Companies are grappling with what the future of work looks like.
Is it remote? Is it in the office? Is it somewhere in-between?
Here's how to figure out what's best for your organization.
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After the COVID-19 years proved many people could do their work remotely and do it well, most people want to continue to have the option – with one crucial exception: the boss.
As the pandemic has receded in the past year or two, a number of high-profile CEOs and other C-Suite leaders have tried to force employees back to the office – anxious that too much distance will cost their company its drive, creative edge and culture.
Others, seeing that working remotely is too popular to drop, have offered a compromise solution, such as asking everyone to come to the office on specific days each week.
Who’s right? On balance, recent research suggests that senior leadership is better off letting employees choose their own adventure.
In our recent study – Thriving in the Emerging Hybrid Workplace – we found that although as many as 55% of workers say where they work doesn’t affect their productivity or level of company engagement, a significant percentage say they perform less well if they must go to the office.
For these employees, lack of control over the physical location of their work reduces their productivity and level of engagement, and increases the chance that they will look around for another job.
This has created a dilemma for HR teams who may be getting competing pressure from two directions: upstairs some executives have fixated on bringing back the old-style office work routine, and the people who used to be downstairs are making it increasingly clear that they do not want to go back to a five-day-a-week commute.
The empty parking lot
If you’re a HR leader caught in the middle, how should you respond if the C-Suite is anxious to see the parking lot filled again?
First, you might note that the traditional working life is now ancient history: 85% of all workers whose jobs can be done virtually are currently either working from home full time (42%) or have a hybrid work arrangement (43%), which takes them to the office 20%-80% of the time.
Functional staff in corporate finance, procurement and other business services are even more likely to work from home, with survey respondents saying they now spend 75% of their time working remotely.
You might also point out that the days when ‘everybody’ came into the office were long gone, even before the pandemic hit.
In the years leading up to COVID-19, most major companies already had multiple locations and were exceedingly multinational.
Particularly for a business services function – such as finance, HR, procurement or global business services – many of your co-workers were likely already not working in the same location, country or even for the same company. For a variety of economic and logistical reasons, many of these teams have been distributed, and many have worked virtually for a long time now.
Next, acknowledge that your CEO has a point when it comes to collaboration – but only for a minority. Between 25% and 42% of respondents told us that the shift from remote to hybrid has increased or greatly increased their ability to collaborate.
The majority of employees, however, said more in-person time did not affect their ability to collaborate or feel connected.
This lack of a connection between time at the office and successful collaboration seems particularly true for high-performing companies. These market leaders have found that giving employees control over where and how they work seems to encourage more collaboration, greater engagement, and stronger interpersonal connections.
Simply bringing people together by itself doesn’t necessarily move the needle much. If the office is loud and lacks well-designed facilities, for example, collaborating may be even more difficult than it might have been online.
Our study found that while there is a strong perception among some corporate leaders that virtual connections are inferior to in-person contacts, both kinds can be equally effective.
Such meetings do not need to be built in-person first: our research suggests that only two of the ten most popular methods for building interpersonal connections – team social events and team building – are significantly better in person.
In any case, a back-to-the-office policy would be exceedingly difficult to put into practice at this point. Most people who are working remotely now don’t want to go back to the office full time, period. For many of these people, forcing them back could weaken the connection they feel for the organization rather than enhance it.
Our research shows that people who have been required to spend more time in the office over the past year are more likely to say they are less productive, less engaged and more likely to leave.
Whether work is done in the office or at home, the question to ask is whether your team has the tools they need to get the job done.
Video meeting applications, instant messaging and document sharing systems may be ubiquitous today, but other useful technology to facilitate collaboration is not.
Many advanced digital tools, such as virtual white boards and knowledge management platforms, have demonstrated they can be effective in encouraging deeper collaboration, but are not yet widely used.
Business leaders will need to change as well. To lead in the new working world, managers will need to practice open communication and active listening; implement policies and support practices and tools to enable a diversity of work styles; equip managers and employees to continuously evolve work design and practices.
They also need schedule unstructured/informal meeting opportunities; be purposeful about using in-person time for creative work, relationship-building and silo-breaking activities; monitor and enhance employee performance drivers such as wellness and engagement; and measure employees on results and outcomes, not face time or hours worked.
Most of all, HR needs to help your C-Suite understand that their employees want to know they are trusted, and that the company is behind them, giving them the support they need to succeed.
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