What Does Storytelling Have to Do with the Remote Work Debate?

As a child, I constantly daydreamed in class, conjuring epic adventures in my head that allowed me to escape. When my elementary school teacher figured out why I was struggling, she enrolled me in a regional young authors conference, and set aside time every single day for me to sit alone, separate from the class, and write. I was a semi-finalist in the conference, I learned more than I ever would have otherwise, and my work on other subjects improved.

What does that have to do with the never-ending debate about remote work vs. returning to the office?

Every single employee has a story of their own: Tammy, the accountant and mother drained by a brutal commute. Jeremy, the new grad who relies on office social life. Emily, the recent hire who — and this is a true story — doesn’t have a home, and dreads “work-from-home Wednesdays” because where is she going to go?

Employers who compassionately invest in the personal stories of their multidimensional employees will unlock potential that will drive the growth of their brand and culture. Employers who legislate and standardize do nothing more than compress the peaks and valleys of their workers’ stories to fit in a box. Policies should flex around supporting diverse real-life narratives, not cramming them into uniform boxes.

Today, 66 percent of workers in the U.S. work spend at least part of their time working remotely, according to a report by Zippia. That number shoots up to 92 percent when talking about employees spending at least one day per week working from home, with the average U.S. worker working 5.8 remote workdays per month. But experts forecast a 417 percent increase in remote workers by 2025. This shift will require deeply rethinking how we equitably enable both office and home to become springboards for purpose and potential.

An organization's story thrives when individual stories do. And we all have them. People thrive for different reasons.

By the way, I ran into that teacher at a coffee shop while visiting my hometown a couple years ago. We embraced, and I thanked her for always believing in me.

“What are you doing now?” She asked.

“I tell stories for a living,” I said.