Why We Need To Talk About Hybrid Working

A carefully curated conversation is necessary

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a radical shift in the way many companies view performance management. Most notably, there was a sudden realization that employees can actually be trusted to work hard, efficiently and effectively, away from the scrutiny of the corporate gaze. 

Work continued to get done, and well, without excessive management time. Nor was it necessary to do so from a dedicated desk, conference room or open-plan workspace. What was once considered a rare and exceptional circumstance has rapidly become the norm. 
 

And as any organization wanting to showcase its successes would do, many have been proudly announcing the birth of hybrid working to all that are willing to listen, with a solemn pledge to continue carving out a flexible future workplace that benefits all. 

The trouble is that a concerning number of organizations seem to be peddling the same narrative: how many days a week will people have to work from the office? This perspective is alarmingly one-dimensional, particularly when we consider that the pandemic is one of the biggest shake-ups in working life that we’ve seen since the British Empire, in the early 18th century, brought life to the traditional working week as we know it. 

We only have to look at the plethora of stories relating to ‘4-day working week’ and ‘work from home Fridays’ to see that many are not only missing the point, but they are also missing out on a golden opportunity to initiate deep, company-wide change.

Closing the Gap

There is no denying that hybrid working has much to offer both organizations and those that work for them, but the scales are currently tilting in the opposite direction, at least for the vast majority of workers. The long-standing differences in how women and men spend their time were starkly revealed in lockdown. Women consistently spent more time on unpaid childcare, education, and household work throughout the pandemic and reported higher levels of anxiety and depression.

Right now, we are at a stark juncture. The choices we face either drag women back into the tired, old traditional roles or propel the whole workforce forward to a better and more balanced existence. If done correctly, the whole system benefits. If executed poorly, nothing changes. 

Back to the Drawing Board

Hybrid working is not a slight variation on how we’ve been working in the past. It is a completely new way of working. We need to learn how to do it.

Instead of focusing on the externals--technology upgrades, new HR policies, and a rejigged real estate footprint--leaders need to focus on the internals. They need to start designing the new way of work by listening, taking stock of how priorities have changed, not only for their people but for their customers.

The new forms of work must emerge from a genuine understanding of diversity in the time styles and needs of a diverse workforce. Corporate values need a hard, honest refresh to make them genuine, relevant, and attractive to the place we are in now.

Work needs to be compelling again; let’s not lazily rely on the economic imperative, but make the job something all employees want to come back to, to gain satisfaction, to progress, to feel a sense of achievement, that the time they invest in their work and their development is worth more than a paycheck.

Now is an opportunity to correct the time structures that were devised in the industrial era, which were already woefully out-of-date--especially with regards to women.

Unless we do this, we will be in a painful place where some employees are individually and privately struggling to make family life work and we will have lost an opportunity to make profound and lasting change.

Reframing the Conversation 

Organizations need to take the discussion around hybrid working seriously. It needs careful planning, with enough time, money and leadership attention behind it to experiment, refine, iterate, and learn. 

It’s also unfair to expect individuals to work it out for themselves. If executed correctly, hybrid working will involve multi-layered conversations, corporate-wide, at team level, and between managers and employees. 

If this doesn’t happen, the outdated habits of the senior few will prevail, leaving those in less prominent positions to fall by the wayside. Their productivity, motivation, engagement, and performance will waver, as they continue to sacrifice their own time to accommodate the time habits of those higher up the chain. 

A carefully curated conversation is necessary and this does not mean a one-off employee engagement survey, or random polling about preferred days off. What is required is an ongoing, company-wide process of engagement, initiated and driven forward by leaders who are determined to make it as inclusive and ubiquitous as possible. 

This dialogue remains at the very core of any ‘hybrid working’ initiatives. These initiatives will naturally extend to reconfiguring office space, initiating technology upgrades and reinventing meeting practices. But these are just scratching the surface. The real change happens when open, honest and radically transparent conversations take place. Without this, an organization will simply be paying lip service to the cause and the juice won’t have been worth the squeeze. 

Carmel Moore and Martin Boroson are Directors of The One Moment Company. They specialize in coaching senior leaders and helping organizations to design new time cultures.   Connect Carmel Moore Connect Martin Boroson