I had an interesting conversation with a client earlier this week. They’re totally on board with the view of the Centre for Cities think tank that the 5 day office week could become the norm again within 2 years.
My client is absolutely desperate to have their staff back in the office. Throughout the pandemic, they’ve continued to operate their office based business with staff working from home. But they’re convinced that productivity decreased, mistakes slipped in and with a predominantly paper based system, cannot see how remote working could possibly continue post-lockdown. Having invested significantly in ensuring a COVID-secure workplace, they’re simply waiting for the end of all social distancing restrictions, to issue the order ‘back to the office’!
Speaking to the staff – most of them are unaware that remote working is such an issue for my client. They cite the ability to be able to manage caring responsibilities (for both older as well as younger generations); and the flexibility to manage that as key drivers for wanting to continue to work from home. Other staff are keen to return, missing the camaraderie of working with others as being a central part of their working life.
With such differing views – the answer lay in ‘hybrid working’. This is a flexible working model combining working from home with an office presence .. with the ability to have lots of variations. These include:
- The ‘remote first’ or ‘at will’ model: the emphasis is on working from home but employees come in when they choose. Benefits include the opportunity to collaborate whilst keeping office costs down; and of course allows employees control over their flexibility.
- The ‘office occasional’ model: splitting the week between days working remotely and days working in the office. It still gives employees a high degree of freedom but also gives the employer some certainty as to when staff will attend (for example a set shift or roster of attendance)
- The ‘office first’ model – most staff are required to work from the office but a small number of staff can work remotely (on a regular or ‘as required’ basis). The benefit here is that staff can request to work from home on an occasional basis.. but of course it doesn’t offer the same flexibility as the other types of hybrid working
If your business is contemplating ‘hybrid working’ then what should you consider?
- Have a policy in place (you knew I was going to say that, I am HR after all!). Start with your existing flexible working policy; how can staff request it; how will you manage non performance and so on.
- What is the impact on their existing contracts? If you move to a regular working from home model; then this should be reflected in the ‘written statement of terms and conditions’.
- How are you going to develop staff working remotely? This may be something you have already set up; but now you’re going to have to consider how you can manage their ongoing training and development; performance management; health and wellbeing etc.
- Equipment, Equipment, Equipment.. because a hybrid model means more than one location you have to consider how staff can work remotely and in the office.. hot desks and when people can book them can be the biggest cause of tension in a hybrid model workplace! And of course, with different locations comes the risk of a data breach so data security becomes all the more important.
Finally – all with all change – communication is key.
My client was not expecting any push back from staff about returning to the workplace.. but had never communicated their reopening plans to the staff or outlined what changes had been made and why. Once we (virtually) got everyone round the table and the staff had the opportunity to make suggestions and discuss their concerns, we settled on an ‘office occasional’ model with some staff in all the time; and some staff attending on a roster basis.
We’re trialling this for 6 months.. let’s see how this impacts on employee engagement/employee turnover!
Níamh Kelly – Director – The HR Dept Wrexham & Chester and The HR Dept Shropshire
