GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Culture
WORK CULTURE
The leadership at Wellington marketing firm Excite have been trying for months to entice their workers back into their comfortable office environment. Since New Zealand’s laptop class now expects to be able to “work from home”, it has become nearly impossible to build any kind of company culture other than through painful Microsoft Teams meetings.
This week though, with temperatures dropping noticeably, there have been a few old faces popping up at the Excite offices, most of whom had not been seen in real life for months.
Chelsea McKnight, a serial work-from-homer, says that her cold Wellington flat has been the main reason for her return to the office. “It’s been a real sacrifice for me, having to get up early to get ready to leave the house. But the cold and the cost of heating the house has pushed me to work from the office.
“Working from home has been mostly good for me though, such a benefit for my mental health,” said the woman who’s key performance indicators have been very average this year.
Chelsea’s partner Caleb, plumber, meanwhile believes it would be good for the company to have Chelsea back in the office. “Honestly I think she does minimal work during the day. Would hate to see her company’s sales figures since Covid.
“You’d have to ask, how much of the decline is from the recession and how much is just from their staff being useless?”
Chelsea, who had not heard her partner’s comments, was upbeat about her change in routine. “It is really nice to see all the girls face to face again though. And it feels good to be saving money on the electricity bill!”
Excite’s management team has a meeting today to talk about how they can best capitalise on the cold weather to get their staff to do some decent work for once.
More to come.
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