Offices will continue to offer that Twixmas liminal feeling. Everyone loves to dabble in predictions at this time of year, so here’s mine; Perpetual Office Twixmas.

A virtually empty office. Image by Adolfo Felix on Unsplash

Twixmas isn’t just for Christmas. If anyone is wondering what Twixmas means, it’s one of those portmanteau words. A combination of the word ‘betwixt’, a bit of an old fashioned word which means between, and the word Christmas. It’s come to describe the period between Christmas and New Year. That strange liminal time when nobody knows what day of the week it is; haven’t worn anything other than pyjamas for days and probably haven’t ventured outside the house. Sounds familiar? There’s a lovely BBC article ‘Twixmas break: Why is it called Twixmas and what does Twixtmas mean?’ if you want some pointers on how to break the Twixmas lethargy.

The Twixmas Office for serious work. Once upon a time, BC (Before Covid) I used to love going into the office during Twixtmas. It wasn’t just to hang out with the people who’d run out of annual leave or were avoiding their families, it was to get serious work done.

I would store up a few bits of serious work for Twixmas and luxuriate in the opportunity to get things done properly, without interruptions and distractions. A virtually empty office provided that opportunity. Delivering something in the first week of January that I’d actually enjoyed working on felt like a great way to start a new year. But that was in the old days; BC.

The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. William Gibson.

I do love this William Gibson quote and it happens to sit at the introduction of a book about the future of work written in 2013, REMOTE – Office Not Required, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson the founders of 37 Signals / Basecamp. I got around to reading the book ten years after it made some bold statements about what working remotely could offer. Part of that is deliberate. I wanted to see how something written in 2013 stands up ten years later in 2023/4.

It turns out that the William Gibson quote stands up quite nicely. The future was already ‘here’/’there’ at 37 Signals back in 2013. It just wasn’t very evenly distributed amongst the rest of us. Despite the very clear benefits described in Remote it took a pandemic for it to happen, literally overnight.

I’d recommend reading the book. It offers some insights that are are worth reflecting upon. The leap to working from home was a massive, rapid and unplanned leap for lots of people. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of reflecting and retrofitting, particularly if hybrid working is here to stay.

Bringing things up to date there’s the 2023 Rework Podcast, The Challenges of Remote Work (link). Here the authors reflect on 20 years of practicing remote working, some lessons from the pandemic and what the future might hold. Some of the key points for me:

• Offices continue to be distraction factories for some people,
• Trust is a huge issue. If people can’t be trusted to work remotely, they probably can’t be trusted in the office either,
• Remote work is different from ordinary work. Doing 10 back to back Zoom meetings in a day isn’t what remote working (or effectiveness) is all about,
• You need to think about the balance of office work and remote work if you want hybrid to work. You probably need at least 50% of people remote,
• Time together face to face is a precious commodity and should be used with that in mind,
• There are likely to be some places where a return to the office happens in 2024. That probably reflects the nature of the work, the people and the company. It’s not for everyone. Whatever you do make sure it’s for the right reasons…

There’s a ton of other interesting things in the book and the podcast. Don’t just rely upon my reflections.

Making Predictions – Perpetual Office Twixmas. Remote working as part of a wider approach to Hybrid working does seem to be with us to stay. The Gennie is out of the bottle. Twixmas Office works for people like me, for certain tasks, but not all the time. There is work to do to make sure the office (if you chose to have one) is effective for everyone otherwise we could end up with Perpetual Office Twixmas as people vote with their feet.

So, What’s the Pont?

1. People need different environments to do different types of work. The Twixmas Office suited me for certain things.
2. Hybrid working looks like it’s here to stay. But ‘one size rarely fits anyone’. Be prepared to reflect, learn and change things to adapt to what is still a major change.
3. The future has been with us for a while, unevenly distributed, but there if we are willing to look carefully.