How things have changed. Emergence of the Omicron variant slowed progress toward new work models. “The Great Resignation” also materialized, with workforce implications that are every bit as profound. The researcher who coined that phrase predicts the trend will continue but eventually slow in 2022, flexible work will become the norm, and companies will embrace remote work to fill roles.
5 Principles of Hybrid Work
Parity and digital thinking
Diversity, equity and inclusion continue to climb the corporate agenda. The frequency with which CEOs talk about these topics on S&P 500 earnings calls has increased 658% since 2018. Hybrid work has profound implications for parity in the workplace. It is not just about delivering a consistent experience to remote and in-office employees — although that is critically important. The combination of hybrid work and a volatile talent market multiplies the considerations. For example, should you adjust compensation for employees who have moved to locations with a lower cost of living? How can you create parity when new hires command higher pay than existing employees (research shows companies are paying a 20% premium now)? How do people who prefer to work from home — which tend to be underrepresented groups such as women and people of color — receive equitable mentoring or opportunities to work on high-value assignments? These are just a few examples of the decisions that will arise. They hit at the very core of inclusive culture and require deliberate strategy and thinking.
Manager empowerment
Managers are in a tough spot. From a personal perspective, they are dealing with the same complex set of issues and pandemic fatigue as everyone else. But they are at the front line of ensuring employees feel included and treated equitably — at a time when the talent retention imperative could not be greater. Manager effectiveness was already a weakness for many organizations prior to the pandemic, but it is now a critical one.
For starters, managers must be able to translate company hybrid policies to their teams. Then, they have to learn how to engage people who have relocated (or who are newly hired) across geographies and time zones. For many, it is a big shift to manage people they don’t see. Managers need to become good at setting clear goals that their teams understand and then giving people the autonomy and flexibility to do their work — as long as they are progressing toward the established goal. Listening, asking the right questions and empathizing move to the top of the set of skills required, but these aren’t things people can just learn and apply by taking a course. They require time, practice and willingness. In short, companies are going to elevate their approaches to learning to get through this transition — and truly empower and encourage learning and reskilling for both managers their teams. The added benefit is that people place high value on the ability to develop, and a well-conceived program could, in fact, help with retention issues.
Human-centric design and the emerging metaverse
This principle is largely about the technology that enables effective hybrid work — but not completely, because technology effectiveness is ultimately about the people that use it.
Organizations threw everything they had at remote-working technology in the early phases of the pandemic. Now, they are fine-tuning the technology landscape as the hybrid future becomes clearer and finding ways to get more from the technologies already in place, for example, “nudge” features in collaboration technology that prompt behaviors that create value. According to Forrester, we will see a “surge of spending” on “employee-centric initiatives and technologies” during 2022 — driven in large part by retention concerns. Companies will allocate 20% of HR budgets to employee experience initiatives, and that 65% will have a formal employee experience initiative in place, up from 48%.
When pursuing change of this magnitude, human-centric design is critical, ensuring that you are looking at solutions not just through a productivity lens, but also from the perspectives of retention, inclusion, flexibility and other needs. For example, it is still an art to be cognizant and inclusive of the person who is attending the meeting by phone and is not visible in the meeting room or on screen. That is a hard skill to acquire and illustrative of the need to design with both technology and behavior in mind.
Workflow, automation, performance measurement
A high-performing hybrid workplace won’t happen through tweaking current processes. Instead, companies need to completely rethink and redesign processes and workflow. For example, how could you use automation to handle certain tasks so that teams can focus on their time on making the most of personal interactions. Leaders of one of the retail banks in Future of Work Consortium analyzed and reimagined workflow by asking three critical questions: Are any team tasks redundant? Can any tasks be automated or reassigned to people outside of the team? Can we reimagine a new purpose for our place of work? This degree of process change can have significant implications for organization design, training and skill development and career development. Here again it is helpful to have a multidisciplinary team focused on this area.
And on the topic of performance, organizations and managers will also need to rethink the way they measure people’s performance and productivity. That was easy (or easier) when everyone was in the same space. When you don’t see people working, measuring performance can be much more challenging. Metrics will need to shift from activity-based measures to outcome-based measures.
Culture and well-being
In Microsoft’s global study of workers one year into the pandemic, 54% of people said they felt overworked and 39% reported feeling exhausted. The emergence of Omicron after rays of hope in 2021 has been particularly deflating for many people. Poll after poll reveals the magnitude of pandemic fatigue. Without proper attention, this can have a detrimental impact on productivity and, in the midst of the Great Resignation, retention. Organizations need to prioritize employee well-being — including helping employees find ways to recharge and maintain intentional connections.
Similarly, companies need to be keenly attuned to culture and proactive in preserving it. Much has been written about hybrid work and the impact on culture, but the current environment elevates the importance of this — and also the challenges. Showing that you understand what employees consider to be important in a company culture is key. For example, the pandemic has prompted employees to reconsider their sense of purpose and that they want to have more impact on society, political and environmental issues — and that they expect to connect with their employer at this level. A 2020 Gartner report found that engagement can drop by one-third when employees are disappointed with their employer’s stance on issues. The report’s authors propose that a “chief purpose officer” may be the next major C-Suite role.
Building the inclusive hybrid workplace
Data are useful to understand the working-model preferences of an organization’s different demographic groups. We also know that the way managers and teams behave day-to-day is the most powerful determinant of the individual employee experience. Regardless of working model, inclusive organizational cultures that foster trust and a sense of support increase retention, collaboration, and job satisfaction
Improving diversity and representation in a sustainable way is difficult without inclusion—embracing, supporting, and enabling employees to make meaningful contributions. Without an inclusive environment, even an organization with a diverse employee population will probably struggle to improve its long-term performance. The widespread adoption of hybrid work has complicated the struggle to build and maintain such cultures.
Without an inclusive environment, even an organization with a diverse employee population will probably struggle to improve its long-term performance.To test the workplace models that employees desire, our research asked them which scientifically validated inclusion practices they want their organizations to work hardest to improve as part of a hybrid work model. Remarkably, a clear consensus emerged across all demographic groups around three areas:
- work–life support: demonstrating appreciation for employees’ nonwork demands, responsibilities, and interests
- team building: working to foster trust, collaboration, and healthy conflict among team members
- mutual respect: showing genuine concern for the well-being of all employees, and a commitment by employees to treat one another fairly and respectfully
These practices underpin fundamental employee preferences that we have seen time and again in studying workplace inclusion: agency, autonomy, empowerment, and support for employees to do their best work. It’s important to note that the way different groups and individuals experience these practices can vary widely, complicating implementation. For example, work–life support could mean parental leave for some employees struggling with caregiving chores, and for others it could mean more flexible hours to pursue personal passions. Nonetheless, during the pandemic, survey respondents working in hybrid models saw improvements in these areas, and we believe leaders should consider them the backbone of any inclusive hybrid work model, backed by better communication and role modeling
Work–life support
The pandemic has prompted employees to broadly reassess their work–life trade-offs. This reassessment has fueled resignations and a search for organizational cultures that emphasize well-being and more purposeful work. Nearly 60 percent of our survey respondents working in hybrid models ranked work–life support in the top inclusion practices they want their organizations to improve—the highest percentage across the 17 inclusion practices we measured. In other words, employees are clamoring for greater acknowledgment and support for their myriad demands, responsibilities, and interests outside work.
At an organization-wide level, nearly half of the respondents recommended prioritizing policies that support flexibility—including extended parental leave, sick leave, flexible hours, and work-from-home policies. Some respondents highlighted the value of paid time off for newly recognized celebrations, such as Juneteenth, or unexpected occurrences, like COVID-19 sick days.
Team building
Our survey respondents placed team building behind work–life support as a priority inclusion practice in the hybrid workplace. As much as employees value its flexibility and benefits, it can also promote isolation, especially when team cohesion is lacking. Some research suggests that remote work can also lead to more static and siloed collaboration. In light of such effects, half of our survey respondents not surprisingly assigned great importance to intentionally building stronger teams.
Effective team builders foster trust, collaboration, and healthy conflict. Respondents recommended three ways to help achieve these goals: encouraging employees to know one another and how they get work done, creating buddy systems, and coaching employees through effective conflict management. To build psychological safety and deep connections in teams, leaders must embed team-building activities and norms in the organization’s ways of working.
Mutual respect
In hybrid work, in-person interactions are fewer and communication outside real time is more common. As a result, it can be harder to feel connected to colleagues and easier for miscommunication to occur. Our survey respondents may have had such experiences in mind when they pegged mutual respect as one of the three priority inclusion practices. We define mutual respect as demonstrating genuine concern for the well-being of all employees and a commitment to treat one another fairly and respectfully. Coaching such behavior can be difficult at times, but our respondents had suggestions for how to encourage it.
First, create norms that encourage employees to view one another as human beings, not merely coworkers. Inquire about each employee’s preferences and boundaries for working styles and communication. For hybrid work, this is likely to include some experimentation with mixing different types of meetings, when (and when not) to bring employees together on-site, and resetting team norms about when to check in.
Second, foster a culture that encourages employees to learn with and from one another. Reframe mistakes as opportunities to identify what can be improved. Such efforts might include training employees on how to adopt a “growth mindset” that encourages teamwide development. Managers should also encourage two-way feedback to let employees voice what is going well and what could use improvement. Whatever the form of feedback, everyone should feel comfortable sharing both positive and negative observations.
Finally, respondents noted, celebrate and amplify employee contributions and create an environment that regularly recognizes such moments. Seek out achievements (such as well-organized events or team members who coached peers) that many traditional reward and recognition systems take for granted. One medical-services company started a “shout-outs” channel on its internal messaging app to let employees recall times when colleagues excelled or made exceptional contributions as teammates. It then periodically highlighted these moments again during all-group meetings.
Final Words
Empowered employees who have tasted the benefits of hybrid work seem determined to retain them. Employers now face a risk/reward moment to reimagine a more flexible, inclusive hybrid work model that dovetails with an organization’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. This will not be easy work. But for leaders who show the sensitivity, creativity, and humility needed to shape a new hybrid work model, there could be dramatic gains in performance, organizational cohesion, and improved employee wellness, engagement, and retention.
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