The Humanizing of Flexible Work

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Cali Williams Yost: Because see, what happens when you don't organize work around a place and you organize what we do around the work, you really do start to question, how can we do this better? How can we do this more effectively? It requires you to be more intentional about what it is you're doing and how, when, and where you do it best, which can't help but make things better and smarter.

Jill Finlayson: Welcome to the Future of Work podcast with Berkeley Extension and the EDGE in Tech Initiative at the University of California, focused on expanding diversity and gender equity in tech. EDGE in Tech is part of CITRIS, the Center for IT Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute. In this episode, we look at reinventing the workplace by leveraging hybrid and remote work.

Across the globe, people have created effective remote working environments for themselves. Statistics vary, but the majority of employees say that working remotely will be important to them in the future. Not all workers have the option, but more than half do. And when offered, almost everyone takes the opportunity to work flexibly.

So with more staff solely interacting through digital means, does this mean the loss of face-to-face interactions, less networking, less creative collaborations, and impromptu hallway meetings, and-- or does it mean more realistic work-life balance, flexibility, and increased productivity? Remembering that it's still humans doing the work, even if you can't physically see them, how do we need to design work and the workplace? What is the impact as more employees return to the office but in a hybrid schedule? Who's getting left behind or forgotten?

To explore the role of hybrid work in the future of work, we speak with Cali Williams Yost, founder of the Flex Strategy Group, FSG. Cali Williams Yost is a workplace futurist who specializes in high performance flexibility and helping organizations unlock performance and engagement by reimagining how, when, and where work is done. She has been researching flexible workplace trends for decades and uses those insights to help leaders think about how flexibility can attract and retain an engaged, diverse workforce, increase productivity and innovation, and enhance employee wellbeing, and respond to these rapidly operating disruptions.

She has worked with large companies and organizations, from Con Ed and Quest Diagnostics, to UBS Americas and Freddie Mac, to the Singapore government, United Nations, and many universities. She coined the concept work plus life fit, and explains that in her books Tweak It to Make What Matters to You Happen Every Day and Work and Life-- Finding the Fit That's Right For You. So her thoughts on transformation of work have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, the Today Show. She is a former commercial banker and graduated from Columbia Business School, where she's noted as an alumnus changing the world.

Welcome, Cali. Let's talk about changing the world and, specifically, the world of work. We're happy to have you join us all the way from New York City. And we're talking about transforming work in the workplace. So why is this a timely conversation? What's keeping you up at night?

Cali Williams Yost: Well, Jill, first, of all, thank you for having me. It is really a treat to be here. And what is keeping me up at night? Well, three things are keeping me up at night. The first thing is, how can I share over two decades of experience making this change happen effectively so that people don't feel so overwhelmed and lost, and they are as excited about it as I am because I have seen what can happen? And it truly is remarkable for both the business and people.

So I get-- I stay up at night trying to figure out how to let everybody know this. So that's why I appreciate today. Second thing that keeps me up at night is, I still don't think leaders quite understand that the old way we did things is just gone. And actually, it was disappearing before the pandemic. And we're not going back.

And they do need to now transition to what is going to be next. I still think they don't quite understand that. And finally, the third thing that keeps me up at night is we're still way too focused on where we're working. It's not about where. It's about what we're doing.

And then we talk about where we do it best. But we're not leading with the work. We're leading with the place, and it's keeping too many people stuck. So those are the three things that are keeping me up at night, Jill. So hopefully today we can get past few of them.

[LAUGHS]

Jill Finlayson: Amazing. So let's start with the first point you made-- optimism. You're excited about what's to come. Why is this future better than what's been?

Cali Williams Yost: Because it's an opportunity for leaders, managers, teams to get together and step back and say, hey, what do we need to do? What are we doing in terms of the tasks of our job?

But then also, how do we sustain our culture? How do we onboard new talent? How do we leverage our technology more intentionally? How do we connect with each other more intentionally?

Because see, what happens when you don't organize work around a place and you organize what we do around the work, you really do start to question, how can we do this better? How can we do this more effectively? It requires you to be more intentional about what it is you're doing and how, when, and where you do it best, which can't help but make things better and smarter. But you have to make sure people have the skills and the tools to do that.

And that's where we need to go next. But when you do engage in that process, it really does unlock new levels of performance, new levels of wellbeing. And that's what makes me optimistic, if we take the best of the lessons learned in the pandemic, because a lot of good things did happen, but add back what's missing and really go to the best of what's next.

Jill Finlayson: So with this great opportunity to unlock performance, why do you feel this hesitancy from the leadership? Why are they not feeling ready for this?

Cali Williams Yost: Because it's a new way of leading. There was a traditional way of leading an organization. It was very place-based. If you were coming to an office, you were working. In fact, I always like to giggle that when I would execute a flexible work transformation pre-pandemic, managers would sort of sidle up to me on the side and say, how do I know people are working if I can't see them? And I'd say, oh, easy, how do you do that now? And they would just be blank stares.

We really weren't thinking about performance and what it means and what it looked like. And so again, it's a new way of leading. You have to manage. You have to be comfortable using technology to communicate with people across different places and spaces. And you have to be much more intentional about what it is you're prioritizing. And that's a new way of doing things. And it also requires a new skill on the part of individuals.

That's why I wrote both my books. Because I would execute flexibility from an organizational perspective, and then the individual needs to grab it and use it and play their part. And they didn't know what to do. So it requires us all to do things differently. And I think that's where the hesitancy comes from, is they don't quite know how to approach that.

Jill Finlayson: Yes, and you talk about the where. So we're going to go through each one of those people that you talked about. We'll talk about the company, the leaders, and the employees. But before we get into that, we should probably define some terms. So what do we mean when we say flexible? What do we mean when we say remote? And what is hybrid? Or are they all synonyms?

Cali Williams Yost: OK, so I'm going to share my definitions. So others may have theirs, but this is my definition. So a flexible operating model is a flexible way of working across workplaces, spaces, and time, with strategic intention, as you answer the question, what do we need to do and how, when, and where do we do it best? So it is a way of planning, coordinating and executing the work based upon how, when, and where it's done best. That's high performance flexibility to me.

Now, hybrid work is working across onsite and remote locations based upon how, when, and where you're working best. So it's a component of high performance flexibility. Remote work is a component of hybrid work. So again, they're all sort of-- high performance flexibility is the umbrella strategic framing model, if you will. And then hybrid is when somebody is working onsite and remotely within that model. And remote is the remote aspect of where you are working within that model.

Jill Finlayson: If we think about those definitions, what are people's biggest misconceptions? What do they think it's about that it's not actually?

Cali Williams Yost: I still think they think it's about where we're working. So that's why this is not working. That's why the return to offices are not-- initiatives are not working. That's why when you have these one-size-fits-all hybrid policies, where everybody's coming in two days a week, and these are the days, people just aren't showing up. I'm having managers call me like, we did that, people just aren't coming. Because there's no reason. Like why am I doing this?

Because I'm doing the same thing I'm doing when I'm sitting at my house and I've commuted an hour each way. It doesn't make any sense. So you have to switch it. And you have to start with the work itself. And you have to ask, as an organization, as a team, what do we need to do? And then not just where, but how, when, and where are we doing that best?

Because you may decide as a team-- and we've been hearing this. What do we need to do? We need to develop talent. Well, you know what? Junior staff have consistently said to organizations, we do like to be in-person with each other, to see how people who are more senior than us do their jobs, to be able to access them in real-time, to meet our peers, to have that interactivity. But I don't want to necessarily be here every day. If I'm doing a spreadsheet that I can do from home in my PJs at my kitchen table, that's fine too.

So what do we need to do? Well, maybe-- there's planning that we do. We have heard this. Some of the strategic planning or engagement planning, those things people are often saying we do them better when we're sitting together in the same room. And so why don't we make sure we're doing that kind of work when we are all in the same place?

And then the other types of work that we have to do, we'll make sure-- either it doesn't matter, or we can even possibly do them better remotely. So it's being more thoughtful up front and identifying the guardrails within which you would do certain types of work. Then you execute within that structure. So it's leading with the work and not leading with the where.

Jill Finlayson: Yes, I like what you're saying there about asking the question of what is the purpose. What is the purpose for coming into the workplace, what is the purpose for working remotely, and getting clarity around that. Author Anne Helen Petersen, who writes this blog Culture Study, wrote, I'm not anti office. I'm anti arbitrary office.

And to your point, like do I really have to drive in an hour and a half each way just to sit there with headphones on and focusing on a Zoom call? Because that's a fairly difficult thing to ask people to do without a good reason. So what work is optimally done in person?

Cali Williams Yost: It's interesting. I really do think this is where teams need to be trained. So I've seen all these PDFs flying around that are supposedly the way teams are going to figure out what works. Teams need to be trained. They actually need training to sit down with each other and think through that question, what do we need to do?

And it really is about the bigger issues, too, about our culture. It is about our strategic priorities. And then it is about the tasks of our job. How do you answer those questions together as a team? And it's depending upon what your work is and even, I've seen, the maturity of your team. If you have a lot of new people on your team or junior people on your team, you may have a different answer about what you do in person versus what you do remotely.

There are teams whose people, they just literally are not in the same geographic location. So your answer is going to be different than somebody that does have geographic accessibility to each other. So that's the "it depends" part of the answer. But there are certain things we're hearing. Again, this is not a rule.

I don't want to say these things, and then people are like, Cali Yost said we have to get-- I'm not saying that. I'm saying, as a general just rule of thumb, we're hearing that allowing junior people to have real-time access to the people they report to and to more senior level professionals, so that they can not only talk to them in real-time but see them in action, watch them do what they do-- but not every day, it doesn't have to be every day, but just being thoughtful enough that those moments are happening-- brainstorming around new projects or kicking off an engagement, things like that seem to be people saying, we like to be together.

The other thing we're hearing is some kind of-- certain types of training, people really do like that interactivity. Especially as it relates to when you're practicing a new skill or in training where you get a chance to talk to each other, people like that in real-time. So again, it really just depends. It depends on what it is you do and the optimal way that happens. But thinking it through is really the point.

Jill Finlayson: So what do you recommend replace, quote, "manager discretion?"

Cali Williams Yost: Really this process, this ability to set up your team's guardrails, to answer the question with your team, what do we need to do, prioritize what those strategic, cultural, talent development, and then tasks of the job priorities, and then to define with your team, OK, based on what we've said, now, how do we do this best? How do we use the technology that we have?

When are we going to be available to each other? When are we going to be in real-time accessible working with each other, and when are we going to asynchronously work with each other? And then how are we going to figure out where we do our work best?

What part of this is onsite together, and what part of this can be done hybrid, regardless of where we are? And what part really could be just better remote? That has to be happening within the teams. And that is the consistent process that needs to be rolled out, much more so than it's happening in organizations now.

Jill Finlayson: And when we think about that, obviously, this is to benefit the company, first and foremost, to improve efficiency. But when we look at who really benefits from remote work, we hear a lot of things, that people who live far from the office benefit from flexibility, people who have outside caring responsibility, people who maybe disproportionately are impacted by microaggressions, benefit from remote work. Of course, accessibility, people with various disabilities benefit from this. Obviously people who live in other places who now have access to jobs is another win. So there's all these people who benefit. But how do we look at this to ensure that everyone benefits?

Cali Williams Yost: So I believe that what we do first is we just make this about the way we all work. We just sort of make it not about specific groups and what everybody needs specifically. So if you make flexibility about the way we work and then we're motivated to make all of those systemic changes that have to be put in place to make flexibility effective, then we can go down and say, how does this then allow all sorts of different people with all sorts of different unique requirements to be successful in our organization, based upon what they need?

What happens when we pull this out and make it specifically about one group and not the whole first is then you're not motivated to put all of those changes and make all those structural adjustments that then allow that person to be successful in the context of that broader organizational model. And so we're seeing a lot of research right now taken during the pandemic that shows that communities of color and women, let's say-- those are the two that I see most quoted and talked about-- want more access to remote work than, let's say, men. And what I think we have to hold on to is that, pre-pandemic, when we did research, over a third of full-time US workers said they already did most of their work from a remote location, not on their employer's worksite. And of that a third, a majority of those workers were men.

What was different is that they could work in a flexible way and not have the same career penalty that often time women and communities of color felt. And so now what we have to look at post-pandemic-- we're not really post-pandemic, but in this flexible next-- is-- I think what women and communities of color are saying is we want access to that same type of flexibility without the career penalties that we felt. We didn't feel the same degree of freedom to work in a way that worked for us. So that goes back to my original point, which is, if we make this about the way we work, then men, communities of color, then women, then people with disabilities, then it becomes, OK, great, how do you integrate that person into this flexible way we are doing work so they can be successful and the business can be successful?

Jill Finlayson: I love that point about the fact that it was men who were doing the remote work in the past. So that speaks to the demand, that they also value flexibility. They also value being able to work remote. And so if we set this up so people do not have penalty, that's going to benefit everyone, including men.

And here's the thing, though. We do see some problems with things like presenteeism, which is that you get more credit for being on the premise, or you're more likely to be considered for advancement if people see you. Why is that happening? And if we want to create this equitable lack of penalty for working remote, how do we ensure that there isn't a penalty?

Cali Williams Yost: So two things-- first, it's also important to remember that it's really not going to be everybody that's remote. At the end of the day, if you combine the 44% of people who have to be onsite for their jobs, and then really the majority of people with remote-capable jobs, they say they want to have some combination of onsite and remote. So let's say the percentage of people who have remote-capable jobs who will be full-time remote, let's say ranges between 14% and 20%, is the estimate.

So the question really becomes, how do you execute a flexible operating model so regardless of where you are working, you are integrated into the planning, coordination, and execution of the work? And when you have presenteeism, and that's-- people are not being developed and they're not being included in that workflow management across those different dimensions, that is a sure sign that you have ineffectively executed your flexible work model. Because that's where there's a different skill set in leading a flexible work team, that managers need to be trained.

And the dirty little secret is we don't traditionally train our managers very well. So you have a lot of people who don't know how to manage who now have the extra challenge of now managing people who aren't coming into the office every day. And so if you're-- and this is where pulse-checking is very important for your workforce, is if you have managers where your people are telling you, my experience is that my manager is not including me, my manager is not coordinating the work so that we are making sure that where the work happens best it's happening that way, this is a sign you've got to do this better. And that's where we are.

Jill Finlayson: So as a company, how will you know if presenteeism is sneaking in? Or how will that there's a problem? Say a little bit more about, how do we collect data, this pulse-checking. How do we see who's getting advanced? Is this something that companies are doing today, or is this something that we have to build in as part of this new workforce?

Cali Williams Yost: Well, I think we have to also all remember, we're still kind of in the crisis execution phase of all of this. What we experienced over the past 2 and 1/2 years was not an indication of how a thoughtfully, deliberately executed flexible work strategy goes. This was an overnight like, hey, kids, we're working all from home, like have at it.

And as we transition ourselves back into what the next is going to be, I do think it's important for organizations to pulse-check and ask questions like, do you feel like your manager is prioritizing and helping you identify what you need to do, and then how, when, and where that work is done best? Are you effectively coordinating and communicating with your team, regardless of where you are working? I think you have to ask, do you feel like you're being developed?

Do you feel like you're being given opportunities? Are you included in the planning and coordination process of the workflow? These are things you want to keep testing.

And there's a way to really identify leaders and laggards within an organization. If you get teams that, in that bucket of metrics, all those different metrics I sort of threw out there-- there are others, but you can create kind of a score. And you want to look at who are the leaders and the managers where the score is high, and leverage them, and say, what are you doing? Share with your peers, best practice share.

And those at the bottom, you want to reach out and offer them some additional support, and say, what part of this is tough for you, and close that gap. But we're at the very beginning of all of this. And I will also say, Jill, this is where the individual skill set comes into play. Because when you're working flexibly, you don't get to just show up in the office every day and think somebody's going to reach out and say, hey, Tom or hey, Janet, come on in.

You have to be intentional about letting them know what you want in terms of development. You have to be taking the initiative to make sure you're participating in the workflow in a way that feels like you're included. And if you're not, then you need to say something. There is more that's required of us as individuals when we work flexibly. And again, that's why I wrote my books because I saw people didn't have the skill set. The company would be saying, here we go, have at it with the flexibility.

[LAUGHTER]

And people would just sit there like, I don't know what to do. So what is it that we need to now be doing as individuals to meet our employers halfway to make sure we're getting what we want as well?

Jill Finlayson: Well, let's break this down. So you've talked a lot about the skills that managers need. What skills do they need, and how can we upskill them to be successful in this new environment?

Cali Williams Yost: So I can bucket it into two buckets. Managers need the basics of good management, just some of those good old like, hey, I set clear priorities, hey, I know how I'm measuring performance, hey, I'm being thoughtful about how my people need to be developed, and I'm getting the resources that they need and the access that they need to the people that they have to be aligned with to move forward. And so all of those just basics of being a good manager have to be in place.

But then there's that extra layer of flexible work team coordination that has to also happen. And that really does require you as a manager to be more thoughtful about how you are engaging with your team. Whether they're onsite or whether they are remote, you yourself have to set the tone for being able to work in a flexible dynamic way. So you yourself have to be willing to say, hey, I'm flexible in how I'm doing my own work. I'm mastering the technology. A lot of this comes down to technology, being comfortable with the technology that allows you to coordinate the work across the different dimensions people are doing their jobs.

There was one leader who I thought was-- I always-- I love sharing this tip because it's so basic but nobody does it. He had scheduled open office hours each week. And he made sure he had open office hours, where his door was opened on the floor, that people could come in physically and see him. But then he also scheduled open office hours on Zoom, where he would open up his Zoom, and everybody got a link. And he wanted to talk to everybody. So he did that intentionally so nobody felt like it wasn't fair and they didn't have access.

Also, it's around things like when you know you have people participating onsite in a meeting, and you know that you have people virtual at the same time, that when that meeting shuts down, if there is sort of that offline discussion-- I know there are these things like, everybody has to stop talking after the meeting ends, which I don't think is particularly realistic. But I do think as a manager, if you overhear, like there's additional information that's shared after that meeting, then you know your job is to go in, and whether it's to share on Slack or to share on Teams, hey, these things came up. I just want you to know. Let's keep talking about them in this space. It's things like that managers need to be comfortable with.

Jill Finlayson: So we know that there are the leaders out there who are saying, you're not working hard if you're not working in the office. You're not a team player. So how do you address a leader who has that kind of bias in favor of the office?

Cali Williams Yost: So first and foremost, I would say, is that really how people were working before the pandemic? Everybody wasn't coming in every day. They weren't. Unless you were working on the factory floor and you were a leader, you had some flexibility in how you were working. I would also really encourage them to step back and really think about the talent ecosystem that they're operating in. Because if you get in your little myopic world of my company and you think you can just keep the rest of the world out of that, you're in trouble.

I just think it's unrealistic to think you operate in a vacuum in a world that's transformed. And I then go back to my main question. Start with, what do you need to do? And if people are not performing, then talk about why they're not performing, and then how, when, and where do you make sure that performance happens best, your people will deliver. But to just say, come in, you're wasting the opportunity to have that bigger, more productive conversation that could lead to more innovation and more performance. Step back, understand reality, and then look at what's happening in your workforce. And start with the what, and then figure it out.

Jill Finlayson: So let's talk about the workforce. So if you're an employee and you're now in this new world of either working remote or hybrid, or you're coming in every day but some of your team is not coming in, what does this mean to you? And what skills do you need?

Cali Williams Yost: The skill you need as an individual is to be able to look at the priorities of your job, and then look at the priorities of your life, think about the flexibility you have, and then ask yourself, OK, so based upon what I need to get done, how, when, and where do I now do this best? And that means if you have days in the office, what are you getting done most effectively in the office? And then for the days perhaps you're working remotely, what else are you going to get done?

I find people can do things like, I'm going to run to the gym, or I'm going to have dinner with my family, or I'm going to-- all those small things that mean so much, there's a way to intentionally make that happen. But even when you're in the office, make sure you're intentionally networking with people you want to network with. You're making sure they're in the office when you're in the office. Make sure that you're getting the training that you may want to get when you're physically present with other people. Again, that's intentionality. It's that intentional planning of all the priorities that are meaningful for you, and then figuring out how you make it happen.

Jill Finlayson: I kind of learned the hard way. I had a consulting job. And I was not in the office all that much because I was consulting with an organization. And at some point, I started getting frustrated because I felt like this manager was micromanaging and asking me about small insignificant things when I was working on these very large and big projects. And I'm like, why are they-- oh, wait, they didn't know what I was doing because I wasn't communicating updates. And so is their skills that we need to be able to communicate more effectively what we're working on and the impact that we're achieving?

Cali Williams Yost: Well, I think any flexible work execution relies foundationally on something we call the cadence. The cadence is that, on a regular basis, you're sitting down with your manager, and they are prioritizing with you to get what you have to get done. And then you are regularly providing updates of what you are doing. And that cadence has to happen on a regular basis. You set it with your manager. Again, it goes back-- people are like how many-- how often should that happen? It really depends.

I had one leader say to me- there was a guy who worked for him who's a superstar, subject matter expert, who's worked for him for like 10 years. And he's like, I am not getting in his business about when he's doing what where. He is so good. I'm like, good, then don't sit down with him and say, now we have to meet every week. That is just going to make him mad.

But if you have somebody who maybe is new to the job or requires more support, that's a more regular cadence. And you as the individual needs to make sure that you are having that update with your manager in a way that makes you feel effective. So you have to plan that with them. But that's something that you need to take the initiative on.

Jill Finlayson: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And even small updates, they don't have to be an hour-long meeting. It could just be a quick five-minute stand-up here's what I'm working on.

Cali Williams Yost: Yep. I always like that sort of red, yellow, green. You can even just send a quick email or a quick Slack message that just is like, red, yellow, green. Like red, I'm stopped here, this is what's not moving forward. Yellow, kind of slowed down, but we're still moving forward. Green, go. And then you just review that and move forward.

Whatever works with your manager and you, that's what you want to keep thinking through and having happen on a regular basis. And also, making sure that then your manager is keeping all of your team up to speed on what all of you are doing, I think that's like the next level thing. But you can't control that, you as an individual, but your manager.

It goes back again to that good management. Like how are you coordinating with everybody on your team to let them know where they're going to be? And your team is an interesting concept right now in this world because it's not just necessarily your full-time direct reports. There are people who are working for you who could be consultants, who could be project-based people that you also have to coordinate if you're a manager. But if that's you, you're a consultant, you're a project-based person, even more so you need to be making sure the updates are happening on a regular basis.

Jill Finlayson: The other thing that occurs to me when we think about the individual is, we hear a lot about turnover. We hear a lot about quiet quitting, where people are making their own-- I'm afraid to say work-life balance, not fit. They're saying, I'm going to stop working at 5:00, and they're not paying me to work any more hours.

And so there's this, I guess, from the manager's side, a perceived lack of effort and commitment to the company. From the employee side, I'm giving them my hours. I don't have to give them more. So what do you see flexibility fitting into this discussion around turnover and quiet quitting?

Cali Williams Yost: Two things-- one, I think it will engage people in a process of reimagining work, which could be very inspiring to them and would help with some of this problem with boundary setting. Boundaries have disappeared. This was a problem before the pandemic. This whole disengagement and people being overwhelmed and burned out was happening before the pandemic. The pandemic only accelerated all of this.

There was a desperate need to step back and say, again, based on what do we need to do, when do we do that best, and having intentionality about when you are contacting people, when you are expected to respond. I cannot tell you-- there was one story where a leader was explaining to me how excited he was that he gets all of his emails done at 6 o'clock in the morning on the bus into the city. And then I got in a focus group with his direct reports, and they were honestly almost crying because they were all setting alarms to get up at 6:00 in the morning and respond to his emails.

And I told him, I said, do you know this is happening? He said, no, I thought they were all just awake. I'm like, oh, no, they're setting alarms so that they can respond to you. This is the kind of stuff that does not happen when we don't intentionally set the parameters within which we agree we are operating. And we have to engage in that process. And to do that, you will get your people committed and more dedicated to that model.

And you will put those boundaries up in a way that makes sense for the work. So everybody is on the same page. That's where we have to go. And I do think quiet quitting is a canary in a coal mine, that we're reaching a critical point where this is the process organizations and leaders have to engage in. Your people will meet you halfway. They really will. But you have to invite them in.

Jill Finlayson: And getting that agreement-- so you're inviting them in to reimagine work, to cocreate. But how do you get agreement about what it is?

Cali Williams Yost: So again, there is a process. There are tools that can help teams think through all these different dimensions. So for example, I had a legal department in a utility company. So they're technically a 24/7 operation. Things go wrong in a city with the utilities all the time.

Now, they agreed if it's a certain-- if it's an emergency, here's how we will get in touch with each other. We will call each other on our mobile phones. If you get a call from me after hours on your mobile phone, that's the bat phone. You're picking up and you're working. But if you don't get a call from me, you do not need to be on your email at 9 o'clock at night responding to me. We all know that.

So it's that kind of simple structure of thinking these things through that is easy to replicate across many, many teams, across many departments. So again, taking some simple tools, some simple processes, and just walking through them with your team-- it's like how do you even use Outlook? I'm always shocked at how terribly people keep their calendars. You have to learn how to-- agree to certain basics around, how are we going to keep our calendars? How are we going to put our out-of-office messages up? It sounds sort of basic, but those simple things make a big difference in terms of how people manage with each other across all these different ways of working that are possible but have to have some structure around it.

Jill Finlayson: It comes back to setting clear expectations, and to your point about the emails, either scheduling the emails so they don't arrive at 6:00 in the morning, or letting people explicitly that they aren't expected to respond at that hour. Is this just a minor evolution, or is this a big shift in how work is done? Where are we in this sort of evolution? Is it completely new, or is it just a variation?

Cali Williams Yost: I think there's much to be said for taking what's already been happening and then just looking at what's good about that, and then legitimately adding in things that you just know are missing. Like some of this talent development stuff, some of the culture cohesiveness that people are feeling, that's real. And that's something to legitimately discuss.

Then building upon what's already there and experimenting, having a mindset of experimentation around this for another few months, and then seeing what you learn, and continuing to improve it, that will help people feel a lot less overwhelmed about what's on the other side. So I like to think of it as an evolution. I think for some people it feels very new. That's only because they keep thinking we're going back to something that really is no longer there.

Jill Finlayson: Why can't we go back?

Cali Williams Yost: It doesn't exist anymore. Really, it just doesn't. And I gave a keynote to a group of international leaders of a finance company. And I said, imagine that the traditional workplace was like a harbor that your boat was in, but the boat was already drifting out of the harbor. And that whole harbor area was disintegrating, like it was-- and then all of a sudden, COVID hit, and it was like a huge hurricane that came through and just blew everybody out into the ocean and destroyed that old harbor.

Now, you can't turn around and go back. The winds of change are taking you forward. And now you want to keep sailing toward that next place. You can go with your team.

The team who just dove in and made it happen during the pandemic, gather them now and say, now let's set sail for the new place we're going to go together. And they'll bring it. They brought it during the pandemic. Now you have to ask them to help you cocreate this new reality that you're going to work in together.

Jill Finlayson: So as we set sail, I'm going to throw you a curveball and say, what does this mean when we start talking about the gig economy, creators and influencers, these people who are doing project-based work but they aren't employees of your company? How does that fit into this flexible model?

Cali Williams Yost: Well, that goes back to your individual work-life fit and having the flexibility to think about how you want to fit your work and life together. I think that's an option for people. I think if they're not going to find the flexibility in an organization, they're going to look elsewhere. And that's the opportunity for the individual.

But I think it's an extra challenge for organizations because now you're competing with people being able to not work for you. And how do you either figure out how to give them the flexibility in your organization so they choose to work for you, or, and how do you integrate them into your full-time team? And that's hard.

That's tricky because there are some real legal limits to that. You have to be careful. You can't fully integrate project-based worker to the degree that then they sort of don't become a project-based worker anymore, and then legally it's a problem. But there are ways to make sure that you're integrating that person into your culture.

So I had an organization that's doing a lot of work with another organization as a real substitute for a component of their work that can't be done internally. And this group comes in and does a lot of the work with people in a different time zone. So they were having a hard time coordinating these time zone differences to get the work done because they kept seeing them as separate. And I'm like, no, you have to integrate the norms and the agreements around how you're managing across time zones into your work model.

And when they started thinking about that, then they were like, wait, we can actually use this time zone difference to our benefit. And if we think about how we're using technology to upload the projects, the work that we need them to do at the end of the day, that work is being done while we're sleeping. And then we have our check-ins, our live check-ins at the end of their day and the beginning of our day.

OK, let's do it that way. But they hadn't integrated it yet. So it was just kind of a mess. So again, seeing, expanding the definition of who's your team-- and I'm using air quotes here-- and then making sure you're thinking about what do we need to do as a, team and then how, when, and where do we do that best, and creating a flexible model with them.

Jill Finlayson: You mentioned earlier another separate group of people, which is the people who have to come in to the workplace because they are either doing assembly or manufacturing, they're hands-on, or they're providing child care, or their administrative, reception, all these different support roles and nonsupport roles that require people to be on the premises. How did they win in this flexible war?

Cali Williams Yost: So first of all, that's why we have to stop talking about hybrid and remote as what this is. They are part of a flexible operating model, too, only their flexibility, based on their job, is probably going to be more process-based. Now, what do they mean by that?

So I've worked with call centers and manufacturing groups, where it was more around how they were staffing the different shifts. So let's say there was a seniority rule that allowed you to work the day shift. And that was very rigid. So they made that more flexible, where if you wanted to work the night shift, you got a little extra money.

You could raise your hand and say, I'll work the night shift. And that freed up a day shift spot for somebody who really did need to be onsite during the day. So there's different ways to put that flexibility in place, or even like shift-swapping or things that give-- and I would even say, oftentimes, with some hourly workers, some of their shifts were not consistent enough. So when we say high performance flexibility, sometimes just making shifts consistent is optimal for certain workers.

So you really do, again, have to step back, look what goes into that job, and then how, when, and where the level of high performance is going to be achieved. And that's their flexibility.

Jill Finlayson: What do you see work looking like 10, 25 years from now? Is it going to be a lot different than what we're seeing today? Well, I think the next generation of workers are digital natives to the point where the technology aspect of this is going to be much more smooth for them. They're not going to see technology as something that is overwhelming. They actually will be able to use it in a way to stay connected, regardless of where they're working.

Cali Williams Yost: So I believe that we will see more AI-human partnerships. I don't think AI will take over all sorts of types of work. I think it will enhance work. I think that we will see individuals transition in and out of different ways of working based on their work-life fit.

I think you will see people start as full-time FTEs in an organization. And then based upon how they want to work and maybe their life priorities, they may transition out and be more of a consultant to one organization, or they may just be a gig worker across different organizations. And then they may come back in, and they may transition back in as a full-time FTE.

So I just think the way people interact with employers is going to be different. I do think that leadership is going to be much more flexible in how they lead and see how they can use flexibility to really help their organizations thrive, in terms of the workforce that they access. They're going to be much more open to different types of workers. And I think it's going to allow organizations to truly optimize the way they work in ways that is not happening right now.

I think the rigidity around some of these work models is keeping organizations from truly leveraging the technology they have, from truly optimizing their people, from truly identifying managerial talent that knows how to do this. And also, let people be subject matter experts. I don't think everybody's got to be a manager. I think in the future, you're going to have people who are just amazing rock stars in terms of their specific area of expertise, and then you're going to have people who are really great managers. And that's going to be just a path too. So that's how I see the future.

Jill Finlayson: So rigidity is an artifact of the past. Flexibility is the way of the future. And as we look at the individual level, this idea of work-life fit, our individual snowflakes, as you said before. What are your parting words to help people create their snowflake?

Cali Williams Yost: So how do you manage your work-life fit? First, understand it's tweaks and resets. So you manage it day-to-day with those small shifts in how, when, and where you work based upon the priorities that you want to accomplish. Whether they're at work or in your personal life, you are asking yourself, what do I need to do and how, when, and where do I do it best within the parameters that I have to work within at my job and in my life?

So that's the first step being, intentional week-to-week about what that work-life fit looks like. And then when you get to a point in your life where there is a more major transition, whether it's driven by personal responsibilities that change or just something you want to do differently, that's when you sit back and say, how do I want to reset this? What does it look like?

And that's when you look at all the opportunities available to you, whether that can happen inside of the organization that you are part of, which I truly believe is possible much more today than it was in the past. And I say to everybody, before you quit, you have got to put together a plan that you propose to your employer if you want a formal reset because you will be shocked at how they will support what you want to do. And if they don't, then you've tried, and you can move on. But too many people quit before they try that. So try it.

But then if you do want to quit and go do something much more flexible and just be an independent contributor and/or a consultant and a gig worker, that's great too. But just know that it's tweaks, and it's resets, and there are a lot of different resets in life. And there's a lot of power in those small intentional flexible shifts in what you do and how, when, and where you do it.

Jill Finlayson: Thank you, Cali. I really appreciate you helping us with our power tweaks, reminding us to reset before we quit and to find your fit, find that relationship with work that will allow you to be your best performer at work, but also your best life as well. So thank you so much for joining us today.

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Cali Williams Yost: Thank you, Jill. It's been my pleasure.

Jill Finlayson: And with that, I hope you enjoyed this latest in a long series of podcasts that we'll be sending your way every month. Please share with friends and colleagues who may be interested in taking this Future of Work journey with us. And make sure to check out extension.berkeley.edu to find a variety of courses, including management and leadership classes, to fit your work schedule.
And to see what's coming up at EDGE in Tech, go ahead and visit edge.berkeley.edu. Thanks so much for listening. And I'll be back next month to talk about the gig in project economy. Until next time.