This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 180.
Are you fully remote now? Connection starter for a new era.
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Hey, Michelle, how you doing? I'm good, Lindsay.
How are you? I'm feeling great. I'm feeling great.
What's new on the block? Oh, not too much.
But I have a question. Do most people you know who work in an office or as, you know, part of a place that has an office, do they go into work or do they still work remotely?
Well, what I've seen is people are back like, like, hmm.
They're back three days a week. They're at home three days a week and they're in the office two days a week.
That's what I'm seeing. So they're not fully back.
These are my friends in the US who work in maybe technology where they can totally work at home, but maybe two days a week they want to be in to test a product or to do some brainstorming together on a whiteboard. yeah yeah yeah yeah so um i yeah actually i was just talking to my neighbor the other day and she said she got she has to go in three days a week and so yeah you're probably you know spot on with that um so today we're gonna talk about what's going on around the world and how you can connect with someone by asking if they are back in the office lindsay why is this a good connection skill I love this as a connection skill.
I mean, All Ears English and Business English, that is our motto.
That is why we do this podcast, to help you connect.
So we always want to find those topics that are going to be universally connectors, right?
These are the things that everyone will have something to say about.
The pandemic did give us something that we all went through.
And so everyone is going to have an answer for this one way or the other. okay and it could lead into other things that's what we like about connection topics too michelle right right right exactly this is this is huge it can lead to a whole other discussion topics just these kinds of questions um so we're gonna we're gonna share these with you today um so but before we get into it guys make sure you hit follow wherever you listen to the business english podcast because we don't want you to miss any of our episodes Don't miss out, guys.
Hit that follow button now. And there was a previous episode we want to send you back to because we loved that episode.
What was that? I think this was one you did with Aubrey, probably.
But I just like the title. So it was Business English 167.
Let's make you an offer you can't refuse.
Go and listen to that one, guys. So today's episode is based on an article, right?
Michelle, tell us about this article. Okay, so this article is from the New York Times, and it's called Where in the World Are People Back in the Office?
A city's density, the size of people's homes, and cultural norms are among the factors that affect hybrid work patterns.
This is by... emma goldberg john yoon jenny gross hakari ahita and melissa eddie uh they're all around the world and this was um updated uh the originally published the fourth and updated september 11th of 2023 so this is quite recent um so yeah they have this really great infographic where they talk about um you know how people are or are not back in and so they go over u.s britain south korea japan germany taiwan australia south africa and argentina right and we know that we have listeners in all of these countries so again this really brings us together as a listening community We all have some experience with this.
I love it. So interesting. So what did they find?
What are some high level findings from the research, Michelle?
Right. Well, so they said that many of the Asian countries, well, I'll just read what it says.
It says, I quote, have lower levels of remote work than countries in Europe and North America.
Those were the those with the highest levels of remote work. are Britain, Canada and the US.
I believe that. I think that makes sense.
So saying that many Asian countries, I think, never really stopped working from the office, I believe.
Maybe there was a brief shot. Our listeners will have to let us know about this because I'm not 100 percent sure.
But what I've heard is maybe there was a brief shutdown and then they just continued right along at the office.
Right. So there wasn't this whole stop and just changed lifestyle entirely.
Right. Which in a way, when you think about, you know, there are smaller living spaces.
Right. When I lived in Japan, my living space was was small.
It would have been hard to work from home, I think.
Yes. I would say that is one of the things I talk about.
And yeah, here it does say South Korea. It says it says in the infographic, many workers never left their offices in the first place.
Yes. Yeah. So they do talk about housing.
You're right, Lindsay. So yeah, places with perhaps the larger homes, more space and people are, you know, they talked about people setting up their office and they, they purchased all these things for a home office to make it really nice.
They made those investments. But if you live in a smaller space, yeah, In an apartment, it's not as cushy.
We even saw a lot of people... And I was actually surprised to see this when it happened.
People just completely leaving the cities and assuming that this is going to be forever, which is interesting because... we always kind of knew it was temporary.
COVID wasn't going to last forever, but people like left the city, sold their houses.
Let's say you lived in New York, you bought a house in Connecticut or Vermont and just now live in a huge house.
It just seemed weird to me that people changed their lives that much around people.
There was, there was kind of an exodus from the cities at the time.
And I think then some people started to come back.
I don't know what did I do? um but some people liked it so um and then another thing they mentioned was the commute right so some people it's just it depends on what your commute time is so um people they realize they want to save time oh my gosh yes and if you have an hour commute each way you could instead Use that time working and then end a little bit earlier or start a little bit later.
And somebody, I think, in the article mentioned, oh, that they they're happy now that they get to have like a meal like dinner with their their family.
I mean, people have those values that are important.
Yeah. Oh my gosh, it's true. There's so much research on how bad sitting is for us now that's coming out.
It's like as bad as smoking is. And so sitting in your car for two hours a day, oh gosh.
Of course, unless you have all ears English, I mean, then everything's okay, you know, or business English.
Yeah. That's true. Well, yeah. Dan has a huge commute.
I mean, he's sometimes I mean, on a good day, it's an hour drive.
And but recently he's been getting into a lot of traffic.
Really? He's had some days where it's been like an hour and 45 minutes because of traffic. and that's horrible i mean yeah so you know he's always on the phone and you know listening i mean not on the phone with his hand but you know um and you know having um you know meetings on the phone if he needs to just like on speakerphone or he listens to podcasts tons of things but i mean it's really i don't know how he does it yeah it's hard it's hard so people are have take if they've had a chance to escape this they've certainly taken it rightfully so right um and so what else michelle what else do we need to know here from the article or just our thoughts well this is just i i thought that this was an uh interesting point um was they talk about how long was the covid lockdown okay where you live um and that they said has an impact as well and what they say is if your lockdown was longer yeah it takes you longer to go back in yeah lindsay what do you think that makes sense right people develop habits we're creatures of habit and if we've gone through like an entire year or two years working from home we've seen us We've seen ourselves go through all the seasons, seen the benefits of maybe being able to be home when kids come home or those things.
So it just makes sense in terms of the way we kind of habituate to work styles.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, and also, um, it did mention that, uh, that fact of, you know, the longer you were at home, the more likely you were to buy that equipment for home.
You were more likely to invest in the nice home office.
Yeah. Yeah. Like just like to, to have that, to have that lifestyle, you bought a nice home desk.
I mean, I know people who really invested.
And so then they feel like, yeah, okay, well I want to use it.
I yeah well the irony of all this is the fact that well two things peloton stock went through the roof and then i think it went down after that and a little tidbit a word on the street is that zoom the company zoom is back in the office so what oh my gosh that's funny Yeah, it's really funny.
It's pretty funny. It's just what I've heard.
You got to look it up. But that's another topic for another day.
There's actually a brand new article that I read last night on success with work from home.
Does it actually work? Or does product drop?
And I think we can come back to that another day.
That would be a great topic. Yeah, depending on how our listeners respond to this episode.
Guys, let us know if you like this topic.
We will go into this a bit more. Yeah, Michelle?
Definitely. So in just a minute, we're going to talk about how to ask someone about what's going on with their remote work.
Are they in? Are they out? What's going on?
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Exclusions apply. See details online. All right, Michelle.
Now we're getting into the good stuff, the connection skill that is coming back to us for this skill.
How do we ask someone? Because now maybe, okay, let's say our listeners live in Japan.
They might collaborate with the London office, the New York office, and the...
I don't know, the Toronto office, right?
In your early conversations in every meeting, you may be having conversation.
You're gonna see they're back at home. You're gonna ask these questions, right?
Definitely. So the first thing you could say is, so are you fully back in the office or do you still work from home?
All right, very good question, right? Because maybe they're at their home office.
But you don't know if five days a week they're at home or back in the office or how it's working, what their mix is.
That's a great one, guys. Write that down.
Okay. What's the next one? Is your office hybrid or do you have to go back in?
Is your office hybrid? Now that's a bonus word for today.
What does that mean? Hybrid means both. It's like sometimes you work at home, sometimes you go in.
And I think most places are kind of hybrid now, right?
Yeah, and this is a great word. We could do a whole episode on hybrid.
It's used in so many ways in the English language.
Lately, it's being used the most well for this for work from home setups, and also cars like electric and gas hybrids.
I've also seen it used for tennis rackets, like what kind of string you put in your racket.
So it's used all over the place. So good episode topic potentially.
Yeah. Yes. Okay. And what's the next one? how flexible is your work when it comes to teleworking now this term i don't hear as much did you see this a lot in the in the article or just so i've heard it a lot from people actually um and that's why i included it because whenever i hear it it always sounds a little funny to me but then i hear it more and more So, yes, from my from some of my friends, some from from some of my family.
So I do hear teleworking, which is surprise.
You don't hear it. No, I really don't. What I hear my key term here is remote work.
Right. Is the one. And then when I when I look at like teleworking.
Job openings, because we want to add to our team, bring on someone for operations this fall.
So I study other job listings. And often they say fully remote with benefits or fully remote is what I see or partially remote. um yeah yeah i don't see telework i don't think it would be used in a job ad i think it would be used more as like oh my job lets us telework or i'm teleworking today east coast versus no it really might be it it really might be because i but i whenever when i first started to hear that i thought that's just like kind of funny sounding i don't hear that a lot but then The more I, I don't hear it all the time.
I will say that I don't think it's used as frequently, but I made a specific decision to include it because I have heard it.
So guys wanted to let you know that sometimes people call it telework.
Interesting. And the other key acronym I want to make sure our listeners have is WFH.
Yes, WFH. I've seen people say, oh, I'm WFH tomorrow.
So I'll get back to you around midday or something like that.
But they would only write that. They wouldn't say WFH.
Right. It'd be a little annoying if they did.
Right. Exactly. You got it, Michelle. And then one more is you could say, are you still working over Zoom or is everyone back in the office?
Nice. And you can go ahead and fill in that with Teams or Zoom or whatever it is.
Right. Whatever you're using. Are you still working online?
You could just say. Yes. Yeah, very good.
This is such a modern, relevant episode.
I like it. So here, Michelle, in our role play for today, we are friends and we're having a chat.
Let's do it. Yes, we're going to use as many of these as we can.
All right, here we go. All right. So Michelle, are you fully back in the office or do you still work from home?
I'm really hybrid now. I'd prefer to stay home, though.
Get rid of that commute. Oh, yeah, for sure.
What about you? Are you still working over Zoom or is everyone back at the office?
It's a bit of a mix as well. Oh, yeah. So how flexible is your work when it comes to teleworking?
Fairly flexible, but I think my boss prefers us to come in.
Yeah, mine too. Nice. So we really, we're lucky here at All Ears English.
We've always been fully remote. Yeah. We got a good gig going on here.
All right. So what did we, what did we say here?
So you said, I said, Michelle, are you fully back in the office or do you still work from home?
So we use the term back in the office and work from home.
That's right. And then I said, what about you?
Are you still working over Zoom or is everyone back in the office?
And then you said, oh yeah, how flexible is your work when it comes to teleworking?
And then again, as our listeners heard, that might be something that's used in your circle or just on the East Coast.
I'm not exactly sure, but I don't hear that quite as much.
I might read that like in an article, like in the New York Times, but I don't hear it much.
So I don't know. Okay. Well, guys, listen out for it.
Maybe you'll hear it. Maybe you won't. But if you do hear it, you'll know what to do.
What's the takeaway when it comes to connection today?
This is good stuff. Guys, this is a great way to connect with any person who is working.
It could be like Lindsay mentioned, situations where you have colleagues all over the world and you want to find out their situation.
It could work just with a friend. I mean, I was talking, I asked my neighbor this question the other day.
So it's connecting with a lot of people.
Because as Lindsay said, this is something that is really universal that all of us went through.
And so it's a good topic. It's good to know what other people are doing.
It can also lead to a lot of other conversations.
It's kind of the most obvious conversation starter.
I think we don't want to overthink conversation starters.
I think that's where a lot of you guys might get tripped up and paralyzed is overthinking.
I have to have this amazing way to start a conversation.
No, all you have to do is jump on a Zoom or a Teams meeting and you see someone maybe is in their home office.
Obvious question. Oh, are you back in the office?
Are you a few days a week now? Are you fully remote?
What's going on? Easy conversation starter.
I think that's a really good point and something that might we might do an episode on another day is this, you know, it sounds funny, but like boring ways to start a great conversation.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like it seems it seems that it's just kind of not that interesting, but actually it can lead to so much.
And instead of being like, well, you know, and having to have something amazing to start with, just it's not always how it goes.
You don't need to. Exactly. Because it's really not about the question, right?
It's not even about the topic. It's about how they respond and making that the eye contact, the connection, the conversation that comes from that.
Maybe it leads to them saying something about their kids, which is interesting because you have a kid too, and they both play soccer, right?
And then there's that connection. Okay? Yes.
Yes. So we want to get to connection. Love it.
All right. Well, this was fun, Lindsay. And well, I guess we are both working online today.
So I'll see Shocking. I will see you later on the next episode.
Thanks guys for listening. Sounds good, Michelle.
Talk to you soon. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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