Hybrid working

It’s about varying where you work and was, of course, prompted by the success of enforced home working for millions of us during pandemic lockdowns.

A key difference between pre-Covid flexibility and hybrid working today is in its wholesale nature. Organisations are integrating and normalising hybrid working across most, if not their entire, office-based workforce. By comparison, pre-Covid flex was usually granted on an individual case-by-case basis.

This shift from the individual to organisational has the potential to get us thinking about flexibility more widely.  And it could remove some of the negative impacts of flex  for those who need to work flexibly.

Office based teams and their managers became used to working from home during the pandemic.  Lockdown was a great equaliser.  Working via Teams was the common experience.  Collective solutions to communication and collaboration were explored.

Hybrid working is more complicated.  It is likely that some people will be at home, and some on the premises, at different points in the week.  There are many questions about communication, collaboration, team cohesion and company culture.

These  are all solve-able with thought and consideration.  Everyone on site on the same days each week is one approach, that appears to maximise the benefits.

Many organisations have been working on a hybrid model for years, but calling it flexible or agile or intelligent working – so I see the current demand for hybrid as an opportunity to give flexible working a bit of a rocket boost.

Flexible working is not a magic wand.  The magic elements of flexible working are choice, and control.  That’s what deliver the engagement and performance wins for the employer.  Flex is simply evidence that choice and control are likely to be present.

Hybrid working offers the appearance of flex, because there will be choice around where some people in an organisation can work.

But without being open to people having choice around when they work, and how long they work, this partial flex will be available only to some of the workforce, and may only partially meet the needs even of those who can access it.

Hybrid working brings challenges around visibility and opportunity for promotion.  When out of sight becomes out of mind, it is often flexibly working women who miss out.  Manager training around work allocation and tracking performance outcomes is going to be important.

Some roles will be suitable for hybrid, while many others will require full time presence on site.  So questions may arise around fairness across teams and between employees.  Clarity about what kinds of flex are appropriate for what roles will help, as will keeping minds open to other forms of flex.

An unexpected challenge arises from employee “me-ism” – a belief that flexibility and working from home is the right of the individual.  Outputs can generally be defined and measured.  What is harder to understand and embrace is the individual’s importance to the collective – to company culture and to collaboration.

The benefits from normalising where people work may include:

• • Managers who are less likely to assume that remote working equals lack of commitment, establishing a virtuous cycle of assumptions and expectations around flexibility.
  • More opportunities for men to be active in family life, enabling greater gender equality at home – and thus at work

And if hybrid becomes a norm, there’s a bigger win on offer, if  organisations and managers open up to other forms of flexibility.

Questions can then be asked about flexing time – when work starts and finishes, when it is carried out.

And we can really start looking at how long and considering meaningful part-time roles and jobsharing.