The days of mass commuting may be in the past, but there will still be a place for in-person ... [+]
True, business leaders are understandably concerned about the threat of recession as central banks seek to dampen rampant inflation. Many also continue to be plagued by supply-chain issues. But there is no doubting that the topic on every executive’s mind is staffing.
On the one hand — particularly in the U.K., where the departure from the European Union has exacerbated skills shortages — it is a relatively straightforward issue of not having enough people. But the situation is complicated by the reluctance of many workers, especially (but not exclusively) those doing office work, to return to the way they operated prior to the pandemic. Quite simply, they have had a glimpse of how work could be without lengthy and costly commutes and they like what they see. According to a survey carried out this spring by management consultancy McKinsey & Company and market research company Ipsos, 58% of workers in the U.S. are able to work from home at least once a week.
This indicates that employers — having seen their businesses survive and in many cases thrive through the various lockdowns — have accepted that there has been a fundamental change in the workplace. The tricky thing for human resources teams and other executives is that this is not the end of the matter. Even for those organizations that have opted for a “hybrid” approach mixing remote working with time in the office, there are various permutations and issues about how to implement such policies.
“Shifting to a hybrid work environment will take a lot of time to master. Constant change will continue to occur for a very long time, and this needs to be accepted and embraced by all employees. Working will never look the exact same as it did pre-pandemic, but that is ok. Companies will continue to find new and innovative ways to embrace collaboration with employees all over the world,” according to a report just published by Group 360, a Chicago-based firm advising on career transition.
Raheela Anwar, president and chief executive of the firm, said in a recent interview that 90% of her clients were grappling with various aspects of the return to the office. A particular issue she identified was that there were a lot of people who had been hired during the pandemic and might never have been in their new offices. Once they do visit they might find that they are not a good fit or may need help in integrating with the rest of the team.
Another aspect — and one that made her report timely — was that many workers were seeing the summer as a challenge because of the need to be around for school-aged children. Through working from home during the pandemic, parents were able to take on more caring responsibilities and in many cases reported an improvement in the quality of their lives. Indeed, there is evidence that many workers are prepared to accept lower wage increases in return for greater flexibility around working times. Some economists have seized on this as a way in which businesses might be able to cool inflationary pressures while still remaining productive. Galactic Fed, a digital marketing agency, is fully remote and is expanding rapidly. It offers employees a “your office, your rules” policy under which, as the company website says, they “can work from anywhere in the world — whether that’s at home with your kids on your lap, by the beach in Mexico or down in your mom’s basement.”
Even if they do not go this far, companies and their human resources teams still face serious challenges in ensuring that workers continue to develop and enjoy opportunities to progress in a workplace that is necessarily more complex than it used to be. Clearly, there needs to be an emphasis on ensuring that work processes and performance management policies reflect the new ways of working, but executives also need to ensure that they are avoiding “proximity bias” or appearing to favour those who are most frequently in the office.
But the view that this is not something that can be dictated by corporate policy or mandate from the top is reinforced by Laurie Fry, chief talent officer at Epsilon, an international marketing company that is part of Publicis Groupe. “I don't know that any company has figured out that perfect model,” she says, stressing that Epsilon is instead encouraging managers at the local level to work out what is best for their teams. She acknowledges, however, that this is hard for people who have also had to bear increasing amounts of responsibility as companies have experimented with different ways of working in response to restrictions caused by the pandemic. “HR definitely needs to be there providing support and infrastructure and programs. So they're not flailing or making it up all on their own,” she says.
Fry, who herself is based in Texas, stresses that Epsilon is a global company that runs on a matrix system so that it is not unusual for members of teams not to sit together. And she thinks that that has helped with the transition to new ways of working. But she also accepts that — while the company is keen for people to come together for certain tasks, such as collaboration and planning — it is not reasonable to expect daily attendance. “What we heard loud and clear from employees was you can't replace my sitting at home, being highly productive with flexibility and just make me come into the office and do the same thing,” she says. Instead, the company has a mantra of coming into the office “on purpose with purpose.” Fry explains that this means that employees should not “come in just to come in. It's not about face time anymore.”
At the same time, though, the company is eager that employees still feel connected. As a result, it goes out of its way to make company meetings more engaging by bringing in different speakers rather than just the usual executives and goes to the trouble of personalising gifts for employees on the grounds that it aligns with its aim of really understanding customers. So new hires are asked for their favorite candy bars, movies and the rest. “And then you can't underestimate swag,” she adds, explaining that people so love having a company hat, mug or backpack that the company sent them to employees’ homes in an effort to create a further link with their team mates.
In the end, though, many businesses are realising that by being flexible they might be getting the best out of their employees. Fry explains: “I would say one of the biggest myths the pandemic has dispelled is that if you're working from home, you're goofing off. You know, you're at the golf course instead of on a call. And I think that was just a bias people worried about, and we don't have that now.”
