The Hybrid Way Of Working Is The Future Part 1

One of the major areas the global pandemic has created positive or negative change, depending on how you look at things, is the explosion of Hybrid working. If it’s not a term you are familiar with, that will definitely change as organisations globally try to decide the best way forward for their workers.

They battle with questions such as:

• Where do our employees work best?
• How flexible is flexible?
• How do we lead a hybrid team?
• Do I still need an office building and what about my lease?
• How do I incentivize my employees who are no longer in the office?
• How will you keep employees motivated, connected, and engaged?
• How do we deal with burnout and mental health?

What is hybrid work?

Hybrid working is a mixture of remote and office-based working, where employees have the choice to work several days from home and some days from an office building or shared workspaces. It is a move from the “bums on seats” way of working that has dominated workplaces during the Industrial Revolution and it’s this unfamiliarity and shift to something new, which is not straightforward nor easy to implement, that is creating confusion for organisations as they battle with the best way to respond.

Demand for Flexible Working Pre-Pandemic

Before the pandemic, employees have asked their organisations for flexible working but they were met with silence. Despite evidence that showed the benefits of flexible working, including better mental health, better productivity and an economic boost, such as an estimated $4.5 TRILLION that the US could see annually through flexible working, organisations were very slow to implement policies and practices.

In 2019 research by Capability Jane showed that despite Millennials identifying (flexible working as a top priority when job hunting, only 9.8% of UK jobs advertised offered flexibility. This was not just limited to millennials but it affected all generations.

Research conducted by IWG which canvassed the opinions of more than 15,000 business people across 80 nations showed:

With all the research and evidence around improved productivity, increased innovation and collaboration, access to a wider pool of talent, positive impact for the planet and better flexibility for individuals why have organisations struggled to implement flexible working pre pandemic?

FEAR (Lack of Trust)

Based on conversations I have had with leaders over the years (pre and post-pandemic) fear has been the biggest reasons managers have not adapted or embraced remote working. A lot of managers struggled with the concept of changing their management styles to manage people they could not see, they were accustomed to seeing their people and therefore they could keep an eye on them i.e. micromanage.

Micromanagement is harder to do when you can not see the person and research has shown this trait even during the pandemic is still prevalent. People tracking software companies Hubstaff and Sneek have reported a five-fold increase in their number of users during the lockdown.

“A common fear among employers is that without physical oversight employees will shirk and productivity will fall” — Professor Alan Felstead Cardiff University — Homeworking in the UK: before and during the 2020 lockdown

For micromanagers, visibility meant productivity even though that logic is flawed. If you take into account the amount of ‘water cooler conversations as well as distractions that happen during a typical 9–5 how much time do you actually spend working?

There was also another kind of fear which was around a shift in power dynamics. Giving employees more flexibility and more control meant many managers lost some of the authoritarian power they had wielded over their people. Without that power, how could they control their employees? Flexible working meant exposing the lack of leadership capabilities around power and control mechanisms and a lot of managers understandably did not want to have to deal with having to face their flaws.

There were plenty of other reasons that could be highlighted apart from lack of trust such as the implementation of hardware and software, selection of employees, collaboration, teamwork and distractions at home but ultimately managers were afraid of change and did not want to step outside of their comfort zone to deal with that fear until the pandemic came along. The pandemic removed the choice from employers and launched the world into an experiment of remote working first and now as the coronavirus pandemic recedes questions are being asked?

Now all those fears or excuses that managers used to hide behind have been proven false and we have seen an increase in productivity as well as collaboration and innovation with people from across the globe working together seamlessly embracing technology.

Where does the world of work go from here?

The answer to that question and more much will be explored in Part 2

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