Navigating hybrid in a post-pandemic world

The COVID-19 pandemic blurred the lines between work and home.

While burnout soared and work-life balance dipped as a result of working from home, many workers relished the flexibility of remote work, and are now not keen to give it up to return to the office five days a week.

Many, however, do not want to work remotely all of the time, and actually desire some element of in-person connection to their working lives.

Therefore, hybrid work, where employees split their week between the office and home, is becoming the most common future of work model for organizations. But of course, actually implementing a hybrid model is much easier said than done.

In a session on day one at UNLEASH World 2022, HR leaders from CERN, Ubisoft, Frost & Sullivan and Havas UK shared tips and tricks for how to navigate hybrid, but, importantly, without compromising on experience.

How to make hybrid work successful

The most important thing to note is that there is no silver bullet, and every organization needs to go on its own journey; this was emphasized by CERN’s head of HR James Purvis.

He noted that while organizations can be “inspired” by what others are doing, they mustn’t just copy directly.

In the spirit of inspiring and helping others, the speakers all noted that employee listening was essential when implementing a hybrid working model.

CERN’s Purvis stated: “Everything in HR is about taking decision with data”. So when figuring out their working model, the HR team asked the views of both employees and the leadership. It is crucial that employees’ perspectives were taken into account because “leadership is not synonymous with infallibility”.

Frost & Sullivan’s Sangeeta Lund, VP global talent acquisition and HR for Middle East and South Asia, agreed, and stated that employee feedback was used as the basis for their future of work model, known as Frost Flex. Havas UK’s group CPO Ewen MacPherson joked that it sounds like a cereal.

Importantly, Frost & Sullivan’s model is evolving based on continuous listening and feedback from leaders, managers and employees. The employer is still on the journey with its hybrid model, it is yet to reach its final destination.

MacPherson stated that workforces don’t like to be mandated to; instead, they want to be given the opportunity to share their own views.

Prioritizing collaboration and personalization

For CERN and its hybrid model, collaboration is key. Purvis noted that the organization is not offering full time remote work. This is because it has a lot of employees that cannot work from home, and they want to create a consistent experience or risk proximity bias.

Havas UK’s MacPherson agreed. He noted that Havas is a collaboration business, and while workers can ideate with virtually, “you just can’t beat being in a room” together.

The other element that MacPherson highlighted when talking about the future of work is that organizations must not have a one-size-fits all approach.

This was also noted by Lund from Frost & Sullivan; she stated that “each person in the organization has different needs”, and so while decisions on where and when they all work are guided by policies, the final decisions are made by managers at team level. CERN’s Purvis agreed, and noted that people have different needs at different stages of their lives.

So, companies need to make sure they have a menu of benefits – remote work may only be one element of that, but there is a lot more to employee value propositions than working.