Your home office is not a scent-free workplace

Photo by Lum3n.

The bass thumped so loud, it shook the floor. The music, so loud it sounded like it was coming from our own speakers.

"Hmm. I guess they're testing out the new stereo system."

"Good news, Drake's still the anthem of choice for Toronto tech."

"Oh, thank goodness."

We got new neighbours at work. Not only in the suite next to ours but also in several of the offices underneath us. For months, we were the only remaining tenants in the building. The elevator, the stairwells, the bathrooms, had all gone eerily quiet.

One day, the elevator pinged. And feet came out. And then more feet. The motion activated lights started spending more time on than in power save mode.

This morning, someone was waiting at the elevator when we got into the building. That may not seem like a major development, but it hasn't happened in about a year.

The elevator-waiter gave an uncertain smile from behind her mask. When she cleared the elevator bay, she left behind a cloud of perfume. The kind of scent that you don't really notice if you've been working at home for the past year. Because when you put on perfume in your own space, it already sort of smells like that. And it's hard to tell where the new scent starts and the old scent ends.

Those of you who have worked in aggressively scent-free workplaces know the drill. The kind with hand printed signs all over the washrooms, in screaming font. Reminding everyone that soap, too, has a scent.

HR people often spend an inordinate amount of time navigating mismatched expectations. Particularly around humans and bodies and scents. Where we fall on the subject has to do with how we were raised, where we were raised, and whom we are comfortable asking to conform to that worldview.

The micro-battles over scented or unscented workplaces. The question of in-office masking. And how much Drake is too much. These are the uncharted waters awaiting us as we return to shared spaces.

And if you think you're off the hook because your team has opted to stay remote or simply always been remote. Well, you skip some of these conundrums. But not all of them...

Every space needs rules

Part of how we build inclusive spaces is we remove the guesswork. We don't assume a shared context or shared assumptions around perfume or Drake or masking. Instead, we assume unshared assumptions. As bosses, our job is to say those things out loud. So that anyone coming in has a fair shot at getting it right, without mind reading.

This can feel overwrought. The idea that a space needs rules and that those rules have to be explicit. We aren't children. This isn't grade school. Do we really need policies? Can't we just count on folks to show up like adults and do the non-hateful version of things?

We can. But again, coming back to the perfume issue, our ideas of what the non-hateful thing is in any given situation vary wildly. Left to figure it out, we generally stumble into dominant cultural expectations. But as a leader, you can sidestep many of the upcoming clashes by using the moment in front of you.

Every company is a community that needs rules. And, as bosses, making the rules of engagement clear is our job. That's true whether your company is remote, in-office, or a mix of the two. Every organization needs to rebuild people's sense of safety and belonging at work. If you want to turn the tide on resignations, you have to take the work of community building seriously.

Some of you are about to make a big mistake.

You will be tempted to go gentle as people come back in. "Yes, we have rules, but we're not gonna bite your head off if you get it wrong on day one." By all means, offer people grace. There's a forgetfulness that comes with doing something again for the first time in a long time.

But this is a place to be crisp and consistent. Every person coming back into work is wondering what they're in for. As a leader, you're the one holding the structure in place, because you're the one with the power to do so. Some people will want to know what they can get away with, and everyone will be watching to see if they do.

It will make you uncomfortable the first, or the fifth, time you have to remind someone to mask up. Or not talk over a colleague. Or not make that kind of joke. But that discomfort is you taking it on so that someone with less power in the organization doesn't have to. That discomfort is the effort we need from you, holding space, as we all come back.

Part of your job, as a leader, is to enforce those rules. And part of your job is to write them.

You're not starting from zero but also you are

The good news is that you you may already have defined some of the rules. A code of conduct is a community rules document. If you have feedback systems in place, those are, too. Those values posters yellowing on the walls at the office entrance? They are an earnest attempt to describe how we want to work together.

The bad news is that those rules are outdated. Sometimes because no one has looked at them since the pandemic began. Sometimes because our behaviour in pandemic has drifted so far from what those values say that reading them makes us all feel cynical. Sometimes because we know exactly what the CoC allows, but we've also seen people violate it with impunity.

So start with those documents if you have them. Remind yourself what they say. They're the deal you made with your employees. And whether anyone's kept up their end of it or not, it's the right place to start. But pay special attention to where they no longer make sense. Rules your team doesn't believe in are rules they won't observe. And rules you don't believe in are rules you won't enforce.

We've heard from so many companies lately who are taking a fresh look at their values. The last 16 months have shown them what they care about – what they will sacrifice for, and what gets sacrificed. Who they elevated, and why. Taking stock of that is important work. You can run a company a lot of different ways, and every values statement is a tradeoff. The only values guaranteed to hurt your people are the ones full of lies.

You'll need some COVID-specific rules, too. We suspect you've already written this bit, but clarity matters a lot here, and so does consistency. How do we do masking in the office? What if a client comes in unmasked? How do we do ventilation and meeting room capacity? Are we shaking hands? How do we give people room for personal autonomy, while still having very crisp guardrails? And, for all of this, who's on point when someone forgets?

We know this sounds like a lot. It's less than it seems, for what it's worth. You can read your values poster, and your CoC, and your company's covid policy in about the time it's taken to read this newsletter. It will take longer to push for the necessary changes. But it's the cheapest time you'll spend this year.

This is the work that makes all the other work possible.

- Melissa and Johnathan