hybrid-work

Hybrid work is here. Is your organisation ready?


At Formation, we believe that hybrid work is the future. Moving forward, every organisation will need a new operating model for hybrid work—one that doesn’t rely on old norms, like the 8-hour, 9-to-5 workday. Employee expectations have changed for good, with more than 80 per cent of managers saying they expect more flexible work from home policies post-pandemic, and more than 70 per cent of employees saying they plan to take advantage of them. To compete in this new world, leaders need to embrace extreme flexibility in when, where, and how people work.

Remote Work Evolves Into Hybrid Work And Productivity Rises

When the pandemic forced the UK and other countries around the world into ‘lockdown’, working from home went from a choice to a necessity. With forced working from home, it has become clear that this short-term response to an immediate need might be here to stay. As employers and employees get the first-hand experience of the benefits of home working at scale, this is fast becoming business-as-usual, and a return to work in the traditional sense seems unlikely for a lot of organisations.

 

The data now confirms it too: the work-from-anywhere/work-from-home model works and has passed its most crucial test ever, bringing organisations through the Covid crisis and now a key productivity strategy for the workplace of the 2020s. In a recent report out of Accenture, 83% of 9,326 workers surveyed say they prefer a hybrid model — in which they can work remotely at least 25% of the time.

 

The most forward-looking organisations have already put plans in place to systematise workplace transformation and measure success. A sustained adoption programme will be integral to effective home working enablement that, more than just helping businesses survive, helps them unlock the true ROI and productivity benefits that come with remote working.

 

Platforms are already trying to adjust to accommodate work-from-home culture. As we continue to learn and navigate a predominantly virtual landscape, innovators will be looking to improve efficiencies and experiences.

We will not go back to a world where employees are “allowed” to work from home, but rather, they are encouraged to be flexible.

The office is no longer the only place where work gets done; the pandemic proved that work can often happen from anywhere. Instead, in today’s world, the office is where people come together to collaborate, innovate, create, and build culture, with face-to-face interactions being a valuable part of the equation. This means that we won’t see companies abandoning office space. While there may be some cost savings from a real estate perspective by reimagining how we use our office space, a far more valuable opportunity is in maintaining a healthy and positive employee culture.

Office work is just remote work with a commute.

Organisations need to embrace a holistic change programme to improve their chances of engendering meaningful cultural change and sustaining these shifts in the long term.

 

COVID-19 has marked a turning point in the way organisations manage their workplaces, and for many, it requires a programme of reinvention around how and where their people work. Those that consider culture and adoption, as well as technology, stand to make the most of these opportunities and thrive in the years ahead.

Why culture and adaptation are important?

Because not everyone is happy with homeworking. To have a job without a workplace, you must build an office of the mind. Structure, routine, focus, socialisation, networking, stress relief—their creation is almost entirely up to you, alone in a spare bedroom or on your couch, where your laptop might vie for attention at any given moment with your pets or kids. If the coffeepot runs dry, there is no one to blame but yourself.

 

There are tons of studies on the positive benefits of working from home, but most of that research is interviews and surveys with people who have self-selected into remote work.

 

People who value day-to-day flexibility in their schedules are ideal work-from-home candidates; those who like strict boundaries between their professional and personal lives, not so much. But for young people, career positioning also matters—people who have already built strong social and professional networks may not suffer much from the lack of face-to-face contact at the office, but for those still trying to make such ties, remote work can be alienating.

 

The belief that young people who work remotely risk remaining unknown quantities. And unknown quantities don’t become beloved colleagues or get promoted is making people paranoid.

Remote working paranoia

“Part of paranoia is about self-presentational issues,” Mr Kramer said – a professor of organisational behaviour at Stanford Graduate School of Business, who has studied paranoia at work. And it’s not just in our heads that we are being judged for how we look, and how our homes look, on video chats.

 

There’s even a Twitter account called Room Rater that gives ratings to people’s video chat backgrounds, and at this writing, it has more than 399,000 followers. A typical tweet from the account is, “Good plant. Couch. There’s a pillow. Lovely morning light. Needs much else. Art. 6/10.” It’s not unreasonable to think our co-workers are engaging in some of the same kinds of judgment.

 

Employees are also asking themselves questions like: Is that Teams message unanswered because I’m getting fired, or because my boss is dealing with remote schooling her kid? Did that joke land flat on that video call because it was a bad joke, or am I falling out of favour?

Managerial Paranoia

The Invisible Team is making some managers think that their teams are not doing anything when they work from home and they are “losing control” over their teams.

 

Paranoid managers are suspicious, touchy, humourless, quick to take offence and slow to forgive, self-righteous, argumentative, often litigious. Paradoxically the same set of traits have Authoritarian managers, so we need to distinguish between two. One key difference is the consistent tendency to interpret the actions of other people as deliberately threatening or demeaning and continual mistrust. We need to understand that this type of corporate psychopath seldom exists in a “refined” state. This style of behaviours is typical for most toxic managers but most clearly evident in authoritarians and micromanagers. The paranoid person creates a reality from his fears because he feels the fears are present in the surrounding world.

 

All-in-all they are very dangerous, really toxic personalities and we need to exercise extreme care dealing with them and remote working doesn’t make it easy.

 

Contrary to managerial paranoia, people generally want to be good at their job. To do that, many need the support, collaboration, and friendship of colleagues, which is more difficult to foster online. Outside of immediate family, people’s co-workers become their most consistent opportunity for social interaction.

 

Everything considered workplaces are complex ecosystems, and decentralising them can obliterate the things that make them satisfying. So how to get it right?

 

In order to answer this question, we want to share our approach to empower employees for a flexible work world. It’s a three-part strategy: First, create a policy to empower people for extreme flexibility. Second, reimagine physical spaces. And third, invest in technologies that connect people anywhere and anytime.

 

Let’s take elucidate each step.

How to Create a policy to empower people for extreme flexibility

The choices you make today will impact your organisation for years to come. It’s a moment that requires a clear vision. You need a plan and policies that put you on the path to the extreme flexibility. These decisions will impact everything from how you shape culture to how you attract and retain talent to how you respond to changes in the environment to future innovation.

 

Many organisations have already stepped forward with strong stances on flexible work. Twitter declared its workers could work remotely “forever.” Dropbox announced it will essentially eliminate office space for focused work, transforming physical locations to cater to meetings and collaboration. Spotify hopes to lure talent with New York and San Francisco-level salaries for employees working remotely anywhere in the world. And at Microsoft, employees can now work from home up to 50 per cent of the time.

 

Empowering people for extreme flexibility begins with answering critical questions: Who will be able to work remotely? Who will need to come into the office, and for what amount of time? When people do focused work, where will they do it? What about collaborative work? And in a world where ongoing disruption is part of the new normal—with natural disasters, geopolitical events, and global health crises—you need to be prepared to respond to sudden changes. New, flexible policies take the answers to these questions and codify them, providing clarity and guidance to employees as they experiment.

 

At Formation, we have a dedicated service and team who can help you to deliver a future proof Modern workplace for your organisation. By adopting a digital way of working, you can unlock the full potential of your employees and inspire them to work together better than ever before. We’re a team that can help you build a modern workplace. Talk to our expert team and learn how you can best connect teams across a modern workplace.

How to reimagine your physical spaces?

Once you’ve determined your policies for extreme flexibility, use them to guide your approach to physical space. From here on out, we will no longer rely solely on physical spaces to collaborate, connect, and build social capital. Moving forward, office space needs to bridge the physical and digital worlds and meet the unique needs of every team—and specific roles.

 

With the advent of hybrid working, office design needs to be reconsidered. How spaces are used is changing drastically and far more consideration needs to be made on both the purpose and the design of office space. Formation Tech has been helping companies understand how technologies can positively impact the design of office buildings for a long time.

 

At Formation we’re surveying employees and looking at everything from social graphs to employee traffic patterns to understand how to equip teams with the spaces they need, knowing those needs will evolve over time. Sales teams who need to come to the office infrequently can use a hoteling model to book workstations for the day or hour, while engineering teams may need dedicated collaboration spaces and workstations. Because we know how we work will continue to evolve, we’re building flexibility into every space we design. Let us help you create an office that supports a modern workforce with our Workplace design services.

How to connect the physical to the digital?

Invest in technology that connects people—anywhere and anytime. Along with physical spaces, your plan for extreme flexibility should include technology that enables teamwork and creates a new digital employee experience that follows your employees no matter where they go.


Formation can help you get more done with the best modern workplace solutions. Are you looking to boost employee productivity and empower teams to perform better in their roles? Have you rolled out Microsoft Teams or Zoom and want to understand how to best utilise it? Formation Tech can help you do both. Improve your company’s performance and achieve more significant results when you partner with us. Of course, there are going to be challenges ahead but we are optimistic about creating a future that empowers people to connect from anywhere, at any time, and to be and bring their best each day.

 

Are You Ready To Start? – Contact us today.

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