In April 2022 we published a blog on the back of an article in Forbes which looked at hybrid working. As we continue to come out of the pandemic, we thought we’d revisit the subject, as it’s still something that HR professionals are coming to terms with and trying to get right.
This time we are going to take a closer look into:
- What hybrid working is
- How to successfully plan for it
- Future of work
What is hybrid working?
In early August 2022 CIPD published a guide on planning for hybrid working. In it they references the latest statistics from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The main summary parts from the research make for interesting reading:
- Of the 32.6 million people in employment, around 1.7 million people reported working mainly from home, with around 4 million working from home in the week prior to being interviewed for the survey.
- Around 8.7 million people said that they have worked from home which equates to less than 30% of the workforce
- Some industrial sectors (such as transportation, accommodation, food service, wholesale, retail, and repair) provide relatively few opportunities to work from home
- Other industrial sectors (such as information, communication, professional, scientific, technical, financial, insurance, and real estate) provide a lot more home working opportunities.
- Occupations requiring higher qualifications and experience are more likely to provide home working opportunities than elementary and manual occupations.
- Younger workers are the least likely to be working from home, whereas those who continue to work beyond state pension age, are increasingly likely to be working from home.
While some employees want to work from home all the time following the pandemic, most in the CIPD research would prefer a balance where they are in the office for some of the week and at home for the remainder.
This has led to the phrase “hybrid working”
Hybrid working
Many organisations are now trying to work out what hybrid working looks like for them in order to be able to meet employee expectations.
For some this will require a major culture shift, establishing new ways of working, and updating policies and practices. Even if people embraced working from home during the pandemic, this was only temporary and a permanent shift will make greater demands on people (in particular managers), and organisations themselves to find their new normal.
Employee expectations to be more flexible (of which hybrid working is a part), is actually not something that is new; for some time in the world of engagement we have seen a shift in several areas:
- My pay check – My purpose
- My satisfaction – My development
- My boss – My coach
- My annual review – My ongoing conversation
- My weaknesses – My strengths
- My job – My life
The whole ethos around employee experience is the flexibility to have autonomy, to understand the impact, to be able to develop and grow, and being able to choose when, where and how to work, is part of this shift.
Organisations who do not support flexible working in the future may risk an increase in employee turnover, a reduction in engagement and limit their ability to be able to attract talent. Research has shown that people will leave (or not join) an organisation unless there are greater flexible working opportunities.
Benefits of hybrid working
People have cited many benefits of working from home during the pandemic. These include:
- Better work life balance
- Increased productivity
- More time for family and friends
- Saved commuting time and cost of travel
- Increase in IT capability
- Higher levels of motivation
Other benefits can also include savings on office space, reduction in absence rates and higher levels of job satisfaction.
As this is still relatively new, the full benefits of hybrid working are yet to be realised but initial research done by the Harvard Business School, has found that hybrid working arrangements can offer “the best of both worlds” with a greater work life balance whilst being able to maintain that all important connection with colleagues, which will help sustain a great employee experience.
Planning for a hybrid future
Due to the varying nature of hybrid working there is never likely to be a single, universal approach. CIPD have set out some areas which should be considered as you experiment with your hybrid working approach:
- Agreeing an overall strategic position on hybrid (and broader flexible) working for the organisation and development of a policy and supporting guidance reflecting the strategy.
- Defining hybrid working with regard to specific, organisation context. This might include several different forms of hybrid working even within one organisation, depending on role requirements.
- Provision of training and ongoing development activity for people managers to support successful hybrid management and leadership.
- Development of communication and engagement activity to share plans, outcome, and feedback relating to hybrid working including how the success of new ways of working will be measured.
- Planning for and responding to organisational implications of hybrid working on matters such as technology, employee wellbeing, inclusion, and facilities.
- Supporting effective team building and cohesion in hybrid teams.
There are of course certain legal implications of hybrid working. Where employees make a formal request for hybrid working through a flexible working policy (which has either been amended to include hybrid working or a separate policy for hybrid working created) that is accepted – this amounts to change in terms and conditions of employment. You should ensure that everyone understands the implications involved.
The future of work
The key to making hybrid working a success is effective communication.
In a hybrid team communication needs to be intentional, as casual or ad-hoc conversations may be reduced. There needs to be effective communication of the responsibility of everyone in the team.
As HR professionals you can reduce socially disconnected neighbourhoods which is being called the neighbourhood effect. You can engage in bridging the gap across the organisation, not necessarily by knowing the most people or having the most connections, but by giving access to information. This can help teams get connected, which will aid idea generation and alignment to the organisations purpose, which are all key themes that form a great employee experience.
Consider building formal bridging mechanisms to ensure discovery and integration i.e.,
- Innovation teams can help ensure the flow of new ideas across functions
- Business development and programme manager teams can combine and align existing assets into reconfigured solutions to quickly solve customer issues
- Use leaders to navigate connection challenges and help them to realise their existing social equity by activating dormant connections.
In summary, whilst the future of hybrid working at the moment is still a little foggy, HR professions should take the opportunity to get curious and be disruptive to try something new and push the boundaries to see what the art of the possible is for the organisation, in order to maintain that competitive advantage to create a culture that people want to join and remain part of.
If you would like to talk to us more about hybrid working and the impact it can have on employee experience and engagement, we would love to hear from you
