Is the emergence of ‘hybrid’ work from the pandemic an opportunity missed for organisations and employees?
Covid showed us we can adapt, change and learn new things quickly:
New tools integrated into daily routines – VC meetings, Teams etc, cloud apps;
New workplace – home, but even more than before our laptop became our mobile, personalised office;
New level of self-determination, which felt powerful and equitable – to a degree we were more accountable for what we actually did, than what we looked like we were doing. Most people understood with trust came responsibility – to ourselves, our teams and ultimately our employer; and
New level of self-reliance, which felt good – “I can have all this thrown at me on top of my already overloaded stressy life, and I can survive, maybe I can even thrive some days”.
But not all that was new was good…Longer, more monotonous days at work, digital presenteeism and more meetings than ever (zoom-fatigue), isolation, the struggle for motivation and discipline, challenges with team communication and dynamics, and new stresses associated with maintaining boundaries between work and home.
So what did we learn, how did this shape our current perspective and priorities?
We learned not all work has to be done in an office.
We learned that our lives don’t necessarily have to revolve around our jobs.
We learned that we don’t have to have to put up with toxic workplaces or unreasonable expectations.
And above all, we learned the value of time – we can’t acquire more of it but we can use it more wisely to make our lives at home and at work more purposeful, fulfilling, healthy and balanced.
And in the process we have become less tolerant of things that seem to waste our valuable time – an unnecessary and crowded commute, expensive or limited food offerings, rushing to the gym in peak hour, waiting in a queue, overbooked and underused meeting rooms, hunting for a place to have a phone call, packing and unpacking our things, or being distracted by a nearby conversation.
What didn’t we learn or have forgotten?
As employees there seems to be a growing tension between responsibility and entitlement at work, a lack of understanding that work is a social contract that requires both parties to make specific commitments in return for specific (mostly financial) benefits (of course above and beyond these commitments are minimum ‘human rights’ for example around health and safety, dignity and discrimination).
The ‘Great Resignation’ (or ‘Reflection’) may partly reflect this tension, as we seek relief from the burden of having taken full responsibility for our health and wellbeing as well as our productivity, during lockdowns.
Perhaps this is simply a matter of the pendulum swinging the other way after decades of employers mostly calling the shots, particularly with the casualisation and globalisation of labour markets.
However the risk is we may fail to understand that the challenge of evolving and adapting to a new way of working is as much our responsibility as our employers. We may have missed the opportunity to leverage ‘hybrid’ work as a catalyst for real change.
The current tide of increasing employee expectations is contributing to the challenges leaders and managers face in navigating better ways of working that benefit everyone.
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do.”
Steve Jobs
But employers have also forgotten some of the learnings from lockdown; that most people will live up to your expectations if you trust them and provide support and guidance (or down to your expectations if you don’t), that trying and sometimes failing is a necessary part of learning, that employees often have a better idea than leaders of what works, and that people are human beings not human resources.
Managers have forgotten that people were sometimes a lot less productive in the office than you assumed, and often a lot more productive at home than you expected.
Have we already have forgotten that the future will not be the same as the present? Have we missed the opportunity of hybrid to ready ourselves for the future of work?
Why haven’t more organisations used this experience to redesign work?
How many companies do you know conducted a “stop start continue” with their people on ways of working after the lockdowns ended? Sought insights and information that could help inform what the next steps and priorities should be in recalibrating how, when, and where work could be done?
Instead leaders and managers are focused on where people work and how many days they come into the office and who decides this, on providing employee experience apps or yoga classes, on upgrading digital communication and sharing tools, on harvesting cost savings from real estate portfolio reductions.
These are not inappropriate initiatives under the circumstances but they are less effective than they could be because assumptions and policies reinforcing twentieth century ways of working lurk in the room like a huge elephant.
Let’s talk about the elephant then.
“How can we expect to convince the best people to come work with us, if we reject anyone who needs the smallest bit of flexibility? How can we expect them to do their best work, but don’t trust them to know how to do so?”
AppleTogether.org
This global groupthink helps leaders regain the illusion that they have ‘a plan’ for success.
Regain the illusion of control over work.
Work can be different, better. Workstyles must evolve.
“We see organisations addressing hybrid like it’s a problem and trying to solution for it. People have been working informally in a hybrid way for decades.”
Workplace Revolution Client during a Peer to Peer Roundtable
Industry 4.0 and an uncertain and complex environment demand adaptability, an open mindset and an unrelenting focus on converting knowledge into value.
‘Hybrid’ work has given us the ability to adapt and the awareness to recognise that change can be good. Have we squandered this opportunity?
The physical, digital and cultural workplaces are blended more than ever into a singular experience of work. The lower- or slower-than-expected return to office rates for most organisations should be evidence enough that ‘where’ is less important to employees now than ‘why, how and when’.
‘Hybrid’ at its best is not a solution, it’s a shared understanding within an organisation or team about how to work well together – and all the little decisions every day that are part of that – to create value from knowledge. It’s being able (and allowed) to connect when and how it makes sense, with people who have relevant input, no matter where they are based.
It’s that simple.
And also that complicated if you try and control it from the top down.
What more leaders should be doing
The covid pandemic delivered a massive shock to the system and showed us that what many thought was impossible was possible, and it’s obvious that the companies who thrived were generally already well advanced in developing their ‘future of work’ capability.
So it’s hard to understand why so many leaders avoid acknowledging the hypocrisy between the future of work mindset, skills and behaviours they want employees to bring to their role, while effectively asking them to leave this at the door and conform to outdated assumptions about what productive work looks like from the top.
What you can count on to deliver long term success are knowledge-generating capabilities like critical and lateral thinking, problem solving, decision-making, coaching, curiosity, collaborating across time and space, and a culture built on trust that rewards responsibility and initiative.
However the ‘Future of work’ is a journey not a current state for most organisations; these capabilities and mindsets take years to develop, so a fully flexible ‘free for all’ approach to workstyles is likely to fail as fast as a mandated ‘TWT’ policy.
Instead of just assuming that what works is what everyone else is doing, take a look not just at where work is done, but when and how in your organisation. Re-evaluate what good performance looks like, what capabilities and behaviours actually deliver long term value to your organisation.
Ask people what environmental conditions and experiences encourage those capabilities and behaviours, and what inhibit them? Tools are available to help diagnose workstyles and identify gaps and potential interventions to optimise ways of working.
We’ve been given an opportunity to try things differently, to experience new things, learn new skills and build confidence in our ability to respond to significant change and uncertainty. It hasn’t been at all easy and many people and organisations have barely survived, but we have all learned something valuable.
We’ve been reminded that we can’t predict the future and we can’t remain in the past, but we can make the most of the present and not let opportunity pass us by.
We’ve learned time is too valuable to waste by ignoring the workstyle elephant in the room.
So, it’s time to invest in what you can count on – future of work capabilities and ways of working – rather than focusing just on what you can count – e.g. fewer offices, fewer people, more apps, more social spaces.
It’s time to invest in people before places, to redesign work before you redesign how different spaces and locations can best support that work.
