00;00;08;06 - 00;00;18;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to the long distance work life. We help you live, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marisa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert, Wayne Turmel.

00;00;19;02 - 00;00;21;27
Wayne Turmel
Hello, Marisa. How are you today?

00;00;21;28 - 00;00;23;08
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. How are you?

00;00;23;10 - 00;00;31;28
Wayne Turmel
I am, I am well today. Actually, I've thought about it and I've taken inventory. Yes, I am up and taking nourishment. And life is good.

00;00;32;01 - 00;00;56;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, thank God for that. And speaking of taking inventories of ourselves, we are actually going to talk about how mental health and remote work kind of go together. so one of the things like kind of wanted to start with and, Wayne, I know you did some research for this episode before we even got here, but, what roles do organizations play in supporting mental health of remote employees?

00;00;56;12 - 00;00;58;17
Marisa Eikenberry
Is that their job?

00;00;58;19 - 00;01;22;04
Wayne Turmel
see, that is the great question, right? Is what do employers owe their employees? What do their employees owe their employers? And in a strictly capitalist labor is services in exchange for money world. Technically, employers don't owe their employees much.

00;01;22;06 - 00;01;27;11
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Which I'm sure will thrilled the people that are listening to. Well, right now.

00;01;27;13 - 00;01;54;03
Wayne Turmel
There is a much larger conversation to be had about what do we owe each other? Right? Is there a social contract? But to be purely technical, if we're just looking at the letter of the law, your employer doesn't owe you squat. Now, is it in the employer's best interest? Right. You have employees who can function at a high level and do good work and be productive.

00;01;54;03 - 00;02;17;19
Wayne Turmel
And the answer is yes. And so somewhere, like so much in this world, there is a balance where they say you know, we really need to support our employees, partly because we're not complete ogres, but also because it helps people get the work done. And that's what we're paying them for. That's so that an imbalance is always there.

00;02;17;19 - 00;02;38;23
Wayne Turmel
And some organizations take it very seriously. They offer lots of, benefits, support, mental health resources, which statistically is easy and inexpensive for them to do because most people do not take advantage of them.

00;02;38;25 - 00;02;46;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. So have you seen some examples or of policies or initiatives that companies have done that have made this effective?

00;02;46;10 - 00;02;55;12
Wayne Turmel
Sure. Well, here in America, it usually takes the form of, health insurance. That includes mental health.

00;02;55;18 - 00;02;58;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Support, which is huge by itself.

00;02;58;07 - 00;03;28;17
Wayne Turmel
Which is not to be sneezed. That, the big thing is that there are services out there which companies partner with and they say, hey, you know, as part of your employment package, you have access to X amount of counseling through this particular service, or you can get this particular package of resources and very often and those tend to be much larger companies.

00;03;28;20 - 00;03;57;18
Wayne Turmel
but they're there and it's important I mean I don't need to say this because if you listen to us for 30s, you understand that we are not mental health professionals and understand, dear listener, that we are speaking as lay people and people who care about you. and we are not doctors, so, you know, that needs to be said.

00;03;57;20 - 00;04;04;07
Wayne Turmel
everything we say needs to be examined and run through that filter.

00;04;04;10 - 00;04;27;05
Marisa Eikenberry
Well, and you were talking about different programs and things that, some companies do. One of the other things that I've seen some companies mention, or people mentioning that their companies are doing, would even be things like having a year long access to the calm app or the headspace app as like this kind of meditation can chill out for a second kind of thing.

00;04;27;08 - 00;04;36;10
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And again, that gets done on an individual company and an individual team kind of basis.

00;04;36;13 - 00;04;37;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;04;38;00 - 00;05;16;08
Wayne Turmel
you know, and there are things managers are doing. But one of the things that I think we need to to bear in mind is that there are benefits, there are mental health benefits to remote work, and there are some challenges. And leaders are often really uncomfortable because they aren't experts, either they aren't psychiatrists or psychologists, and they very often are dealing with their own feelings, thoughts, ideas.

00;05;16;11 - 00;05;48;14
Wayne Turmel
And so it is very difficult for them unless there is a really good communication process and unless we check in with each other on a regular basis, and pick up on what's happening, it's really easy for things, especially in a remote environment, for things to go unnoticed. I mean, if I'm in the office and Alice breaks down sobbing over her keyboard.

00;05;48;16 - 00;05;49;10
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;05;49;12 - 00;05;54;05
Wayne Turmel
Right. It's pretty easy for me to go, oh, there's a problem here.

00;05;54;07 - 00;05;55;26
Marisa Eikenberry
All right. Alice, are you okay?

00;05;55;28 - 00;06;17;14
Wayne Turmel
And we're not being flippant about this. I mean, we see this every day in the workplace. Everybody is dealing with their own stuff. if Alice can hold it together for the 20 minutes of a zoom call, I have no idea if she's slumped over her keyboard when the camera's off.

00;06;17;17 - 00;06;32;04
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Or to that point, too, because, you know, some people will do zoom meetings with cameras off to begin with. And if you haven't seen Joe in three weeks because he never turned his camera on, like you may have no idea that he's going through something.

00;06;32;06 - 00;06;44;00
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. So I, I think it's important that we look at, you know, what are some of the positive aspect. How does this positively affect mental health and how does it not.

00;06;44;02 - 00;07;07;00
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. So I know we've talked about some of these things before. So things like isolation or having blurred boundaries between, you know, when you're working and when you're home. but one of the other things is like, you know, obviously we have a bunch of stressors. So what are some stressors for remote workers that you've noticed and how can they be effectively managed?

00;07;07;02 - 00;07;42;21
Wayne Turmel
Well, one of the big stressors for remote workers is that they are very often torn. I mean, we saw this during Covid. This became blatantly aware, during Covid where people were dealing with death and illness and, you know, those types of things that were going on in the background of, oh, and by the, you know, I need to get my kids schooled and I need to look after my parents, and I need and I don't feel that good myself.

00;07;42;25 - 00;08;18;04
Wayne Turmel
And oh, by the way, I need to keep my job. And so I need to put on a good face or they'll make me go back into the office right? Right. And and so that split loyalty for some people, it's very easy. They can compartmentalize very well. Again, not everybody can of course. Right. And to say, oh, we gave you the same chance we give everybody else may well be true and it may save your conscience.

00;08;18;06 - 00;08;40;22
Wayne Turmel
I'm not entirely sure it's the best way to look at it. for managers and leaders out there. I know that I myself and I've told a similar story to this before. I used to kind of judge everybody's actions and effectiveness and motives by what was going on with me.

00;08;40;25 - 00;08;42;01
Marisa Eikenberry
Don't we all?

00;08;42;03 - 00;08;42;23
Wayne Turmel
Well.

00;08;42;25 - 00;08;44;20
Marisa Eikenberry
At least to start, until we know.

00;08;44;20 - 00;09;09;25
Wayne Turmel
That that self-awareness is really, really important, right? I remember very early in my career, I was talking to my boss's wife, who happened to be part of the business, and she was very judgmental. Somebody was having what was clearly a mental health episode, although we didn't call it that at the time. Right. and she goes, well, I wish I had time for that.

00;09;09;28 - 00;09;19;13
Wayne Turmel
You know, I was busy raising a child and running a business, and bye bye bye bye bye. And I just didn't have time to whine and feel sorry for myself, was how she phrased it.

00;09;19;16 - 00;09;22;05
Marisa Eikenberry
Wow, she sounds delightful.

00;09;22;08 - 00;09;34;29
Wayne Turmel
And you know what she is? She is a lovely person, but she white knuckled her way through most of the crises in her life. And if she can do it, why can't everybody else?

00;09;35;01 - 00;09;36;18
Marisa Eikenberry
And but I just not like that.

00;09;36;25 - 00;10;03;08
Wayne Turmel
Well, I came across an analogy and it was during the Northridge earthquake. Okay. We lived in Southern California in in Northridge, in the center of the quake zone. And the ground, if you can picture taking a carpet and kind of flipping one end of it and it rolls, that's what the ground did. And as a result, the house, there were three houses next to each other.

00;10;03;08 - 00;10;09;03
Wayne Turmel
We were in the middle. The house on one side was almost completely destroyed.

00;10;09;06 - 00;10;10;07
Marisa Eikenberry
Wow.

00;10;10;10 - 00;10;20;24
Wayne Turmel
Our house suffered damage but was functional and we could live in it and all that good stuff. And the house next to us got almost nothing.

00;10;20;26 - 00;10;21;26
Marisa Eikenberry
Wow.

00;10;21;29 - 00;10;33;22
Wayne Turmel
All three houses were the same builder. They were built at the same time. They had the same floor or plan and got hit by the same earthquake.

00;10;33;25 - 00;10;35;18
Marisa Eikenberry
With three different outcomes.

00;10;35;20 - 00;10;41;00
Wayne Turmel
And yet had completely different results.

00;10;41;02 - 00;10;41;29
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;10;42;01 - 00;11;13;25
Wayne Turmel
Three different outcomes. And that analogy has stuck with me when we're talking about this. And so, you know, you take something like isolation. for one person, isolation might be the best thing I can get my work done. My work requires focus. And being able to work and maybe listening to my body a little bit. So sometimes a day work better than others, and I don't get bothered by people like that.

00;11;14;00 - 00;11;42;19
Wayne Turmel
So isolation, or at least being more alone makes sense. And that works for me. For other people, it exacerbates what other problems they have. Again, during Covid and not making light of anything. The number of teens harming themselves during Covid during the the school shutdown here in Clark County, double.

00;11;42;21 - 00;11;45;24
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I'm not surprised.

00;11;45;26 - 00;12;08;01
Wayne Turmel
Well and so isolation is really tough. And as a leader how do you manage that with your team. Right. Is somebody quiet because they're quiet. Are they quiet because there's something else going on. And so check ins and I don't mean you have to put them on a couch and ask deep, you know.

00;12;08;02 - 00;12;08;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;12;08;21 - 00;12;16;12
Wayne Turmel
Probing questions about your psyche. but legitimately checking it.

00;12;16;14 - 00;12;20;24
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. And that's why one on one so. Right.

00;12;21;01 - 00;12;23;16
Wayne Turmel
It's it's really, really critical.

00;12;23;18 - 00;12;38;07
Marisa Eikenberry
Changing direction directions a little bit and going into some of the benefits, that remote work can have with mental health. So can you discuss how remote work might actually act as like a safe haven for individuals with social anxiety?

00;12;38;10 - 00;13;12;09
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. Exactly. Right. It's, you know, the number of people who. Experience social anxiety is higher than we've ever thought, because people have always just kind of white knuckled their way through it. What remote work has allowed people to do is not have to deal with some of those stressors, that we have to work with. You know, commutes are horribly stressful.

00;13;12;09 - 00;13;54;21
Wayne Turmel
By the time you get to the office, you're already freaked out. we are experiencing an era where, people are afraid to speak up for whatever reasons. social tensions on things like politics and what's going on in the world and all that stuff is making the workplace a very stressful environment. And for those who are, well, bullying, for lack of a better word, which sounds very grad school but goes on in the workplace all the time, is actually on absolutely.

00;13;54;24 - 00;14;32;04
Wayne Turmel
What we've experienced is that remote work removes some of that. And I'll give you an example. we're hearing that and this is all anecdotal, but it's pretty widely documented that people who traditionally don't speak up. Right, whether because they are socially anxious, whether because there's a power imbalance, whatever that is, are more comfortable speaking up because I don't have to sit in a conference room with Bob staring daggers at me if I disagree with his idea.

00;14;32;11 - 00;14;37;20
Wayne Turmel
And oh, by the way, Bob is going to follow me all the way back to my desk, haranguing me for it.

00;14;37;22 - 00;14;59;23
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Yeah. Well, and to give you another perspective too, because like, I mean, I, I have a fair amount of social anxiety. I am an anxious person by nature. This will shock no one who actually knows me. but for me, I'm not necessarily like, obviously I've worked on our team for ten years. I trust the team members.

00;14;59;23 - 00;15;21;19
Marisa Eikenberry
I trust our coworkers. I know that it's not a, you know, waves, not staring daggers at me across the room. Like, don't you dare say anything. Like, that's not happening. But for me, I'm somebody that I want to work so hard not to interrupt a conversation. So if we're all at a conference table and everybody's talking, or even during a team meeting on the web, everybody's talking all at once.

00;15;21;19 - 00;15;38;17
Marisa Eikenberry
I have something to say. But there's no breath for me to do it. And if there's no breath, I'll never say it. But now I can open up a chat window and I can post it in there, and somebody might be able to see it and then go, oh, hey, she just said this and it can get added to the conversation.

00;15;38;17 - 00;15;44;10
Marisa Eikenberry
And then maybe that gives me an opportunity to go off mute and say something else.

00;15;44;12 - 00;16;27;04
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. Which brings us to the power of you're absolutely right. The chat feature in meetings is frequently, underutilized and underappreciated. It allows those who maybe aren't as comfortable speaking up or can't find a good time. Like me says, making air quotes to to contribute allows them to do that. There is also the asynchronous component of things like teams and chat and slack, where you don't have to have that brilliant idea right there in the middle of the conversation.

00;16;27;06 - 00;17;02;16
Wayne Turmel
You have time to think about it. You can actually use AI to. There are so many tools now that you can say, hey, I want you using Grammarly, for example. Yeah. you know, I want this to sound friendly or I want this to sound professional or whatever. You can write what you're doing and it will adjust the tone for you till it sounds like you think it should sound so that you are not lashing out anymore.

00;17;02;19 - 00;17;38;01
Wayne Turmel
Right? This is this is actually an ability to communicate more effectively, not display your anxiety. not add to anyone else's. Because very often, and those of us who tend to make jokes, those of us who tend to be, a little more assertive than others frequently add to other people's burdens without meaning to write. you didn't have to agree that quickly.

00;17;38;04 - 00;17;39;22
Marisa Eikenberry
I mean.

00;17;39;24 - 00;17;41;09
Wayne Turmel
And it's true.

00;17;41;12 - 00;17;43;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;17;43;22 - 00;18;03;09
Wayne Turmel
So, you know, and we could go on for a long time about this, but I think that the key here is that as individuals, we need to kind of take inventory periodically. How am I doing.

00;18;03;12 - 00;18;04;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Right.

00;18;04;20 - 00;18;08;00
Wayne Turmel
Why am I doing that way? Why am I doing that.

00;18;08;02 - 00;18;11;09
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, right. Is it something on my end or. It's something.

00;18;11;11 - 00;18;46;28
Wayne Turmel
Trivial? Is it something identifiable that I can deal with or that I need help dealing with? Is it a more general sense of anxiety or fear or whatever it is? It starts there, right? As leaders, are we checking in even if we don't have high priced psychological resources and mental health benefits and all of that stuff? We can check in and say, how are you doing?

00;18;47;00 - 00;18;49;16
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, it's as simple as that.

00;18;49;18 - 00;19;12;20
Wayne Turmel
It's really important and that we listen to the answer without judgment. I, I, I have worked from home for most of my career, pretty much full time, almost 20 years, and I have had times when I'm doing great and times when I'm not doing so great.

00;19;12;23 - 00;19;16;00
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, me too. And I've done half that time.

00;19;16;02 - 00;19;43;21
Wayne Turmel
And it takes courage. And that's a word that gets thrown around a lot. But it takes courage to raise your hand and say, hey, this is not working for me. I mean, very recently I said to Kevin, I need to stop doing this. Yeah. Certain things because this is not working. Right. There are projects that I was working on.

00;19;43;29 - 00;20;03;19
Wayne Turmel
I can't do that right now. I am not, and I'm a grown man who has done this a lot. And it's, you know, but I was completely overwhelmed and I wasn't I wasn't moral in terms of what's on my plate. It wasn't worse than anybody else has. You have a busier agenda than I do most days.

00;20;03;21 - 00;20;20;26
Marisa Eikenberry
But to be honest, the thing, you know what? Everybody's perspective is going to be a little different, like what your busy is and what my business might look different, what I can handle versus what you can handle might look different. And that's okay. That doesn't mean that one of us is better or not than the other person.

00;20;20;28 - 00;20;54;21
Wayne Turmel
And that's the thing is the removal of judgment. We have to stop judging ourselves and be observant of what's happening and why it's happening, and be as honest with ourselves as we can. When others reach out to us, we need to be honest to them. You don't need to share everything right? But understand that they're coming from a place of they want to help and it may be that remote work is not great for you.

00;20;54;23 - 00;21;11;13
Wayne Turmel
It may be that being in the office every day and fighting the commute and dealing with the crowds and all that stuff, maybe you need to back off a little bit and think about, maybe a more flexible work schedule.

00;21;11;16 - 00;21;14;09
Marisa Eikenberry
yeah, maybe a hybrid is the thing that works the best for you.

00;21;14;11 - 00;21;37;06
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, nothing is one size fits all. But if we leave you with nothing else in this session, I think we need to recognize that how we work is a part of our life. It is not all of our life. If it is, you need to reexamine some things.

00;21;37;08 - 00;21;37;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;21;38;01 - 00;22;10;17
Wayne Turmel
how and why and what we do as work is part of our life, and you can't just portion it off from everything else. Absolutely. And good leaders understand that. Good organizations consider that when they're looking at the the health and, state of their employees. And as individuals, we need to think about that as well. And so there are things like apps that can help us be more mindful.

00;22;10;24 - 00;22;42;15
Wayne Turmel
There are things like meditation. There are things like, getting off your chair and going to that office function even when you don't want to. If that's going to help get you out of whatever you're in. so I hope that was helpful for folks. The big thing that I want people to remember is, whatever it is, it's not just you.

00;22;42;18 - 00;23;04;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Amen to that. Wayne. Thank you so much for this episode. this was really great conversation. I really hope that it's helpful to our listeners and listeners. Thank you so much for listening to the Long Distance work life. Our show notes, transcripts, and other resources. Make sure to visit Long Distance Work life.com if you haven't yet, subscribe to the show so you don't miss any future episodes.

00;23;04;28 - 00;23;19;29
Marisa Eikenberry
While you're there, be sure to like and review. This helps us know what you like about our show. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes, and let us know you listen to this episode, or even suggest a topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode. We'd love to hear from you!

00;23;20;02 - 00;23;46;01
Marisa Eikenberry
And before we sign off, I want to tell you about our long distance Leadership series at Kevineikenberry.com/ldls. Whether you're a seasoned leader or stepping into a remote leadership role for the first time, this series offers practical tools and expert advice to help you succeed. It's great for individuals or your whole leadership team. Again, that's Kevineikenberry.com/ldls. Let's start strengthening your remote leadership skills today.

00;23;46;04 - 00;23;54;03
Marisa Eikenberry
Thank you so much for joining us. And as Wayne likes to say don't let the weasels get you down.

00;23;54;06 - 00;23;58;20



00;23;58;22 - 00;23;59;13

00;00;08;00 - 00;00;18;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Welcome back to Long Distance Work, where we help you meet, work and thrive in remote and hybrid teams. I'm Marissa Eikenberry, a fellow remote worker. And joining me is my co-host and remote work expert, Wayne Trammell. Hi, Wayne.

00;00;19;01 - 00;00;20;26
Wayne Turmel
Hello, Marissa. How are you?

00;00;20;28 - 00;00;22;05
Marisa Eikenberry
I'm great. How are you?

00;00;22;08 - 00;00;27;19
Wayne Turmel
I am very well, and I'm actually kind of geeked about the show this week.

00;00;27;21 - 00;00;55;01
Marisa Eikenberry
As you should be. So listeners, we are actually we're talking about Return to Office, which is not the first time that we've ever talked about this before. However, the spin that we're doing today is that we're talking about the differences between how the US handled it and how Europe has handled it or is handling it now. So, Wayne, I want to start off with, by what are the main differences that you've already observed between the U.S. and European countries and how they're handling return to office?

00;00;55;04 - 00;01;08;17
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, it's interesting because you can kind of get stuck in. And Americans in particular are really bad about this, where, you know, if it doesn't center around the Statue of Liberty, it didn't happen right here, right.

00;01;08;17 - 00;01;10;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Eastern time zone or bust. Right?

00;01;10;15 - 00;01;34;02
Wayne Turmel
Right, exactly. And so I've been writing for management issues out of the U.K. for a billion years. It feels like. And I was doing some work for them and some research. And I was fascinated to find that return to office is much more prevalent in Europe and in a lot of other countries. Matter of fact, the US is severely different.

00;01;34;05 - 00;01;55;29
Wayne Turmel
Okay, in the, number of people, just as a rough number, 70% of people in the UK have gone back to predominantly return to office or not in the UK, but in Europe. Okay, going back to 70% return to office basically full time in the US it's more like 50%.

00;01;56;01 - 00;01;56;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;01;57;03 - 00;02;08;18
Wayne Turmel
and we're talking about those obviously who can work remotely, of course. Right. I mean, there was this whole thing everybody went home during Covid. Well, no, it was about a third of the population.

00;02;08;23 - 00;02;10;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. It feels like a lot more people.

00;02;10;18 - 00;02;14;14
Wayne Turmel
It feels like a lot more than that because we hang with who we hang with.

00;02;14;17 - 00;02;14;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Right?

00;02;15;17 - 00;02;33;10
Wayne Turmel
but 70 to 50 is a pretty significant difference. And so I being me, you know, I remember at five, my grandmother actually stopped babysitting me for a while because I wouldn't stop asking why.

00;02;33;12 - 00;02;35;02
Marisa Eikenberry
I could act like I'm surprised.

00;02;35;05 - 00;02;40;00
Wayne Turmel
And I still to this day.

00;02;40;02 - 00;02;45;05
Wayne Turmel
And for those of you listening in audio only, it is a very short face. Oh.

00;02;45;08 - 00;02;46;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely.

00;02;47;00 - 00;02;52;21
Wayne Turmel
So anyway, I started geeking out and going down the rabbit hole and I figured this was a worthy discussion.

00;02;52;23 - 00;03;09;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. So, okay, we've already discussed 70 to 50. Like that's a really big deal. So why is it that Europe seems to be having way more return to office people than we have? I mean, is it just people fighting back and be like, no, I want to work from home? Or is there something else?

00;03;09;28 - 00;03;38;00
Wayne Turmel
No, I think there are. I'm going to say three because I'm doing this off the top of my head, okay? B and there are sub reasons to those three reasons, but there are three things that strike me as most obvious. Number one is that most people in European cities live much closer to where they work. Europeans in general do not commute long distances to go to work.

00;03;38;04 - 00;03;45;04
Wayne Turmel
And by the way, when we talk about the European numbers, there's a giant asterix there that says everywhere but London, right.

00;03;45;04 - 00;03;47;04
Marisa Eikenberry
You and I have talked about this offline.

00;03;47;06 - 00;04;15;24
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. Well, we'll we'll talk about why London is the outlier in a moment. But the fact is that most people in Europe do not have the hellish commutes that Americans have. and they are much more willing to use public transportation and all kinds of things. So as a result, the commute isn't as onerous as it is for North Americans.

00;04;15;26 - 00;04;16;16
Marisa Eikenberry
That makes sense.

00;04;16;18 - 00;04;36;21
Wayne Turmel
So, you know, the number one reason Americans give for why do I want flexible with because the traffic is killing me, and getting to work makes me miserable. And grumpy and grumpy before I get there. And by the way, when I was home with Covid, I was saving $5,000 a year. And that's a real number for a lot of people.

00;04;36;26 - 00;04;55;24
Wayne Turmel
So the commute is a big part of that. So the commute comes out of the equation. The second thing, and this is very controversial, and I just talked about this at a conference this week and got some I got some hallelujahs and a lot of uncomfortable squirming in seats.

00;04;56;01 - 00;04;59;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Oh, I can't wait for the podcast comments on this one. Then.

00;04;59;20 - 00;05;32;12
Wayne Turmel
Well, it basically comes down to Americans view hybrid work in particular, and the right to work from home as a perk. Okay, it's a perk. It's something they want. And the reason is Americans in particular do not get a lot of perks in terms of work. That is, if you think about the average European worker, their health care is paid for, their education is essentially paid for or extremely cheap.

00;05;33;07 - 00;05;38;01
Wayne Turmel
there are laws about how many hours you can work and not work much longer.

00;05;38;01 - 00;05;39;05
Marisa Eikenberry
Vacation time, you.

00;05;39;06 - 00;05;52;13
Wayne Turmel
Know, more vacation time. All of those things are if you get them through an American company, you get them through negotiation and then bargaining and threatening to quit and all kinds of stuff. Right?

00;05;52;13 - 00;05;54;05
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, they aren't inherently there.

00;05;54;07 - 00;06;18;21
Wayne Turmel
So there is. Whereas companies are willing to say, yeah, you know what? We're not going to give you health care or, do any of that other cool stuff. But if you want to work in your jammies a couple of days a week, we're good with that, right? And so that's part of it. Right? and that goes to the fact that the work life balance in Europe is generally better.

00;06;18;21 - 00;06;40;00
Wayne Turmel
People are better at I go to work and I work, and when I leave work, I leave work, and I don't think about it so that they tend to enjoy the time they're there. They take that eight hours and they work, and they get their social contact with their friends, and they work hard and they do their jobs and then it's done.

00;06;40;02 - 00;06;41;17
Marisa Eikenberry
And then they go home and do it all.

00;06;41;17 - 00;06;53;22
Wayne Turmel
Over, and then they go, so, you know, the ability to do that is already there. They don't put the same value on it that American workers have put on it.

00;06;53;25 - 00;06;58;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah. We're it's almost like our, our identity and our careers sometimes become our identity in many ways.

00;06;58;18 - 00;07;27;19
Wayne Turmel
Well it does and you know, we can get deeper into that. But the third reason I'm trying to stick to three, because I said I would, I remembered the third reason as we were just talking, which is the infrastructure for working from home doesn't exist in a lot of places. And I noticed this at the beginning of Covid, where it was really problematic getting people in Asia, for example, to work from home.

00;07;27;22 - 00;07;52;19
Wayne Turmel
And then I realized why, if you live in Tokyo, you're living in an apartment the size of my garage with no distinct room to work in. Right? You're trying to cut million dollar sales deals on the end of your bed, and that doesn't really work. And it's the same thing. Housing in Europe, especially in the cities, tends to be smaller apartments.

00;07;52;19 - 00;08;04;23
Wayne Turmel
Even the houses are smaller than we're traditionally used to here in America. And so the idea of having a home office is just physically not possible.

00;08;04;25 - 00;08;05;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, no, that makes for a.

00;08;05;27 - 00;08;06;17
Wayne Turmel
Lot of people.

00;08;06;18 - 00;08;07;22
Marisa Eikenberry
I thought about that.

00;08;07;25 - 00;08;32;08
Wayne Turmel
I hadn't either. This is why we go down rabbit holes. Because we learn stuff right? so if you think about just those three things, right, the, the structure of the commute going to work, isn't that bad. Well, okay. You know, it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It ceases to become a bargaining chip when you're talking to your boss.

00;08;32;10 - 00;08;53;10
Wayne Turmel
You know, if you don't have a lot of perks, it this has become. And by the way, flexible work is the number one thing people are asking for when they apply for jobs. Yeah. So this is far more important here. There is a value on flexible work that just hasn't caught on in much of the rest of the world.

00;08;53;14 - 00;09;19;15
Wayne Turmel
Well, and then the third thing is, even if I am working from home, can I be as productive? Can I do the same job? And the answer is maybe not. It's not quite as convenient and simple as it is in North America. So those are kind of the obvious things. And there are some really interesting long term impacts on this which we can get to in a moment.

00;09;19;18 - 00;09;22;25
Wayne Turmel
I did mention that the outlier is London.

00;09;22;27 - 00;09;41;23
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. Well, and I did want to go into something robust before you get into London. So and unfortunately I don't have the data with me right this second. But wasn't there something I want to say? Switzerland, maybe Sweden, that it was like work from home was like a protected thing. Like it was like you had a right to work from home.

00;09;41;26 - 00;09;44;22
Marisa Eikenberry
How is that different than some of the other stuff that we're seeing?

00;09;44;25 - 00;10;12;22
Wayne Turmel
Well, what's happening is that as a result of Covid, there was a big rush to codify things like how many hours can your boss expect you to work when you're not in the office? Do the same labor laws that protect you in the workplace. Protect you when you work from home? there was all kinds of that stuff that was kind of rushing to judgment on a lot of that.

00;10;12;22 - 00;10;39;17
Wayne Turmel
And this the countries that you would expect to do that, right. The companies, the countries that put a large value on work as part of the social experiment. Right. Switzerland. Okay, Sweden, the Nordic countries, you would expect that that's where the first of this would come. I think a lot of that has kind of come to nothing, because so relatively few people are taking advantage of it now.

00;10;39;19 - 00;10;39;25
Marisa Eikenberry
Or.

00;10;39;25 - 00;10;55;27
Wayne Turmel
When they do, when they do, they're kind of going along with the stealth work thing, which is going to work for a short period of time. Eventually, people will start running afoul of labor laws and and things, and, you know, somebody will always ruin it for everybody else.

00;10;55;29 - 00;10;59;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Like that happens all the time.

00;10;59;21 - 00;11;17;20
Wayne Turmel
You know, it's important to remember that every law was put in place, and it made sense to the person who wrote it because they were trying to solve a specific problem. Right, right. so it's interesting to see where it's going to shake out.

00;11;17;22 - 00;11;22;13
Marisa Eikenberry
Right. And so going back to your thing about London, so how was London different?

00;11;22;16 - 00;11;36;23
Wayne Turmel
London is really expensive and really big. And as a result the commutes are basically London as a work environment is much more like New York or Chicago.

00;11;36;26 - 00;11;37;19
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay.

00;11;37;22 - 00;11;39;24
Wayne Turmel
Than it is Amsterdam or Paris.

00;11;39;26 - 00;11;41;08
Marisa Eikenberry
Okay, that makes sense.

00;11;42;05 - 00;11;57;10
Wayne Turmel
the problems that you've got with stupid expensive housing and, you know, and you can't even drive your city, your car into the City of London without paying an entry fee every day. It's the only city that has a coverage charge.

00;11;57;12 - 00;11;57;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Oh my gosh.

00;11;58;17 - 00;12;18;06
Wayne Turmel
you know, which again, was instituted to solve a specific problem. But there are unintended consequences to this. But basically, London doesn't fit into the European model. the third reason, which also makes sense in London, is that there are so many international companies headquartered there.

00;12;18;07 - 00;12;18;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;12;18;21 - 00;12;19;05
Wayne Turmel
That.

00;12;19;08 - 00;12;20;04
Marisa Eikenberry
They're already doing.

00;12;20;10 - 00;12;34;04
Wayne Turmel
More working. Yeah, well, they're doing flexible work in times of hours and and whatever. And if I have to be in the office at 9:00, I don't want to still be there for the 9:00 at night. Call with the team in Singapore.

00;12;34;07 - 00;12;37;16
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. And I don't blame them for that right now.

00;12;37;16 - 00;12;45;26
Wayne Turmel
The impact of all this is really interesting. One of the things is that European cities are already built.

00;12;46;03 - 00;12;46;28
Marisa Eikenberry
Yes.

00;12;47;01 - 00;13;22;07
Wayne Turmel
They've been there a long time. The footprint of the city is what it is, and as a result, there is less, building going on all the time in these places. And the, the if you look at the square footage of business properties available again, it is something like it's a vacancy rate of somewhere between 7 and 10% versus some American cities, and London, where it's getting close to 50.

00;13;22;09 - 00;13;43;16
Wayne Turmel
Like even if there are people in a building, they there may not be people on all floors because businesses have kind of shrunk. And some of that is remote work and people not coming in. Frankly, some of it is automation, and we need less people than we needed ten years ago to do the same job.

00;13;43;17 - 00;13;44;08
Marisa Eikenberry
That makes sense too.

00;13;44;11 - 00;14;02;25
Wayne Turmel
So all of these factors I found absolutely fascinating. and if you are the CEO of a company, if you're thinking about how do we come up with a policy that makes sense? If we are an international company, how do we come up with a policy that makes sense?

00;14;02;28 - 00;14;03;21
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;14;03;24 - 00;14;15;16
Wayne Turmel
This is all stuff we have to take into consideration. And one of the things I wanted to do was just bring those facts out there and throw them on the table and go, I don't know what you all are going to do with this, but there you are.

00;14;15;19 - 00;14;31;24
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? So with all of this, like looking forward, what trends do you predict will emerge in the workplace because of this? Like, do you think that we're going to continue to see more return to office in Europe? Do you think that we're going to stay about the same in the US?

00;14;31;25 - 00;14;53;07
Wayne Turmel
I think we will gradually see a rise in remote work, at least part time. We're going to see a rise in hybrid work, in, in all corners of the world. I think we're going to see that, but it's going to be more gradual. It wasn't like the sudden boom in remote. Right? Right.

00;14;53;10 - 00;14;54;05
Marisa Eikenberry
Right.

00;14;54;08 - 00;15;22;15
Wayne Turmel
I think we're going to see that. I think we're still seeing attention in North America. And I said this and got more hallelujahs than not the other day when I said, you know, in America, because of this idea of using it as a perk instead of looking at it from the standpoint of the business sense, saying what's best for the business, it's kind of it's not so much a strategy as it is a hostage negotiation.

00;15;22;18 - 00;15;47;25
Wayne Turmel
Okay. Where the where the company says, how much can we make them come into the office before they quit or won't come work for us? And the workers are going, how much can I avoid going into the office and still draw a paycheck? And they've kind of settled on whatever formula two days, three days a week that they've settled on, which is not really sustainable.

00;15;47;25 - 00;15;50;25
Wayne Turmel
And more importantly, it's not strategic.

00;15;50;27 - 00;15;53;12
Marisa Eikenberry
Right? Yeah. There's no rhyme for it.

00;15;53;15 - 00;16;20;00
Wayne Turmel
Well, there's a rhyme and a reason. It's just, you know, it's it's vulgar on poetry, which means nothing to anybody who hasn't read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But it is poetry, and it is the worst poetry in the universe. So that's really where we are. I think we've hit this compromise and we're kind of dealing with it, and long term it's not going to progress and improve.

00;16;20;12 - 00;16;44;11
Wayne Turmel
until we get strategic about what's going to happen is and somebody actually said this, I can't remember who said it, but it was a quote and it hit all the business papers said this whole return to office remote work, hybrid work thing would just go away. What we need is 20% unemployment, okay? Because then people will be so darn glad to have a job, they'll just shut up and show up.

00;16;44;13 - 00;16;48;27
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah, I feel like I've also heard that quote before or something like it.

00;16;49;03 - 00;17;10;09
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. So yeah, that's that's where we are. And and I thought this was a worthy discussion. Right. It's like you will there be kind of a growing acceptance of hybrid work when people realize they aren't going to have to spend all day in their 500 square foot flat? Probably.

00;17;10;11 - 00;17;10;20
Marisa Eikenberry
Yeah.

00;17;10;26 - 00;17;28;27
Wayne Turmel
Right. will Americans get the hang of it and figure it out? Maybe. but their conversations worth having, and you can't make those decisions without context. Absolutely. So that's what we hope. That's what we hope we did today was give you some context.

00;17;28;29 - 00;17;48;07
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. And I'll make sure to link to your management issues. article inside of our show notes. So for people who want to read even more about this, it will be there. And listeners, thank you so much for listening to the long distance work life or show notes, transcripts, and other resources. Make sure to visit Long Distance Work-Life dot com.

00;17;48;09 - 00;18;06;21
Marisa Eikenberry
If you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, be sure to like and review. This helps us know what you love about our show. Feel free to contact us via email or LinkedIn with the links in our show notes, and let us know that you listen to this episode, or suggest another topic for Wayne and I to tackle in a future episode.

00;18;06;23 - 00;18;08;00
Marisa Eikenberry
We'd love to hear from you.

00;18;08;02 - 00;18;34;14
Wayne Turmel
Well, and one of the things, if you're kind of asking these questions about what's it like leading remotely, how is leading a hybrid team different? We would urge you to take advantage of our open enrollment programs. The long Distance Leadership Series runs a couple of times a year. You can find out more on the Kevin eikenberry.com site. We would love to have you or talk to you about delivering that content inside your organization.

00;18;34;16 - 00;18;36;01
Wayne Turmel
Or it's a bring us home.

00;18;36;04 - 00;19;03;18
Marisa Eikenberry
Absolutely. And you can learn more about that at Kevin eikenberry.com/ldl s. Thank you so much for joining us, Wayne. Thank you for saving me for a second right there. And as Wayne likes to say, don't let police escort you down. Hey.

00;19;03;20 - 00;19;04;05
Marisa Eikenberry
You.