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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. It's one thing to start a new job remotely, it's another thing to start an entire professional career that way. Obviously, over the last two years, lots of companies have spent time and resources, trying to adapt and design workflows that function outside of physical office, some of that is here to stay, but few places have spent resources on crafting policies to onboard or mentor brand new employees.

The result according to my next guests, many new Gen Z workers feel left behind, invisible, and in some cases, unsure about how to actually do their brand new jobs. With me now, Anne Helen Petersen, she writes the newsletter, Culture Steady. Anne, always great to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Anne Helen Petersen: I'm so glad to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with a story. One recent college grad, Kristin, told you her new company offered hours of onboard Zoom training, but they lacked any room for socializing. What else did you hear and why is that important?

Anne Helen Petersen: We just heard from a lot of people who didn't have any mentorship or even direction on how to proceed forward once they started jobs. Someone would be onboarded, and then just trying to do their job into the echoing abyss of Slack or Teams or whatever online component was meant to be their connection to the rest of the workplace, and they didn't really know if they were doing okay at their jobs, if they were doing the right thing, just having no sense of whether they were doing their jobs even correctly.

So much of that is to do or previously was to do with the fact that a lot of managers were so overburdened with trying to figure out their own jobs and all of their other responsibilities while working from home, that if someone was assigned to them as a new managee, they got lost in the mix.

Brian Lehrer: An argument for in-person work has been that without it, people miss out on watercooler chats, so-called, spontaneous moments of collaboration or networking that happened, not at your desk or informal meetings, but somewhere else in the office. Like the hallway, the cafeteria, the aforementioned watercooler. Earlier this year, the Times reported that the alure of the watercooler is a myth however and that in-person work is not needed for creativity or innovation.

Have you come to a conclusion yourself about, I don't know, I imagine it's complicated, and for some people more than others and some situations more than others. How do you sort this all out?

Anne Helen Petersen: I so appreciated that New York Times article, which is drawing on research from elsewhere, that it actually had some numbers and some data to back up what I have always felt to be true, which is that there's very little spontaneous collaboration in the office at the watercooler. Most people are awkwardly walking to the bathroom, and maybe you say hi, and ask how someone's weekend is, but it is not some font of creative innovation in the way that is often imagined.

Instead, the office really serves to help people who are comfortable in office spaces, and a lot of times the people who are comfortable in office spaces are who the office is built for and has been built for a century which is largely men, white men in particular, and people without caregiving responsibilities.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, did you start your first job ever during the pandemic? Was it and is it still remote or partially remote? Tell us your stories, 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. We want to hear from you. If you've never stepped foot in an office in-person in your brand new professional life. Anybody like that out there right now, how have you adapted? What do you think you've lost from not being in the office with your new co-workers? 212-433-9692.

Or maybe you were in that situation for a while and now you're back full time or hybrid a few days a week and you're reflecting back on those early weeks or early months with no in-person office in your first job ever. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692, tell us and Anne Helen Peterson and your fellow listeners, your stories and help people learn from them, how to navigate this weird moment that we're in again, and maybe we're going to dive deeper back into it because of Omicron, who knows. 212-433-9692.

If you were in that position or are, has there been an effort to induct you into office culture, series of happy hour, Zooms, whatever, or have you been assigned a mentor? Or do you feel like you've not quite figured everything out, and have fallen through the cracks in certain ways that the company could be doing a better job of mitigating? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692 for Anne Helen Peterson, who writes the newsletter, Culture Study, and has now written a New York Times opinion piece called Remote Work Is Failing Young Employees. Anne, our board is exploding, by the way. A lot of people are obviously itching to tell their stories of this. While we're collecting the calls, tell us another one of yours. You talked to a new office worker who said her work experience felt, "almost completely transactional, with our conversations limited to exchanging information in pursuit of an immediate work-related goal." Tell us that story.

Anne Helen Petersen: That description, I think a lot of people who have been in the workforce for a while might actually find that really appealing.

Brian Lehrer: I was just going to say that, especially for women, like please just talk to me about work.

Anne Helen Petersen: Right, like just that idea of, "Tell me what I need to do, I will do it. I do not want any of the BS of company culture or pretending that we're family or all of those different things," but I think for those of us who are older can think back to when we first entered into the workplace, there's a real craving for this promise of what work can offer, that it can offer companionship.

If you can imagine going into your first job out of the pandemic, especially if maybe the last months of your college career were really distant and weird and you haven't been with other people for a long time, there might be this sense that like, "Oh, starting a new job is going to give me the people, the community that I've really lost for so long." Then you start working, it's just like a list of tasks that you have to complete, that would probably feel really alienating.

I think that there's a way that we can give new employees some of that feeling of what the workplace is and what it can promise and some community without maybe inculcating them with the idea that this is what work should be because I think that can become really toxic too.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take your phone call. It's Rouge in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Am I saying your name right? Is it Rouge?

Rouge: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Hey, thanks for calling.

Rouge: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: You have a story for us about starting a new job in the pandemic.

Rouge: Yes, I just started a new job a few weeks ago. Prior to that, I was interning for two summers at the same company and I've never seen the office space. I've never met any of my co-workers, even though now at this point, I've been at the company for more than two years. Just working full time, I started a few weeks ago, haven't been to the office and it feels very isolating. As someone who's just entering the workforce, I don't know how to even be in an office. I'm nervous or when that does happen.

Brian Lehrer: Anne, you want to talk to Rouge and she brings up an interesting point there about the anxiety that comes with this. Wondering once she goes back in person if she's going to know how to function there.

Anne Helen Petersen: Yes, it feels like a muscle that hasn't been used in a while. I remember I used to be an academic, and when I got my first job as a journalist after being an academic, even the idea of getting on the subway every day at the same time, like was I going to be on time, was I going to figure it out, do I know how to dress myself for the office five days a week? I know a lot of people have become unfamiliar with that process as well.

The thing that I appreciate about Rouge's description is that part of it is just like not even knowing what her office is like. If you can even just imagine if she had two months, what if it was during this past summer when it felt like things were a little bit more safe, or what if it was right now, or what if it was before the pandemic, two months to familiarize yourself with the rhythms of what the office felt like?

The expectations, the way people do things, that's what company culture is. If you have that experience, then you can keep it with you as you go forward into more remote or hybrid situations. I think the suggestion that we make in the book and when we think about remote work, just broadly hybrid work is that you don't have to get rid of offices. They can still be used as these spaces that familiarize new workers as they onboard, and give them a touchpoint moving forward.

Brian Lehrer: Rouge Is there anything that you wish in particular, or maybe you don't know what to wish for because you haven't worked in this context before that your employer was doing for you in your situation? We lost Rouge didn't we? We lost Rouge. Let's go on to Tiffany in the Bronx. Tiffany, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Tiffany: Hi, thanks for taking my call. My thing is, I graduated law school in May, which obviously was awesome, and hard work. When you graduate law school, you're technically not a lawyer yet until you are sworn in to the bar so my title is law grad. I have to really depend on my supervisor for any documents that are going to court. Every now and then we try to have client meetings, and I just feel so scared to have them if my supervisors not going to be in the office. I only go in once a week.

If I ever have client meetings, I have to make sure that my supervisor is going to be in and everyone has been super, super supportive about just making sure that the newbies, the law grads are being brought into office culture and stuff but it's really hard. A lot of times I do feel like, that annoying new person at the office that's asking so many questions on Teams and interrupting, my supervisor or my co-workers. It's been tough to say the least.

Brian Lehrer: You said one day a week is in person, right?

Tiffany: One day, a week is in person and every other day is totally remote.

Brian Lehrer: How different do you think it would be if it was zero days a week in person?

Tiffany: Probably way harder, honestly, because I probably wouldn't even be able to have a client meeting. I'm not sure how I would get my supervisor to sign off on things probably, I don't know, go to his place or send things out by mail. It would just further delay. I already feel like things are delayed and I feel like it would just delay it even more. I do like having the option of working from home. I think it's great but it is tough.

Being in the office, we have to keep our masks on all day. Sometimes I'm like, I don't even know what my co-workers look like, except from this picture on their Outlook email. It's tough. It's obviously necessary but it's a tough way to literally begin my career. It sucks some days.

Brian Lehrer: Well, thanks for the story, Tiffany. By the way, congratulations on getting through law school.

Tiffany: Thank you. Take care.

Brian Lehrer: You too. Call us again. Here is Jay in Kiel, Germany. Jay, you're on WNYC. Hello from New York. Are you in Germany and is this happening there too?

Jay: Hi, Brian. Second-time caller, a big fan of your show. Thank you so much for taking my call. Yes, I am German and I'm based in Germany. I lost my job early in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic, was unemployed for a couple of months, and got a new job with a Dutch Company in October 2020. Since then, it's been 100% remote. There was a promise of a Christmas party last year and some meetings but due to COVID nothing whatsoever happened.

Every one of my co-workers has been great. The company has been very supportive but it's been a bit weird because absolutely everything is a face or a text on the screen.

Brian Lehrer: Since you had in-office experience prior to this job, do you think it's been easier for you to adapt than some of the people who are calling up and it's their first job ever?

Jay: I suppose if it's the first job ever, it's really hard. The company tries to translate some of the in-office experience like a coffee break or something to virtual meetings, like short 10-minute virtual meetings where you just chat. That's nice. I think it's a bit easier for me but when I was asked by my manager what a big wish of mine or a career goals, it's not actually a career goal but what a goal would be just meeting you and my co-workers, that's on my agenda.

Brian Lehrer: Start small. Jay, thank you very much. We really appreciate your call. Any thought on that set of calls, Anne Helen Petersen, and then we're going to go to another guy who seems to be having a hard time whether it is 23. Go ahead.

Anne Helen Petersen: Well, I'm so glad that we had someone from the legal profession just broadly because I think that's one of the areas of work that has been really resistant to train change historically. The billable hour really makes the type of work that lawyers do difficult to change. At the same time, once people have had this taste of remote work, I think it's going to be much harder to get everyone back into the office.

You have this staggered return, where law offices are like, "Well, some people should go back," and usually, it's more junior associates and paralegals and people who are doing work like the caller was doing. How do you balance that with the fact that they need that in-person interactions, especially for clients, and that sort of thing with the senior people as well? I think law firms oftentimes are this interesting size, where they are small enough that they can really be dynamic, but also big enough that they have to come up with larger policies. We're still in this weird in-between phase, and when they have to figure out, "What is this going to look like moving forward? Are we going to have people in office three days a week? Are we going to have mandatory time? What are we going to do to onboard new legal graduates?" It's just going to take hard work and that's something that's hard to realize is like, we can't just be like, "Everyone come back into the office when they feel like it."

Brian Lehrer: My guest is Anne Helen Peterson, co-author of the new book Out of Office, and maybe you saw her New York Times article, based on the book Remote Work Is Failing Young Employees. It's primarily about people who are just entering the workforce for the first time and their first full-time job is completely remote and the particular adjustments that people aren't making to that. Lucas in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lucas. Thanks for calling in.

Lucas: Hi, there. Thanks for having me. I guess I just wanted to share my comments being remote. The two things that I've found the most troublesome with it is I felt like being remote has really cut into the time that I spent outdoors. I don't have a commute. I guess there's just a reason to go outside that's lacking. Then the second part that also adds to that and it's having with a lot of my friends who have remote jobs is that our bosses are aware that you're around more.

There's been more I guess, off work hours or like, now I take a call at seven o'clock and that wouldn't really be a thing if I were in the office. That's probably been the biggest problem.

Brian Lehrer: That's so interesting about not going outside. Normally, if we're going to the office in person, or to whatever workplaces, no reason an office, we have to leave our homes. You get outside at least twice a day to commute to work and commute home from work. This way, if your work is at home and your home is at home, you have to be a self-starter about going outside. Have you found certain ways or do you find yourself looking for excuses to go out or did you start a new outdoor exercise regime or anything like that?

Lucas: I definitely have the window open way more than I [unintelligible 00:18:43]. I don't know. I try to go out for a walk during my lunch break and stuff, but it's more so just this weird expectation that I'm around so that I feel like if I were to go outside after work, there's this weird, "Oh, maybe they're going to call me." I think it's not as prevalent as mine as some of my friends with more maybe high profile or demanding jobs. It definitely seems to just hinder people.

Brian Lehrer: Is there anything your company could be doing better than it's doing in this respect? I don't know if you say I want to go outside for a while, but I have my phone if you need to get in touch with me I'm on the clock, or I don't know anything.

Lucas: Yes. I suppose kind of, maybe just like a different type of mandated break schedule that separate from how it's-- The break schedule that you'd have in-person office maybe doesn't translate as well to the remote one and there needs to be more smaller breaks or something like that.

Brian Lehrer: Yes or maybe instead of coffee breaks, fresh air breaks.

Lucas: Yes, exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Lucas, thank you. Please call us again. Anne, anything on that? There's a particular thing we hadn't heard from the previous callers. Just no reason unless you make one up to go outside.

Anne Helen Petersen: Well I think that this is one of the things too where individuals have to be really conscious about putting bumpers or onramps, on and off of work into their lives because the commute used to function as that. I think that that's one of the benefits of a commute. Is it gives you that headspace to ramp into work and ramp off of work. Although for me personally being smashed on the F chain being able to breathe and then just checking emails on my phone, that wasn't necessarily a great on-ramp or off-ramp, but how can you re-institute those breaks into your day?

How can you actually take the walks so you tell people that you take or that you say that you're going to take every day but then you get stuck at just eating lunch at your computer? It takes a lot of conscious effort and it also takes doing it several days, several weeks in a row to turn it into something that's a habit. The other thing that I want to point out too is that workplace is headed for burning out its employees, because if you don't have any time that they feel they can actually check out in any way, like they have made work so slippery that it seeps in to all parts of these workers days. They're going to burn out. This is a horrible retention strategy.

It's really bad for workers generally and I think that workplaces have to be mindful of that.

Brian Lehrer: How about the plate of new managers which I know you've talked about. We've been focusing mostly on the part of your article and taking callers relevant to that part who are the last caller 23 or thereabouts and doing their first job ever in the full-time workforce and are fully remote and trying to figure out work-life in that context. You've also talked about the plight of the newly remote manager during the past two years.

Managing a remote team versus an in-person team are very different skills and some managers are taking new jobs in managing people who they've never met.

Anne Helen Petersen: I did an interview like whoa, almost a year ago when all of this the future of work seemed like we have no idea. We can't see the end of the pandemic. I really liked this interview because the thing the person said it stuck with me is that managers in the future of work are going to have to learn how to actually manage. I mean that in terms of most managers don't actually have any skills in terms of how to manage.

I don't think most of the time it's not the manager's fault. It's that many organizations, contemporary organizations promote people to the role of management because they are good at whatever job they're doing and the skills that make someone a good manager are not usually the skills that make someone the top performer on their team. Management skills involve a lot of listening and skills that don't necessarily show up in on paper and an empathy. Those can be trained to some extent but they're really hard to train.

I think a lot of managers before the pandemic really relied on just seeing people in person as a way to manage. What happens when you don't see people in person every day? You have to develop skills that you didn't previously have and that takes more than just a two-hour management training. I think again that companies need to be really mindful of this new skill set that needs to be developed for managers to actually manage moving forward.

Brian Lehrer: Many calls coming in with specific stories, with specific other interpersonal or professional twists on this. Catherine in Queens. You're on WNYC. Hi Catherine. Thank you for calling in.

Catherine: Hi Brian. I have been working virtually for the last year and I listened to your show almost every day because it can be a little lonely and it's nice to hear people's voice in the background.

Brian: I will tell your boss

Catherine: Well, only when I can focus but yes, so the only-- I can completely relate to everything that's been said. I have found myself not going outside nearly as often. What I can contribute is that it's easy to get forgotten. I found I have a counterpart who works in the office, they're in the same position as me and they have done things like go to baseball games with my boss or been given tasks that I wasn't given because I work from home and they work in person.

I will say that's something that I've enjoyed is that I'm a person who identifies as non-binary and professional workplace outfits are often extremely gendered, and so it's been nice to not have to navigate that. Trying very challenging task of having to dress professionally but not wanting to conform to the gender I was assigned at birth.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, so good things and bad things you're saying.

Catherine: Oh, always, but yes, it can be very difficult to be creative and come up with new tasks because often that takes candid conversation about what's been done in the past. What's worked and what hasn't worked. When you're following a meeting agenda, you often don't want to go into those tangential conversations because then you feel like you're wasting people's time. It's the waiting your turn to talk and abiding by the agenda on. It sometimes doesn't lend itself to creativity.

Brian Lehrer: Catherine, thank you so much. Call us again, please. Kelly in Crown Heights here on WNYC. Hi, Kelly.

Kelly: Hi Brian. I'm a huge fan. Just like Catherine. I listened to you a lot at home to keep company.

Brian Lehrer: That's great.

Kelly: I started a new job in February of 2020 right at the end of the month. I worked in the office for 10 days before they shut it down and sent us all home and we've been remote ever since. I would say the biggest challenge at the time was questions that I-- Just minor small questions I would ask maybe my desk mate or somebody near me and I could just lean over and ask them. Now necessitated an email or something more formal to reach out. I became a little more shy about asking questions that I had throughout my days and it made training and getting used to this job a little more difficult and prolonged.

Brian Lehrer: Since you had just started before the remote era began and you've been fully remote since, you said something to our screen or about being perpetually seen as "the new girl."

Kelly: Yes. I still get on Zoom meetings and people don't recognize me and they think I'm new. I'm just perpetually, I feel like the perpetually the new girl until we're back in the office and people are seeing my face around and it's really resonating.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe you can have a second anniversary Zoom cocktail hour since your secondary anniversary being the new girl was coming up.

Kelly: Yes exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Kelly, thank you very much. One more, Coreene in Roselle Park. You're on WNYC. Hi, Coreene.

Coreene: Hi. My experience is a little bit different that I started a new job. It's in-person however, all of my coworkers are remote and it should mean one other person in the office. What's even more interesting is that my youngest coworker is about 30 years older than me so there's a huge age difference and I haven't met most of my coworkers. It's quite adorable watching people that are a little bit older than me and not as versed in technology navigate remote work.

I actually like the way we have to get checks find is absolutely like asinine. We have to print cheques, and mail them to Florida, have the person sign them, then he mails them out back to us and we have to ship them out because he just moved. He was like yes, I've had enough of this pandemic. He just moved to Florida which is ironic

Brian Lehrer: They never heard of them [unintelligible 00:28:30]

Coreene: They've never heard of online accounts either. I've set up a couple for them. They had a real role over there. It's very cute. That's been my experience. I haven't met most of my coworkers and yet I have a lot of opinions about them.

Brian Lehrer: There you go, Coreene. Thank you very much. All right. I thought about anybody from that set from Coreene there at the end the adorable as she is that word but frustrating experience of dealing with all her older coworkers who are working remote while she's in the office. I guess that generates in other ways to more people too where there are some situations where there are just a few people who were there and most people are remote.

Then it can be where it in either situation. Whether you're the remote person or whether you're the in person. Person with a mostly remote workforce you're interacting with, you've got to find your ways.

Anne Helen Petersen: Well, first of all, I love how many people listen to the show while they're working. I think that a lot of people moving forward we're going to have to see what happens with this new variant. There's going to be a lot of ways to work with people that aren't necessarily in the office to make working from home a lot less lonely so they can still rely on having your show in the background. Also, we can work in coffee shop but again we can work with our friends and check this homes. There are new scenarios for it, but also I really appreciated the caller who pointed out the equity issue in terms of their coworker, who was in the office getting more opportunities. That's something that companies are going to have to be really mindful of, especially given the fact that so many women, in particular, have dropped out of the workforce. If women are also the people who are going to opt for these more flexible hybrid schedules in order to take on more caretaking responsibilities, whether that means picking up kids from daycare or for school, we have to make sure that whoever is not going into the office as much is not getting left behind.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. At least as of March of this year, American workers were supplying about 45% of their labor services from home. According to the University of Chicago's Becker Friedman Institute, 10 times higher than pre-pandemic. Do you think there's a set of best practices that stories like you've been telling and that we've been hearing from our callers can contribute to, or that the professional world, in general, is coming up with for these situations where people are remote, whether it's their first jobs and then they're never meeting their coworkers or an of the other situations we've heard?

Anne Helen Petersen: Well, I think one thing we heard over and over again from these callers is not knowing who to ask questions or feeling like they were being obtrusive when they ask questions. That to me is a real case for making company culture and making the way things work at an organization more visible. Writing things down. That is helpful, not just for new employees.

It's also helpful for people who think differently. Who don't pick up on nonverbal cues or like all of the implicit parts of company culture, it's just more equitable. I think that's one thing is making things explicit about how a company works. Then I think another thing too to consider are in addition to back-to-the-office minimums. How many days we want you for sure, in the office, we can also think about back to the office maximums.

I think that helps to address some of the issues with, well, this person is in the office five days a week, 12 hours a day and are able to do so because the don't have outside responsibilities or are really subsumed by their job. How you can balance that with someone who really does want a more hybrid schedule moving forward to balance the rest of their life. Those are just two, there are so many.

Brian Lehrer: Anne Helen Peterson is co-author of the book Out of office, forthcoming, and author of the New York Times article that you may have seen based on the book. Remote Work Is Failing Young Employees and we use appreciate when you come on. We always learn when you come on. Thank you so much.

Anne Helen Petersen: It's my pleasure. Thank you so much.

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