The Flexibility-Growth Tradeoff for Knowledge Workers

In recent years, the discussion around hybrid work has focused on the benefits of increased employee flexibility and productivity. However, there is rising demand for knowledge workers to spend more time in the office. After enjoying the perks of WFH, you might resist spending more time in the office. Before you decide which work scenario is best for you, consider this:

Knowledge workers who work remotely will have a slower growth trajectory, leading to fewer promotions and raises.

All of this centers on the nature of knowledge work.

You are a knowledge worker
Do you consider yourself a knowledge worker? As we grapple with the future of work, it's helpful to think about our jobs as part of this broader class of work called knowledge work instead of the specific hands-on-keyboard tasks we do as part of our job description. This reframing of work as knowledge work leads to some interesting insights that I'd like to share with you.

Knowledge work is not a phrase that is top of mind for me or part of my identity, even though I identify professionally as a "consultant." Let's take a step back and define knowledge work. Knowledge work is both art and science. It's learning, synthesizing, and applying knowledge to identify, diagnose and solve increasingly complex problems. You are a knowledge worker if you're a software developer, engineer, accountant, financial analyst, or manager.

As knowledge workers, we get paid to be curious, learn, generate and share ideas, and communicate those ideas effectively to others. All of those reasons are why I love being a knowledge worker. And all those reasons are why knowledge workers are more effective and learn faster in person.

Feeling pressure to spend more time in the office?
You've likely experienced the benefits of working remotely; personally, I have loved the flexibility and work-life balance that a hybrid work option gives me. However, in my conversations with people in my network, and based on my own experiences, pressure is building for knowledge workers to come to the office more. To employees, this pressure can seem misplaced, causing frustrations to rise. While companies may insist that there is good reason for this pressure – the company's financial performance, the state of the labor market, inflation, and a potential recession on the horizon, to name just a few – the threat to our flexibility and balance is real.

What's getting lost in the current discourse around hybrid work is the impact on knowledge workers' pace of growth: there is a tradeoff between the flexibility and convenience of WFH and an individual's learning, growth, and professional development.

Because of this flexibility-growth tradeoff, knowledge workers who spend more time WFH will get fewer promotions, bonuses, and raises. Companies need to be more explicit and transparent about this tradeoff to help employees make informed decisions about their work and life as we adapt hybrid work models.

Here's my thought process:

• Productivity isn't what gets you promoted
• Formal training is important but isn't what gets you promoted
• Deliberate practice, done in person, is what gets you promoted
• What is deliberate practice
• What's so good about the office anyway?
• What's wrong with WFH?
• Key takeaways

Productivity isn't what gets you promoted.

Maybe you're thinking, "But wait, I'm more productive at home! How the heck does that mean that I'm jeopardizing my promotion?" It's a common reaction when people discuss returning to the office. And while some studies show productivity improved as WFH increased during and after the pandemic, others show that productivity didn't go up. I've read some of these studies, and while interesting, it's distracting us from the conversation of learning, growth, and development. Productivity might be easy to measure, but it's a very poor proxy for promotion readiness. Simply put, productivity isn't what gets you promoted.

Consider a 2015 (pre-pandemic) study conducted in China: Researchers from Stanford found that people working from home were 13% more productive but had half the promotion rate compared to their in-office colleagues.

Remote workers were more productive but got promoted less.

A promotion acknowledges that you are ready for the next level of your career, not simply an award for doing your job well. When I think back to the times I've been promoted, it wasn't because I was merely performing the job. I was taking on additional responsibility, adding value, learning to lead, and earning the trust to take on more ambiguous and complex work. To get promoted as a knowledge worker, you'll need to focus less on productivity and more on improving your craft.

Formal training is important but isn't what gets you promoted

So what exactly is the craft of knowledge work? As we defined earlier, knowledge work is the art and science of learning, synthesizing, and applying knowledge to solve problems. And to be effective throughout their careers, knowledge workers must be curious, motivated lifelong learners. Reading that you might think that formal training is the key to your next promotion, and you wouldn't be alone in that thought.

Given the absurd explosion of information that is happening worldwide, there has been an explosion of formal learning opportunities like university certificate programs, online course platforms like Udemy and Coursera, and certification programs of all sorts, creating a situation where it seems like half of the LinkedIn posts I see are people posting their completion of a certificate or training program. I'm not saying formal training is a bad thing. On the contrary, formal training provides a valuable foundation of theory and existing knowledge (the science of knowledge work), and I partake in these sorts of training regularly.

However, relying on formal training alone puts us at risk of falling behind our peers because it can't help us improve the synthesis and application of knowledge (the art of knowledge work).

Deliberate practice, done in person, is what gets you promoted

I'm not an artist, but I know that creating art is difficult. Artists I know say they put in a ton of work learning about their medium, tools, and proper technique. Once they do this, they hone their craft and artistic style over a lifetime by applying their knowledge and skill by making, sharing, and getting feedback on their art. It's easy to create a formal training program on the basics of oil painting on canvas. Creating a formal training program to teach someone to be Pablo Picasso is impossible.

The art of knowledge work is no different. It requires time, intention, repetition, feedback, and the right situation and context. The synthesis and application of knowledge can only be refined and improved by repeated practice in the context of the work. That's why the art of knowledge work is a deliberate practice and not a formal training program. Deliberate practice on the art of your craft is the answer to what will get you promoted. So let's spend some more time breaking down exactly what deliberate practice is and why it works so well.

What is deliberate practice?

According to James Clear, deliberate practice refers to a type of practice that is purposeful and systematic. While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted to improve performance. Sports examples are often used when describing deliberate practice, which is unfortunate because I'm not a huge sports fan. But they help highlight the most important part of deliberate practice, immediate feedback, so here comes a sports example. Sorry fellow sports nonfans!

A deliberate practice in golf might be a swing coach working with a golfer in a 20-minute training session to help them hit the ball farther and with greater accuracy. The swing coach will watch the golfer intently, make suggestions, and provide verbal cues to get the golfer to make subtle and minute movements in their body and swing form. The coach may also record the golf swing to allow the golfer to view and analyze it in real-time. This is effective and immediate feedback.

But this is where sports examples begin to break down. A deliberate practice for knowledge work doesn't involve (usually) physical performance; it involves mental performance. But the principles apply even to knowledge work:

Principles of Deliberate Practice

• Practice objectives are clearly defined and agreed upon
• The practice is performed and observed by an expert
• Knowledge worker receives immediate informative feedback on the practice

Deliberate practice requires immediate in-person feedback
What this looks like if you're a knowledge worker is that someone with more expertise needs to observe you while you perform your work to give you immediate feedback on your performance. That means someone is looking at your work product, seeing you struggle, and pointing out what you need to do to improve in your job. Sounds a bit scary, right? Here's the brutal truth:

Engaging in deliberate practice requires vulnerability on the part of both parties

It's not easy being scrutinized, having your thought process picked apart, and the work product evaluated before it's complete. It's not all sunshine and rainbows for the people giving the feedback, either. It's difficult to assess someone, find the correct coaching technique, and say the right words at the right time to help someone improve their craft.

You might be thinking you can do deliberate practice over Zoom. Sure, you can try, but in reality, the critical feedback needed for deliberate practice is usually skipped because people are in back-to-back Zoom meetings, or it's ineffective because it's challenging to observe the practice thoroughly. It's like trying to appreciate the scale, gravity, presence, nuance, and beauty of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Ceiling paintings by watching a video. Just like viewing art, deliberate practice is better in person.

What's so good about the office anyway?

Communication goes up when people meet face-to-face
Deliberate practice isn't a silent activity. Deliberate practice requires copious amounts of verbal and non-verbal communication between two people. And communication is best facilitated by being in close physical proximity. The Allen Curve, discovered in the 1970s, shows that communication between people in an office increased exponentially the closer their desks were together. We are four times as likely to communicate regularly with someone sitting six feet away from us as with someone 60 feet away. Maybe that's obvious to you, or perhaps you think the study is outdated. However, follow-on studies show that The Allen Curve holds even with modern communication technologies.

People who communicated face-to-face were more likely to stay in touch digitally when they were apart.

I've experienced this quite a bit recently. It could be the simple fact that seeing someone in person in 3D high-definition makes it more likely that they pop into my mind when I'm out of the office, triggering me to reach out to them via Slack, email, or text for whatever reason. Who knows the underlying mechanism, but I encourage you to try this out for yourself.

Trust building accelerates in person
All relationships require emotional labor on the part of BOTH parties. In his book Linchpin, Seth Godin describes emotional labor as "the task of doing important work, even when it isn't easy." Emotional labor is engaging with others even when you don't feel like it to achieve the best long-term outcomes. Emotional labor is acknowledging that growth is risky and there is a possibility of failure.

In the context of deliberate practice, emotional labor is this delicate dance of two colleagues opening up to each other, reciprocating, and repeating until a level of safety and trust has been established so that honest and critical feedback can be freely shared and received. So much of this dance is picking up on non-verbal cues, tone of voice, and body language, which is incredibly difficult to do when your face is compressed to a 2D grainy image on a small computer screen, and your voice is broadcast through mediocre laptop speakers.

Serendipity happens in the office
Have you ever talked to someone in back-to-back zoom meetings, exasperatingly telling you they haven't even had time to take a bathroom break? The "convenience" of non-stop Zoom calls means we've lost the small breaks between meetings created by physically having to walk to and from conference rooms, the coffee machine, the bathroom, and our cubes. It's in these small breaks that serendipity happens. Chatting with someone in the office during these breaks might get you a recommendation for your next Netflix series to watch. Someone seeing you in the office might get you your next project opportunity. These moments of serendipity with colleagues build trust and strengthens relationships, which goes a long way toward getting that next promotion.

Commuting can be used strategically for growth
I remember during the pandemic when I stopped listening to podcasts for about a year, and it felt absolutely terrible. Podcasts were (and are now again, thank goodness) a great source of information, entertainment, new ideas, and conversation starters. Podcasts allowed me to transition to and from work and gave my mind opportunities to wander, reflect on the day, come up with plans, and work on challenging problems in the background of my mind.

Side note: I use Google Keep and Android Auto to record audio notes while driving. I average 2-3 recorded notes per driving session).

What's wrong with WFH?

Convenience has its drawbacks
Just because something is convenient doesn't mean it's always good for us. And as much as I may want to resist this fact regarding WFH, I know this to be true in other areas of my life. Eating fast food three times a day delivered to your door is convenient, but doing this every day for a month is bad for your health (I haven't done this, but have you seen See Super Size Me?!). Sure, there is a time and place for eating takeout, but I know that what I gain in time saved, I lose in optimizing for health and financial goals if taken to the extreme.

It's convenient to "commute" 30 seconds from your bed to your office, eat what and when you want throughout the day, and not have to shower and get dressed up before your first meeting. However, doing this every day, day after day, maybe isn't a good thing.

The flexibility you gain WFH, you may lose in optimizing for growth, career trajectory, and mental well-being.

Key takeaways

Let's recap what we've covered so far. We talked about how WFH, while convenient, may not always be good for us and may impact knowledge workers' ability to get promoted. We also discussed how productivity, while easy to measure, is the wrong thing to focus on. I then shared that formal training is necessary but insufficient for knowledge workers to grow and develop. Then we dove into the key to getting promoted: the art and science of deliberate practice, and we discussed how immediate real-time feedback is critical to improving performance. And finally, we discussed how being in person dramatically increases communication and accelerates building trust, two key requirements of effective deliberate practice.

Whether you're an employee or a manager, here are some practical takeaways:

Get clear on the value of being in the office
If you're a manager, make sure you can clearly articulate the reasons why you're asking your team to come into the office. Engage in frank conversations with your team to ensure the flexibility-growth tradeoff is known so people can make informed decisions.

As a knowledge worker, make sure you understand your company's beliefs about the value of being in the office. Know that you can choose where you fall on the flexibility-growth tradeoff. Stand firm about what you value and what is most important for you, and make your choice.

Don't get distracted by productivity
If you're a manager, remember that productivity is a poor proxy for business value. Increase business value by investing in your knowledge workers by providing training, development opportunities, and coaches/mentors.

As a knowledge worker, know that getting the job done doesn't get you promoted. Earning a promotion requires taking on additional responsibility, building trust, and working through others to create additional value. Work with your manager to ensure that you're getting the right development opportunities.

Invest in in-person deliberate practice
If you're a manager, remember that teams that meet in person communicate more frequently when apart. Use this fact to design team activities and schedules to maximize collaboration.

If you're a knowledge worker, understand that you grow primarily through in-person deliberate practice, which means you seek out time with experienced people in the office and embrace the vulnerability that comes with asking for and receiving feedback to help you improve your craft.