It's all going to change! Once people have worked from home for this long of stretch, they're never coming back to the office!

If I could short the stock of every expert who has made these proclamations in the COVID-19 lockdown era, I would. That being said, the world of work IS likely to change based on what we've learned. But offices aren't going away. They'll change.

In white collar America, the trend has long been leaning towards more remote work. Some companies have taken the full plunge, some have barely dipped their toe in the true "remote workforce" water.

The most likely outcome in a post-COVID world? Companies with large white collar workforces are likely to ask the following questions after we're through this crisis:

What did we learn about our people's ability to work 100% remote?

What adjustments do we want to make to our previous assumptions about using remote workers?

What positive financial implications can this have for our business?

Ding! Ding! Ding! Hey HR leaders and HR pros! Some of the your companies will be late to ask these questions because everyone is in survival mode, even after people return to the office. That's why thinking about the future of work at your company should be something you own. So let's work through what your game plan should be.  Ready? Here we go.

1--Get the number of white collar professional FTEs at any location in your company. For sake of this exercise, I'm going to use "200 FTEs"

2--Get lease info - the amount of rent you pay to a landlord to support those FTEs with office space. For our exercise, I'll use this calculator that says on average, a 25 person company with average space requirements would need an estimated 6,250 square feet (25 people x 250 sf/employee).  Do the math for 200, and you arrive at 50,000 feet of space for a company/location with 200 white collar workers.

3--Calculate your current cost - I'll use an average of $24 bucks per square foot for decent space in Atlanta, which means the annual cost for 50,000 feet is $1,200,000 (note this is an effective per square foot rate after rebates, free rent and T&I).

4--Now you - the HR/Talent Pro - make a recommendation to you leadership team on that we learned a lot about working remote during COVID, and your company should take advantage of more remote work as not only a recruiting advantage, but a financial advantage.  

Run the numbers based on your current state/future state. If your company was almost 100% work in the office, you make the recommendation that we're going to drop the number of days worked in the office by your workforce by 40% (moving from 5 days a week in the office to 3), and the impact is clear. If you already had some remote days, do your own math but make the cuts related to time in the office significant.

5--Calculate the savings and make your recommendation. If your annual cost for rent is $1,200,000, and you propose to drop days in the office by 40% - and you state that over time, that equates into an opportunity not just offer remote work as a recruiting advantage, but as a financial advantage that could deliver $480,000 in savings.

Some of you will say your lease has 5 years to run. That's what subleases are for, Sparky. Some of you will say the owner/founder of your business owns the building. Sounds like a sweet deal for Tommy. You can still sublease, my friend. If you sublease the space you don't need at $12 per square foot, you're looking at $240,000 in annual savings in the example above.

And of course, if your lease and your agreement is up for renewal or will be in the next year, you should do this math quickly and make your recommendation.

THE WORLD OF WORK WILL CHANGE due to the Shelter in Place lockdown we experienced via COVID-19. It just won't go 100% remote.

Grab this opportunity as an HR Leader and make your recommendation for remote work. Regardless of your current position as a company, more remote work is a recruiting advantage - and a financial one as well.

Here we are - calendar dates vary widely, but by mid week, I'll be entering week 4 of my personal decision to shelter in place. I say personal decision because like a lot of states, mine was a bit late to the whole "mandate" thing.

COVID-19 sucks. I hope you're healthy. If you're not or you're taking care of people who aren't healthy, godspeed to you.  

With that in mind, I'm going to switch gears and talk about everybody else. If you're still employed as a white collar professional, you fall into one of 2 camps regardless of the industry or your profession (HR and recruiting pros aren't exempt from what I'm about to say):

1--You've got a lot to do. Based on the circumstances and your company, your hair is on fire and you're working long hours with no breaks. Thank you. Nice job.

2--You don't have a lot to do. Many of you will refuse to put yourself in this category, mostly because it's dangerous thing to admit to yourself - and it comes with current and future responsibilities. But for any business with declining results, no one buying and an employer fortunate enough financially to retain you - many of you are in this group.

If you fall into group #2, this post is for you. I write it out of respect, with compassion, etc - but mostly to give you some tough love.

So you're still employed as a white collar professional and you don't have as much to do. You've probably got at least another month at home and some hours to fill.

Stop reading the news, get off your a**, out of the fetal position and use the hours you have - as well as the relative peace - and invest in you.

Get busy building the projects, work product or skills you always said you would do/chase if you weren't so busy.

The next month is a tale of two professionals in your industry/at your career level. You both have the same educational background, relative skills and career attainment at this stage in your career.

One of you is going to stay in the fetal position over the next 3 months (regardless of when you return to the office, things are going to stay slow, I'm calling it a minimum of 3 months, more likely 6), talking about how bad everything is, bitching about their 401k, etc.

The other one? That person is less available on demand to hop on a social Zoom call or a Slack/Glip/Whatever chat like everyone else.

The reason that other person is a bit less available? Because they're in the lab, taking blocks of time to work on the aforementioned projects, work product or skills that will add value to their company or themselves after this thing ends and the economy recovers.

The person in the lab becomes at least 5% more valuable to their company and the marketplace at the end of this 3-month period.

COVID-19 and what it's done to the world is awful. Most of us have some form of fear on a variety of levels. Take care of yourself and others, enjoy some time being physically close and present to your family, and meditate a bit.

But if you have down periods at work, It's time to flip the switch. Start planning and working for the June 1st or September 1st version of you.

Being 5%-10% better than your peers might make all the difference in the world over the 12 months - for you and your company.

Stay healthy. Do you.

I woke up this morning and learned that US weekly jobless claims jumped to 6.64 million in the week that ended Saturday, per the US Labor Department.. That is more than double the prior week's report, which itself reflected filings that more than quadrupled the previous record.

Here's a chart to really help you feel it (email subscribers, click through it you don't see the chart below).  Thanks COVID-19!

With charts like that, you know what's coming for a lot of HR and TA pros out there? Glassdoor reviews! It's the game HR people love to hate, which for me means it's time for the analysis you've been waiting for:

Let's look at the Glassdoor Reviews.. For Glassdoor the Company!

To get you level set, you can travel to Glassdoor's page on... Glassdoor!. Click here to go the reviews, and I'm sharing a screenshot of the review home page below as well.  Scroll down and I'll give you my top 4 observations about Glassdoor's reviews as a company after the jump. (email subscribers, click through for images below)

Now you're interested, right? Glassdoor rates as a 4.0, which is good but probably not what you expected from Glassdoor. Here's my analysis of what that overall rating means along with some other observations after digging in a bit:

1--Glassdoor actually drinks the kool-aid/eats the dog food and allows current and former employees to leave negative reviews. Many of you are/were skeptical, and that's OK. But dig in, and you'll see the negative reviews in the profile, just like your company - all with an ax to grind.

2.--The Glassdoor cumulative rating of 4.0 is actually at least a 3.5 for every other company, maybe less. Why? Simple, Glassdoor has to be better than anyone else on earth in asking their employees to consider leaving a review. Think about it, it's part of what they sell in their packages - we'll teach you to make/manage review requests from people who have experienced positive events - a promotion, a big salary bump, etc. For that reason, they have to have more of the "by request" positive reviews than any other company on the planet. That means the 4.0 could be adjusted to a 3.5 via the KD.com-glassdoorindex, maybe more. I'll let you decide whether you would drop them further with this component in mind.

3--Glassdoor has the same problems you have. While it's hard to find, dig into the reviews and you'll find the same pain other people have - Customer service reps, sales people, etc - leaving hard reviews mixed in with the super positive/super pumped reviews. As with all companies, the best reviews aren't the 1-star or the 5-star (even though it's fun to rubberneck at the 1 and 2 star reviews) - the most helpful reviews are the balanced feedback reviews in the 3-star range, and the 4-star reviews that give meaningful "cons" about working at Glassdoor. Here's the slice of Customer Success Manager Reviews, which comes in a "winter is coming" 2.7 overall rating.

4--Where are the ugly people? I kid. Maybe. As you would expect, Glassdoor has done a nice job of taking the employer profile and making sure the art is maximized through photos. But most of the photos are a bit staged for my taste, which is a choice. It would be cool to see one shot of someone talking on a video call to one of you (The HR/TA leader), with you doing what you do - being irate and trying to get Glassdoor to remove a review that names your SVP of Sales by name and actually logs his time in/time out of the office over the course of a week. 

TL;DR summary of my review of Glassdoor the company via Glassdoor reviews - they're more like your company than you might think. Adjust for the fact they're better than anyone related to generating positive reviews in their company, and they look like the rest of America for the most part.

Now about those unemployment numbers...

In Episode 8 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn (Jessica Lee on break) get together with Dawn Burke (Senior Writer at Fistful of Talent, Sr. Consultant at Recruiting Toolbox) to talk about video meeting etiquette, their virtual meeting pet peeves and their wildest video call stories.

The team shares their tips and tricks on tech, framing and lighting for your video calls. Talking about their pet peeves leads to the importance of connection, Zoom’s questionable feature on attention metrics, and how to be aware of nonverbal cues. KD closes by prompting the team to share some embarrassing video call moments that you won’t want to miss.

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!!! Listen on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.

Show Highlights: 

1:30 - Tim says Michigan isn’t shut down completely – YET and the team welcomes special guest, senior writer at FoT, Dawn Burke. Dawn explains she doesn’t eat cat food, and life’s good followed by Tim and KD talking COVID-19 toilet paper memes.

5:00- KD dives deep into best practices for video meetings. Kris gives a shout out to Craig Fisher and talk about how not to suck at video – thinking about your camera, mic and lighting… Tim talks tech with wifi vs. hardwire – and calls out KD on his bad internet, and KD blames his kids who are now home and “streaming”.

8:30- Dawn talks the importance of having the basics first, lighting second… but if you are looking for the right light, there are amazon purchases that makes video calls cleaner, neater and brighter. She highly recommends the selfie ring light.

10:45 -The team digs into the pet peeves. KD’s first: framing and shitty backgrounds. Tim and Dawn agree first on their list is learn how to MUTE.  

17:20 – KD asks “What is your dream video meeting background?” Dawn would be in a coffee shop with Jesus in the background. Tim goes 80’s arcade and KD wants a Wu-Tang jpeg. But what you really want, is something that starts conversation.

22:25- KD talks about how your company culture follows you into virtual meetings. “There’s attention metrics on tools like Zoom and the host of the meeting can get a notification if you aren’t paying close attention for 30 seconds” A hack for those with questionable manager techniques… keep Zoom as your active window and get your other windows set before the call is the recommendation.

27:45- The team discusses if it’s important to be looking into the camera. Tim mentions it’s one of his pet peeves – “eye contact is one of our physical ques that indicate if someone’s engaged”

33:30- KD says the best guidance for video meetings, is to show non-verbal ques and interaction because that will help you thrive over those who aren’t picking up those ques.Tim and Dawn go into more advice. Tim says headphones keep you locked in and Dawn says everyone working from home will make our work places better in the future.

37:45 Tim, KD and Dawn start sharing their video call horror stories. From spouses crawling across the floor in the background, embarrassing notifications on shared screens to Dawn’s cat cameos.

Show Resources:

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

HRU Tech

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kinetix

Boss Leadership Training Series