What’s Important to Your Team?

Dear A.J.,

I think your question to me was about why people are resisting returning to the office full-time, so eventually I’ll answer that question. But first, I will say that the leaders of any given firm have the right to implement whatever policy they believe best suits their culture and business needs. When it comes to work-from-home or return to the office, there are no right or wrong answers. There are many organizations that have had remote teams and staff members for as long as there have been computers to support it, and there are many organizations paying a lot of money for a nice place to work that want to monetize this and build a culture wherein everyone shows up every day.

I don’t have the ability to say what is the best for any given situation because every situation is different.

I can, however, answer your question about why people are pushing back on the full-time return to the office. I think there was a belief on the part of many firms that in order to get the work done most efficiently and to have communication for team members, you had to be in-person to accomplish this. The pandemic taught us that with effort and focus, you can get all of the work done and facilitate communication just fine without seeing anyone face-to-face off screen. One of my clients, with a staff of over 25 people with whom I worked every year, in person, to do teambuilding and communication facilitation, ultimately gave up their lovely office. They decided everyone would work from home permanently because they found they could achieve the same goals.

In contrast, another team I work with found no one was communicating with work-from-home and client issues were not getting addressed. Key tasks and responsibilities were being dropped, so they insisted everyone return to the office full-time. These two examples show there can be cultural differences in every situation, and each team has to decide what’s right for them.

Why do people push back? The commute times and annoyance of traffic. The cost of driving in each day. The lack of downtime to get things done. In many cases in the office, people are working in cubicles or have someone stop by their office throughout the day. But at home you can work without someone bothering you!

Other issues include lack of childcare or the need to organize drop-offs and pickups differently; the need for someone to let out or walk the dog; the fact that it’s cheaper to eat at home rather than buy lunch in the nice cafeteria. And lastly, ability to sit down and get stuff done without stopping to address something else in any given hour.

I’m honestly not saying work from home is better — I’m just telling you why you are getting pushback on it. In some cases, a person might quit rather than go back to being in the office five days a week.

That said, there are many, many people who like going to the office. They find they are more effective and efficient there, and they enjoy being around people. They like the energy of the full-time office and they actually get more done at work than at home. Do what is right for your firm and your team, but know you will likely encounter people who don’t want to comply, so you may need to find new employees to replace them!

Dear Bev,

We are so busy lately, we are finding our team isn’t connecting very well. We have a morning huddle every day to talk about what’s on the plate and what we need to do. From there, it is go-go-go for the remainder of the day.

We recently had our holiday party and this allowed people to connect again. While we expected to wrap the evening at 8:30 p.m., most team members stayed until 11 p.m. because they were enjoying being together so much. I am not ready to hire in more people, because we aren’t always this crazy. Our business definitely has an ebb and flow. Is there something I could be doing to enhance our communication on these busy days?

I admit I am probably the guiltiest. I have client meetings from morning until evening and haven’t been very available.

E.L.

Dear E.L.,

I had a coaching call with a long-time client of mine yesterday who told me his strategy is to book all of his “year-end” meetings in November. That means that come December 1, he is able to deal with any unexpected things that surface. Moreover, his team isn’t so crazed with year-end and holidays all coming together at once.

I love this strategy and told him I was going to share it with others. It may be something for you to consider for November and December of 2025. In the meantime, you could do a few things to keep communication flowing for your team and allow them to continue the holiday party connection:

1. Put one more short meeting on the calendar during the week – schedule it for a Wednesday afternoon, if you can. Refuse to schedule a client meeting during a 20-30 minute block and have it be a catch-up meeting. What did they love that happened this week? What would they have changed if they could have? What do they want to be doing differently? And make sure you change it up each week. Do this in December and throughout January to keep communication flowing or for any period that the workload gets exceptionally heavy.

2. Reach out to team members the same way you are reaching out to clients. Nothing replaces one-on-one time. They may not need you for business purposes, but they will feel more secure and connected if they know you know what they are doing and if they understand you do care about them. Make it a quick call. It doesn’t even need to be on screen. Do this when you are traveling to a client meeting or commuting to or from the office – whenever is convenient. Just check-in. Let them know you care about what’s happening and you realize this level of busy-ness won’t continue forever!

3. Allow them to buy lunch on your card. Just because you are in client meetings, that doesn’t mean they can’t get together and share a bite to eat for 15 minutes in the office, just to get a break and connect. You don’t have to be the conduit. Be willing to fund their ongoing connection the same way you funded the holiday party.

It’s hard when everyone is running around trying to get things done. Be intentional about interrupting this and shifting the dynamic as often as you can.

Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry, in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. The firm has won the Wealthbriefing WealthTech award for Best Training Solution for 2022, 2023 and 2024. Beverly is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. She is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).

She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.

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