and if you understand that, now the point is if you can communicate and go right, managers talk with managers or team members talk with team members, whatever the case may be. Communication will solve most of those problems. Setting routines so that people know, well, they're in the office, they're not in the office. What's the capacity of the office? So, you know, trusting the software to fulfil the needs rather than it just being a tick box exercise that: oh, we've got desks, we need to book them. All we need is a system that can book a desk or an office and not worry about who does it or why they need it 

I understand it from a cerebral point of view that that happens because it's a little bit like human nature. You know, the strong survive kind of scenario and everyone else would just have to pick up the pieces after the wake. But it doesn't feel very 2025. It doesn't feel very liberated. It doesn't feel like they've got the point of, or they haven't understood the opportunity, fully.

Jon

I mean, I think it's worth saying in the law firm example, so like partners, associates, paralegals and trainees, sorry, not in that hierarchical order, but they are all fee earners. And so they are, they should all be billing out the time that they're spending working on a client matter. But what's really interesting about that is that trainees have to be shadowing and working with a partner for, you know, they have a two-year training contract where you work in, I think it used to be up to three seats or at least three seats.

So, you know, you'd be in corporate and then maybe employment and then maybe property law to see the different scenarios. And you had to be working closely with a partner so that you, there was a bit of learning bars, but also the partner was then going, right, I need you to do this work and then you get it checked by the partner. So for them being a team that works together is really important, which I guess is why they had the rule that you could book for either for their team or for anyone.

Whereas in the second option, I think he does work a lot more by himself or his team's a lot smaller. So not allowing people to book for the whole team, I can sort of understand why they've put those rules in place. But again, what you're saying is that the need of the office there is very different 

So setting up rules of when people can book, so in that scenario, if you don't have a paralegal staying up to book for everyone and you just let people book as they come onto the system, they're going to be spending a lot of time searching for their friends and then they're going to be probably trying to book a seat near to one of them. But by that point, it's probably gone because someone else has gone, oh, I don't care. I'll just book that table.

So again, you're creating a lot of friction, but you're not forcing people to do something. You're not working with the culture change in a good way. It's forcing people to do something in a way that then they go, that's not what I need.

So I've got to try and break the rules.

Adam

Yeah, find little sneaky ways to get one over on other teams, other people. It feels almost combative.

Jon

Yeah, absolutely. So I do want to sort of talk about what people can do to try to resolve this from what I've seen.

And I'd love to get your thoughts as well to see if you think that there are other things that we can do. So the first and foremost thing that I think everyone needs to do when you're dealing with software, and it's one of the reasons why I hate these complicated six to 18-month onboarding processes where someone customises everything. And then on day one, you go, oh, that doesn't work because it's so complicated.

If you can try to, there's an acronym. I think acronym is the right word called KISS, which is keep it simple, stupid, which you've probably heard about. And if you're starting to use software or starting to do something different, because remember for a lot of companies, desk booking is a very brand-new thing.

Can you be very brand new? No, it's a brand-new thing. It's a very unique thing.

Adam

Very new.

Jon

Yeah. Where if you haven't done it before, start simply. Don't try to anticipate the pushback or anything like that.

Don't try to anticipate what you might need to put in place, what rules you might need to put in place to stop people from behaving in a particular way when you don't know how they're going to behave. So keep it as simple as you can to begin with. And then if you are needing to, if you do have repeat offenders or if everyone is doing this sort of thing, of course, don't forget that the thing about desk booking is it is a communication and planning tool for the employees.

But also if it's used properly, it provides vital information to facilities managers and the C-suite on what they should do next. Do they need to get a bigger office? Do they need to downsize?

Can they downsize? Is everything going well? The whole point about that is trying to reduce waste, not just financial, but carbon and everything else.

If you don't need a huge warehouse, you just need a shed. Don't have the lights on in a huge warehouse. So keep it simple.

But also when you are making changes, try to make them small. So I always think about things in terms of software development and agile development, which is just continuous improvement. You make a change, you get instant feedback, and then you accept that nothing's going to stay the same.

You're just going to grow with it. So that's when people are coming to me with these issues, when clients are coming to me with these issues, I'm not saying, I said to the client today, it's like, I never say no, but I'm not going to go, yes, of course, we'll build that because I always think that we need to get to the core of the issue, as you said. Sometimes these things do just work their way out of the wash.

Adam

So the other thing that springs to mind is one of the last companies I've worked for, we had a regular Monday all-hands meeting, and it wasn't a meeting for a meeting’s sake. It was a crucial way to disseminate information across a geographically spread population of employees. Half of the business were remote salespeople, the rest were office bound, didn't need to be out.

So it was a really great way to first of all, see a face on a Zoom screen, say hello, have a bit of a laugh and a giggle and a chat and a quiz and a... But it was a business focused on the people or the culture and organically growing that culture. And any issues like this would have been discussed because the heads of team, when we got together, we said, right, these are the things going on in our world.

What do we think together as a team are the biggest priority right now that we need to deal with? What's our key ones? Urgent and important right now, the Eisenhower matrix.

And that's what we do. We'd sit down as the five of us and it wasn't the MD, he wasn't even involved in those discussions. He was kind of had his own agenda and he would come and fit in.

We'd have a discussion with him and be right, OK, actually this fits in with that because he had a strategic view on America, where our head office was, et cetera. But it just comes down to communication for me and talking through these things. How does this law company communicate?

Is it by email? Or is it, you know, get on a Zoom, have a chat, have a face-to-face challenge around these things, get the chat open, bring these things out in the open with the objective of solving the problem. What is the problem?

Let's solve it together because if we all solve it together, we'll feel like we own it, and we've had been part of the solution rather than it's done to me or it's done with me. So my take and it'd be if you have a bunch of people that go, I was part of the solution that I was really happy with that. It doesn't always work for me.

But you know what? That's OK, because I've got the option now to, you know, I'm going to go and sit in Nero and eat cake all day while I'm working. That's great.

Jon

You drink coffee.

Adam

Well, you don't get a fine figure like this on lettuce and cucumber. Yeah, so I mean, it's you're absolutely right. Software should be really, really simple in the fact that it's people first.

And then what are the challenges that people face? You know, Simon Sinek's why? You know, he's in circles of kind of gradually exploding out and then based the kind of what the software does on those kinds of needs.

And then so that agile piece around dealing with, you know, kind of eating the elephant one piece at a time. Eventually you get through the elephant. You've done the whole elephant.

You can't swallow it in one. So how else would you approach it? So but it just feels a bit sad, really, that people are kind of.

Being it's a bit lazy, a bit kind of selfish, a bit kind of miss the point.

Jon

Yeah, but I mean, that's and to some extent, that's you're always going to have that. But that's yeah, yeah. We can't all be high performers like the two of us.

But I mean, it's interesting as well, because one of the things you mentioned there, because I've been in place where you've had, you know, the Monday morning town hall meetings. I've been in places where that town hall meetings just been because one of the directors like to hear the sound of his own voice. I've been in them where they've invited other people who are doing interesting projects to sort of share information.

And sometimes it's been great. Sometimes it's been terrible. Sometimes there have been far too many people there.

So it's taken too long. And you're going, I don't care about half of these projects. I only care about the one that I'm directly involved in.

So why am I here? You're just wasting hours of my time. But also from my limited experience of working in law firms, the setup is actually very different from that, because I mean, it might be because it was a while ago, but there was never a town hall meeting within our group or within the you know, there might be the odds.

I think the most high-tech we got was the managing partner sending a voice note to everyone's voicemail. So the phone didn't ring, but then you were told you had a voicemail message. And it was the managing partner telling you about what was going on, which was, I mean, it's the first time that had ever happened.

I've never seen it since. At least they were trying something. But you know, I think you're right.

Adam

I think, you know, there's two opposite ends of the cultural spectrum there in terms of how it will approach, even, you know, do you as a business then turn around and go, right, this is a companywide problem, or is this a technical problem? And if you just put software in because it's a technical problem, yes, you're going to want to then, you know, treat it like a, you know, you're plugging a car into a bit of software and go, right, that's a problem. That's a problem.

That's a problem. We'll deal with each one of these problems and whoever shouts the loudest or is the most important, the priority will get given. Or the biggest team, for example, or sometimes just the person who shouts the loudest.

But if you deal with it from a humanist point of view and go, actually, what truly are the issues that we're trying to face it? What challenges are we trying to overcome? How can we use the office differently?

We need a piece of software. We need a mindset. We need a culture that reflects that too.

Yeah, I guess some people just don't care, right? They turn up 95. That's all they care about.

Right. Can I do my job 95? And, you know, it's sometimes difficult for me to appreciate that people are like that.

I've had staff that work like that, and I had to. It was a real battle in my internal battle going. Some people are just like that.

They just want to do their job and leave. So regardless of where they are in the hierarchy of the business, it doesn't mean.

Jon

Yeah.

Adam

Just they want to feel effective. No, no, not at all.

Jon

Might be incredibly productive for that time. And, you know, I know quite a few people who are like that, where you're like, they're not going to stay late unless it's something that they've messed up and they're going, oh, I need to stay late because I should have fixed this before or whatever. But yeah, they're just.

Adam

With the examples that you've had, were you able to ascertain whether because of the COVID pandemic that they change the office to as a long-term strategic objective to go, well, we can save money. We'll get a smaller office or reduce the office size down sublet it or release that. And we'll only have a 50% capacity for the business.

What was the background? Because that surely, surely two people in a room didn't decide that for 500 people.

Jon

No, that's a really good, really good point. Actually, I probably should have provided a bit more background. So in all of the cases, the company had either downsized their office or they're grown too big.

So they didn't have a one-to-one people to desk relationship. And I've said this to you quite a few times. I'm very much of the opinion that if you do have a one-to-one relationship between people and desks, you do not want desk booking.

You want something to manage the scheduling and attendance at the risk of doing a plug. I'll probably include two now. But you want the scheduling part of in the office.

You don't want the desk booking part because people won't use a desk booking part because they don't go back to that. Why? Why are you using this?

Well, because we want to see when you're in or we want you to be able to plan when you're in with your colleagues. That's not the right tool for it. That's yeah, it's definitely not.

You want to be able to see when people are working from home, when they're in the office and when they're working off site or just not working. And actually, that was in one of the demos where I had a question about these rules. And if we did it, so then showed them was when you're setting your status within in the office, if you change it from in the office to work from home, you have to remove your booking.

So it then became my explanation was this becomes self-policing. So in terms of that culture point, it's the communication between teammates where if I can see that you're planning to go in the office and I see you booked desk, I'm going to probably go in and try to sit near you. If you're then going in and changing that status because I'm sorry, if you don't and I turn up and you're not there, I'm probably going to come to you and go, I thought you were coming in 

So I made the effort to come in and you weren't there. Next time, please, can you update your status sooner so that I can then plan what's going on. So with that straight away, there's no, you must go on.

So the people that book and forget, they get stopped because their colleagues are going, you need to be a team player. But also the system's then doing it for you. So rather than a rule to try to force you into a particular behaviour, it's going, if you're not in the office, you can't.

It's automatic action.

Adam

Why do you need the book? Quite simple.

Jon

Yeah.

Adam

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

And I think that's the best way to do it personally, rather than being able to. And that's not sparse for you at all. No, no, no, no.

But the point is, is that the system, as you say, it's an organisational tool, it's a collaboration tool and you don't collaborate in three-month groups, really. You know, you want flexibility because life happens, choices, you want choices, you know, and sometimes the business says, right, you know, if you're talking about office managers or facilities managers, they might turn around and go, actually, we're doing a refurb. So no one's got a desk.

So we're, you know, unfortunately in that week, that's no one can come in. Now, if you're kind of continually relying on booking in that with no communication, then it's just, if again, it just feels like lack of communication, lack of kind of understanding around how this should work for everybody, I guess.

Jon

I mean, if you're thinking about a seesaw between sort of rigid rules and flexibility, what hybrid's given us is this flexibility. It's your ability to make a choice about where you should work so that you can get the job that you're trying to do done in the best way possible. And actually, when you're adding these rules, you're really restricting that flexibility because you're trying to force a particular behaviour.

Adam

Do you think this is also connected with understanding productivity itself? You know, I work with somebody who says to me on a regular basis, I don't feel we've got anything done today because we haven't ticked off 47 things on a list. I just don't feel that.

And it's almost like, right, we've got to go to this place. That's the only place we can be productive because I am not being, this person is not being interrupted, or he's not being waylaid or something. So therefore, I'm going to get stuff done.

But that's not in the office. He was the opposite and said, if I'm in the office, I'll continually get distracted. So I guess you need to talk about seesaws.

You need to think about that side. People actually can look at the office and go, there's no way I want to be in the office. The sales team are in, they're 90% of the business, the BDMs and the sales team. They're so noisy. It's great. They're doing a fantastic job. And that's their mini culture within a culture. That's what they need. They need the energy.

They need to support each other. But you know what? I'm in finance and it drives me crazy.

But I don't always work at home. So in that instance, has the office, when they've looked at downsizing or they've grown, have they looked at the office as that productivity tool and gone, do we need to change the way we lay out the office? Rather than just 50 desks in a room, do we need to go, right, that is the collaboration area. Could they look at it and go, actually, what might help is by rather than setting rules around the software, setting rules around actually how we use the office is kind of segmenting the office out for purpose.

Jon

Yeah. And I think the, I mean, there definitely are, there's a lot of work going into that. Well, certainly from some of the people that we speak to, there's obviously work going into that and lots of movable walls and being able to change one meeting room into two and things like that in between meetings as well.

But the, I think the problem with a lot of this, and it's one of the reasons why, you know, we should probably talk about it in a different podcast, but like these return-to-work full-time mandates is, it's hard work to get this right. And you can't make everyone happy, even though that's really what you're trying to get. Because you're trying to get everyone to be as, really as productive and happy and all of the other nice adjectives as possible.

But it's hard work. And what works for one team might not work for another. And then there's an ‘us and them’ polarising argument.

But again, this is why if you do have these things, start small, start open and honest conversations, start small with a tool that will help you to understand what's really happening. And then start to try to implement change after that, because if you don't know where you're starting and baseline it, you've no idea.

Adam

You've got no data. It's hearsay. Unless some poor office manager or facilities manager or EA/PA or something is literally sitting there with an Excel spreadsheet and walking around.

I mean, I've heard of this where they will walk around an office with an iPad or something and go, yeah, they're in, yeah, they're in, yeah, they're in, yeah, they're in. It's crazy. You know, why not implement, I know intheOffice does this, why not implement a (QR code) scanning in system?

So when you get in, you don't need to check in, but you know, you scan and go, right, I'm in. Then you've got data about who actually turned up and then start to understand the ebb and flow of your office on top of the fact that this is what was booked. This is what happened.

Hang on, you're starting to get, because then what the data gives you is a foundation to plan for the future or to when you're having these communication conversations, ah, but you're one of the people that only you book six weeks in advance and you block book, but you only turn up 20% of the time.

Jon

Yeah.

Adam

That's not helpful because what you've done is you've taken up, you know, desk hours of 640 desk hours and you've only used 200. Yeah. That's not very productive for other people who actually need to use the office, the meeting room or the boardroom or, you know, whatever.

Jon

Also, that's a huge cost to the company, it's unnecessary because maybe they don't need that extra desk all the time. But I mean, there's a lot in that as well. The, you know, the scanning in is obviously, again, you need people to actually do it.

So you need to have the company culture where if you're not doing that and you're found in the office, that gets brought up because, you know, firstly, that's bad for health and safety fire regs to not know who's actually in the building. Absolutely. But also, you know, like, oh, what's the word called?

It's completely gone. Going, you know, when two people go through tailgate, when people tailgate, when they're going through barriers and things like that, you know, again, people are, they're not necessarily trying to cheat the system, but they don't understand why that system's in place and the importance behind it. And if it's not an important system that's in place, then you don't need the system.

Adam

Yeah. Yeah. If it's not solving a real problem. I know, actually, just talking about that, I know of one organisation that fine people for not clocking in.

Jon

Really?

Adam

Yeah. It seems quite draconian, but there's a 25 quid charge, and they will take it out of a bonus or I don't know about salary and things, but they're just starting to instigate it because they have to, from a HR point of view, know that somebody's in the building because they've got, for health and safety reasons, for fire safety, for all sorts of things. But they also want to understand about the efficiency with the people doing the work and how many hours that they're billing.

They need to correlate the two. And typically, some of the people are really good at it, some of the people are really bad.

Jon

So in that scenario, are they meant to be in the office every day? So how do you know that they are meant to be in the office every day? Okay, so it's an easier thing to, if you're not clocking in, then you're presumably on holiday or off sick.

Adam

Basically, yeah. There is no reason for you not to be there because you are required to be in that workspace for that time. You've got to be because you're a fee-earning person and your bum on the seat is what earns the fees, your skill.

So that seems quite a, I mean, that wouldn't work in a huge company because you'd probably spend more money administrating that than you would actually. And it'd be quiet, I mean, I questioned it because I thought, wow, that's a little harsh. But the point was is that it may be harsh for a month, but believe you me, after a few finds, people will learn the behaviour.

And it's their culture that they're a very direct organisation and it's a no-nonsense kind of culture. So it kind of fits.

Jon

Yeah, and as we've said before, for some companies, that's what's needed. That's the way that it works. And I hate to say it, but if you are working in a company like that and that's not the way you want to work, then you need to, ultimately, it is the people at the top that make the rules.

But what we're talking about here and what we're talking about in hybrid working in general isn't that working from an office five days-a-week, nine-to-five is bad, but it's that it might not be the right thing for every job and for every person. So what we're trying to do is make the workforce a more productive entity.

Adam

Yeah. And help it understand itself and then get better, right? Because it's information. Information is power. Power is knowledge or information is knowledge. Knowledge is power.

You can make decisions based on that knowledge. It's far better than to go, well, we think five days a week is fine or four days a week is fine or that kind of stuff. So there is part of me that kind of, I'm sitting here thinking, I actually quite admire the human spirit of trying to break the system, as it were.

You don't really know how far you can push until you're pushing on that envelope. So I quite like the ingenuity of people going, if I can, I will, but I'll get somebody else to do it. They bless them, those poor paralegals or those trainees in up to God knows what hour to achieve the result.

But I guess that's the tools at all. And if, it might not be a screwdriver, it might not be a mouse, but it actually does the same thing than for that person, that's a win for them, and they've got what they need. And if that's the culture, and we're talking about what are the downsides, if that's just part of the culture, a piece of software is not going to change a culture.

Jon

No, no matter how hard it tries. I think if the culture for that was, paralegal staying up and booking the desks and then it was used, that's a very different conversation to they stay up, they book the desk and then no one turns up. Then it's that, in that scenario, it's lose, lose.

So again, understand what the core problem is, rather than trying to fix the symptoms by being overly prescriptive and rigid. It would be my takeaway.

Adam

Or have the communication between the two parties and go, are you going to be in on Wednesday? No, will I release the desk then?

Jon

Yeah, not at 10:30am on Wednesday when it's then not useful.

Adam

When I know you're not going to be there because you're at your client's side and you're going into their offices and said, oh, I'll just release the desk because somebody could use that.

Jon

Yeah.

Adam

So just, you know, you've got to, I think the win-win is to have it both ways. So I may get them to book the desk, but what I will also do is commit to releasing them when I'm not needing them. So have that open communication and maybe you do it yourself because, you know, I mean, well our software works on your telephone. You can do it in seconds, bang. Right now, as you've already described, if I then change my intheOffice status to on location, you've got to cancel the desk booking anyway. So as you say, self-policing.

So that for me is a far better way around to go. But it, you know, one of the things that we struggle with is actually, you know, the age old problem is getting people to do something to commit to, you know, updating a system because no matter how fancy or flashy, you know, the only way I think that you're going to actually create the perfect system is to not have a human do it. Yes, to have a robot somewhere, an AI, you know, kind of, you know, one of Elon Musk's, bless him, $30,000 robots to go, right, where is everybody?

I'm going to get hold of everybody, find out where they are, bang, bang, bang, and update the system in 12 seconds flat. Yeah, but I mean, even that, that's not, that's still, that's going to be closer to 95% kind of not perfect because there's such thing as perfect, and that's probably going to be after the fact as well.

Jon

Yeah, I just, it's a bit like your £20 fine, not your £20 fine, but the fine you were talking about just then, where it only takes a few times before people go, I'm going to actually need to use this. And if a team is cohesive enough that you've got one person who hasn't updated their status and it directly affects other people in the team, they should be able to say something and stop that. Well, that's the yin to the yang, isn't it?

Adam

Yeah. That's what we're saying is that some people have got it all their way. There is no consequences or responsibility to that behaviour.

Jon

Yeah.

Adam

And somebody else then has to, then they, that responsibility lands in their lap and it's something that they haven't generated. So again, you know, you can use the word fair and it's probably in business kind of a bit silly to talk about fair because that's not how it works. But taking responsibility and if you're going to have a rule, for one thing, and this is the problem, you've got to have an opposite rule to make sure that it works the other way around.

Jon

Yeah.

Adam

So one rule generates two rules.

Jon

Yeah. And that's pre-exceptions.

Adam

Exactly. And because humans are like cats, you know, trying to herd cats, then, you know, you might as well talk to the cat and say, what would you want?

Jon

Exactly. And on that note, that's probably a good place to wrap up, I think. But yeah, I think it's a very interesting idea. My general view is that you want more flexibility and more rules to try to convince people to behave in a particular way is not necessarily going to stop people trying to break it.

Adam

No.

Jon

But, you know, if, as I've always said, you know, intheOffice to begin with, wasn't going to, I'd made the decision I wasn't going to include desk booking and then very quickly realised that that probably wasn't right. So I'm always up for being convinced to change my views.

Adam

Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah, I think that's, you know, look how much the office has changed.

Any product that you make has got to be able to solve a problem and problems are continually evolving much as situations are, people are, et cetera, et cetera. So I think if you're rigid, that's the problem that if you don't want to change, you create rules. However, if you continually change, you don't need to create rules because you're continually changing.

So it's a much better way to operate is that continual change. Yes. Because otherwise, right, there's a rule, there's a rule, there's a rule because we're staying where we are and we're going to create basically pushback because we don't want to change.

So I think that that is the mindset that I would certainly recommend, you know, and I know that that's how you approach creating the software is, well, keep it simple, but we do need to change. I know you do that.

Jon

Yeah. Well, it's the, it's continuous improvement.

Adam

Yeah. Kaizen, is it? The Toyota invented, was it Toyota that made this or Honda? The principle of Kaizen, that continual small micro improvements every single day.

Jon

Yeah, absolutely. If you don't do it, then, you know, the business will fold anyway because let's face it, how much has the world changed in the couple of years that we've had AI. So it's going to be changing, but we need to be comfortable with change and- And understand why, I think as well, come back to that why again.

Adam

Very interesting, isn't it? The fact that we're coming across these things, the way people are still kind of fighting, it's almost like they're fighting remote working. There's this kind of attachment to the office still that is just, people can't quite necessarily let it go.

Jon

Yeah, I mean, it's, and I don't mean to, this might be slightly controversial, but the people that I speak to where they've just kind of got on with it and people might not be like, yeah, this is the best thing in the world, but they've been more flexible and accepting. When I speak to them, they're like, I don't really know why there's this battle, but there is such a polarised view of, and they're the ones that you hear about, and you always hear about the latest CEO who's got it wrong. And I don't think they've necessarily got it wrong.

They've just decided that that's what they want to do for their company. And that's kind of, in a horrible way, it's up to them, but time will tell whether they end up losing all of their employees or not. That's a strategic decision for them.

But I feel like it's hard work to get it right.

Adam

It is, right.

Jon

It requires a good culture, and I don't think when things aren't quite working out, I don't think it's going to be an easy solve. It's just going to slowly work its way out in the wash.

Adam

Yeah, I think it will. I think part of the thing is that we come at this from solving a bigger problem, but most people are probably just looking at it just want people to get at desk. And we see it, we've got a much more strategic view and, I guess, what's the word would I use? Ethereal. Is that the right word? A much more ethereal (no, Adam, eclectic view is what you mean!) view on the way the office should be?

Jon

I don't know, but it makes it sound fairly important. So yeah, let's go with that.

Adam

So naturally, we're going to talk about culture. We're going to talk about how this is better for people to have a more open and communicative culture. But ultimately, there's going to be a lot of business out there. I mean, this is part of the challenge really, is that do you know what, I just want to be able to book a desk. I don't care about culture. I'm not going to communicate to anybody. I want to see it because I've got to go in the office. The boss has told me, so all that is lovely, fluffy kind of ‘snowflakey’ stuff for Gen Z. I don't care. I just want to turn up and do my job; do my job, bugger off, and I need a desk. So if I've got a desk booking system, can I book it now? Yeah, okay, bang, done. That's all I care about. If I don't turn up, I don't really care. Well, that's not my problem, is it? The company haven't sorted that out for me. So if I don't turn up, well, that's all right. And if I don't do it, well, okay. Why is that my problem? Get IT to sort that out.

So that's life, right? That's the reality of offices and people.

Jon

Yeah, but again, in that scenario, maybe they, you know, if you're not needing to work with the team, if you don't need to collaborate like that, and you're just going, I'm turning up, doing my work, I can work wherever, I can work in a silo, then yeah, what else is the office bringing that makes them more productive? Or could they work from anywhere? It's the, you know, you say this all the time, everyone's different and everyone's requirements of the tools that they're using are very different.

Adam

They are, yeah.

Jon

So right tool for the job.

Adam

It's a 500-year-old problem.

Jon

Well, if even longer than that, if you look at- Yeah, humans have only been using tools for 500 years. Well, in terms of Stonehenge, you know, kind of - it just appeared.

Adam

No, not the offices at all. The office as a place is a 500-year-old thing (a Scriptorium). And people being in the office, you know, I've written an article about it.

You know, what was it? Way back in, you know, the office in 1756 with the, what was the name of the shipping company (East India Company)? They had office space, they had people in, they had people managing people in, they wanted everybody in. That's how it started. Bums on seats. That was the expectation.

And only until what, the 80s has that been the norm. So, you know, this is ingrained in us. You go into an office, you do a day's work, you come home, you do a set number of hours. So that is going to be difficult. That's in our DNA. That's in office DNA. That's in office culture. That's, so, you know, the fact that we've had so much change relatively quickly in four or five years because of COVID, it's actually quite impressive in many ways.

Jon

Yeah. We need to, it's similar actually to - sorry, and this is the last thing I'll say because I know we're dragging on… But it's similar to what I heard about the, what's happening with AI and the fact that we need to be legislating to protect people from AI. From, you know, some of the horrific things that AI can do. But at the moment it's moving so quickly that you don't know. So it's a bit like someone in the 1880s trying to legislate about how someone should use a car. By saying in order to drive your car, you have to have someone out the front holding a flag so that you know the car's coming, walking in front of it holding a flag. So, you know, that kind of stops the point. You have to actually understand what the tool is capable of before you can start to rein it back.

Adam

Yeah. It's not the panacea of everything, you know, going to fix everything, is it? So anyway, yes, before we go down another rabbit hole.

Jon

It's such an interesting and complicated problem area that is affecting so many people at the moment. So it's very easy to get caught up.

But yeah, well, it’s been great chatting, as always.

Adam

Thanks, John. Yeah, let's, we'll do this again very soon.

Jon

Yeah, see you again on the next one. Cheers, Adam.