Why Workplace Need To Adapt To Support Hybrid Work

Key considerations for HR leaders as workplaces evolve

Traditional work environments and patterns were uprooted by Covid-19, with the vast majority of employees having to adapt overnight to full-time remote work. As we prepare for offices to reopen, employee attitudes and expectations have changed, and workplaces will have to evolve. 
 

Only 29% of employees worked remotely in some capacity before the pandemic hit, according to Gartner. Most people’s working lives followed similar patterns with a daily office commute. For many, working from home was viewed as a perk, and many business leaders had concerns regarding productivity, which largely stemmed from a lack of visibility and trust. 

However, for the pandemic, these assumptions have been disproven. The overwhelming majority of employees could function and work effectively from home - less than 5% of employees’ roles required their presence in the office. After a brief period of disruption, businesses were able to continue as before to great success. Japan’s economy grew a record 22.9% in Q3 of 2020 as companies invested heavily in remote work technology. 

This remote work demonstration has led to a vast shift in employee attitudes; Wakefield Research reports that 87% of employees prefer this new way of working, leading Forbes to conclude that remote work is here to stay. Gartner further notes that many employees envision themselves dividing their time equally between home and office when it reopens, taking the responsibility themselves to decide where they can best complete their tasks. 

We can see the change in the APAC region, which is further along toward returning to offices. Singapore, New Zealand, and Japan have introduced rotation-based hybrid work environments, enabling employees to return to office with new safety measures, such as social distancing. 

However, the benefits of adopting hybrid working are not limited to the reintroduction of employees to the workplace. 

What Do Businesses Stand to Gain from Hybrid Work?

In a conversation, Emma Dutton, Leadership Development Expert of Leopard Learning, and Sue Warman, VP People of AICPA and CIMA, shared their insights regarding the potential organizational benefits that hybrid working would enable. 

Attracting and Unlocking New Talent in New Locales

Under the traditional 9-5 office-based working model, several accepted prerequisites went unchallenged when hiring. Roles were inherently tied to locations, meaning you either relocated, committed to a significant commute, or only looked for jobs within your immediate locality. 

Similarly, companies expected employees to be present in offices most, if not all, weekdays. These assumptions went unquestioned by job hunters, but now Sue and Emma predict a shift. The acceptance of remote work and increased focus on digitizing roles will allow those who cannot feasibly commit to either time or geographical requirements, such as parents with young children, to continue working. 

Introducing remote work will widen the talent pool available to organisations enormously, and the benefit of this speaks for itself.

Employee Satisfaction, Engagement, and Productivity 

Allowing employees to choose for themselves how, where, and when they work will bring numerous benefits. Certain tasks are better suited to specific environments. 

Sue and Emma both spoke of ‘Zoom fatigue’ caused by seemingly endless collaboration sessions, with individuals sitting at their desks on mute to avoid talking over one another. Extending the office to encompass homes provides employees the option of working in privacy, but Sue and Emma both envision the office remaining at the heart of collaboration and socialization. 

This increase in flexibility and support fosters a sense of agency within employees, allowing them to engage with their colleagues and work on their terms. 

HR leaders see an unprecedented increase in demand for flexible working, which requires a massive effort to understand, accommodate and adapt to changing employee needs and work styles en masse. Yet trying to accommodate employees can prove to be a Herculean task without the right processes, policies, data, and technologies to support it. 

How HR Leaders Can Set Up for Hybrid Working

With banks of allocated desks and designated hot-desking areas, the traditional office setup cannot facilitate hybrid working. Traditional office environments that previously enabled teams to optimise space now need to change direction and follow new safety guidelines introduced due to Covid-19, such as social distancing. These safety guidelines can vary quite a bit: Japanese businesses now have to allocate 16sqm of space per employee, while UK guidance has suggested a distance of 1m+ between workers.

Below are outlined some of the steps organisations can take to ensure their workplaces are fit for purpose and safe for employees to return. 

Understand Your Baseline and Usage 

Monitoring your workplaces’ utilisation enables companies to maintain safe occupancy levels and respond to any usage spikes immediately. HR teams can use workplace data to tailor shift patterns and rotations to fit in with forecasted space usage. 

Similarly, measuring usage throughout your offices, such as phone booths and collaboration areas, allows HR and facilities teams to ensure that the space provided to employees is fit for purpose. 

There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to office space, as the environment required depends on the task and hand and individual preferences of employees. Workplaces need to provide various areas, such as quiet zones and phone booths, to ensure that all employees can work effectively. To help manage space and employee work preferences, you can measure usage and identify underused areas that can be repurposed. 

Introduce Workspace Booking Systems

With employees deciding for themselves when to make the office journey, companies should introduce systems to save spaces and ensure that social distancing guidelines are followed. Booking systems allow employees to assess their task at hand and find the space they feel most comfortable completing it in. 

Furthermore, it allows groups of colleagues to collaborate on projects safely, as HR teams can use this booking data to inform on track and trace protocols should a viral spike occur. 

Gauge Employee Sentiment 

Workplace change programs need to be well considered, with clear guiding principles behind each change. The first step in ensuring that your workplace is fit for purpose is understanding the function and role your employees envision the office playing in their working life, meaning gaining employee feedback is vital.  

Sue and Emma stressed the importance of gauging employee sentiment at the beginning and throughout change processes to ensure that changes made are relevant and keep employees engaged and updated with the process. 

As Caroline Walsh, VP and Team Manager, at industry analyst firm Gartner, said, “It’s clear that the challenge of returning to the workplace isn’t just an operations challenge; it’s a human challenge.” 

How HR Can Respond

To recap, Covid-19 has changed how people can and want to work, presenting HR leaders with new challenges and opportunities. 
 

• Employees have demonstrated the ability to work effectively from home, and the desire to make this change permanent is strong. 
• The purpose of the workplace will change with a shift towards collaborative work. 
• The emergence of remote working will unlock new talent opportunities as geographical and time restrictions evolve. 

To adapt to these changes, HR leaders should prepare to respond to these three questions to support shifting work practices:
 

• Do you know what your employees envision as offices reopen?
• How are you going to ensure your employees can easily access the spaces they require for work? 
• Do you need to update your hiring policies?

Whether your organisation is dozens or thousands of employees, HR leaders need access to data to make evidence-based decisions to support their companies. 

Yodit Stanton is the Founder and CEO of OpenSensors. She leads the company strategy and team with technology that works seamlessly, behind the scenes, to reveal workplace and workforce patterns and conditions that generate the insight required for confident evidence-based decision-making.   Visit www.opensensors.com Connect Yodit Stanton